Farewell from Hamilton, Victoria

The days are winding down and before too long I will be on the good ol' 747 back to Alberta, a grueling 16 hr. plane ride that I am not looking forward too. It continues to amaze me that the time went as quick as it did. I have had a marvelous time and to all my Aussie bloggers Thank You for your warm hospitality making for an absolutely incredible 6 months in Victoria.

I have covered pretty well every corner of the state mostly during my work as a state wide DPI employee, but I have certainly also had a chance to be a tourist and the whole package sits in my computer's Australia folder to the tune of 8 giga bytes!

After my last blog I had a chance to head up into the Broken Hill part of New South Wales so I could burn up my last holidays. This was a surprisingly completely different "outback experience" than to the trip to Central Australia earlier in November. It also gave me a chance to see the vast cropping district of north western Victoria and into the south western New South Wales. Welcome rains have fallen over the last month or so and the seeding conditions are some of the best in recent history. With annual crops faring better than perennial pastures and the lighter soils actually doing better than the heavier ones the "croppers" were very busy seeding into the red sandy soils with the range of smaller units to the direct seeding airseeders with GPS guidance systems. We are approaching winter but as I mentioned in an earlier blog, all the crops are seeded now and will germinate very well. They will be well established when spring rolls around and reach maturity before the heat sets in, usually ready for harvest around Christmas time.

One of the highlights of the trip to Broken Hill besides the "off road" experience of the remote area around Mongo National Park, Menindee Lakes, Pooncarie, the Darling River and Murrumbidgee River was a camping stay at the Bindara on the Darling. Unique to the Bindara is the fact that this is the old original homestead of the Netley Satation, one of the largest sheep and cattle stations in this part of Australia in late 1800. More specifically in 1875 when the homestead mansion was built the landholdings were over a million acres complete with 107,000 sheep, 750 cows, 850 horses and 200 staff. You couldn't help trying to imagine what the place would have been like, back in its bustling days as you walked around the property. The soldiers settlement scheme, where these stations were dissected into 10,000 acre properties (and totally unviable) combined with drought and rabbits made a significant impact to the landscape, which are still evident today. Despite the current landowners having 11,000 acres and only run 40 head of Angus cows, the 1875 plant community is far from establishing itself again even under such low stocking rates. Bill and Barb Arnold do far better with their hospitality business and along with a dozen other campers I really enjoyed the stay.

http://bindarastation.com/bindara.htm

Bill and Barb were terrific hosts, especially Bill entertaining around the campfire while cooking up a Murray cod, caught by himself and enough to feed all those that signed up for "evening tea". The next morning the full breakfast of open fire-cooked eggs, bacon, lamb chops, sausages and potato cakes was a hearty meal that would last the whole day.

The last week has been filled with the dreaded "goodbyes"to the many wonderful people over the last 6 months not made easier by the royal treatment and "send offs". DPI hosted a very nice farewell dinner for me at Sovereign Hills in Ballarat. http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/

The after dinner Light and Sound Show depicted the one and only Australian civil uprising, the Eureak Stockade http://www.ballarat.com/eurekaffair.htm where gold miners opposed the miner's license and ended in a violent conflict with authorities. I was surprised to hear that the miner that in defiance rose the special Southern Cross flag was actually a Canadian, shot down fairly quickly by the authorities.

The local DPI, Hamilton office also hosted a morning tea for me on May 27 and a final "barbie" was held at Helen Anderson's Dunkeld "bush property" where I have spent a fair bit of my time.

I could post heaps more but this ought to suffice.

G'day mates, over and out.

Wild Dogs and Coyotes

The completion of my 6 month secondment to the Department of Primary Industries, Landscape Protection is drawing near and I just submitted my last article to Grainews. I will do another blog before heading back May 30th as this has allowed me to to keep a more detailed diary than the articles covered, but May 15 was the press deadline for the Canadian farm paper. These articles have allowed me to express more publicly my appreciation to the County Council for supporting this trip of a lifetime and for recognizing the opportunities for collaborating on agricultural initiatives of mutual benefit not only during the 6 months but for a long time to come through the many connections I have made with DPI staff across the state. Farm Services Victoria, under which the Landscape Protection portfolio sits, just recently released its new Better Services For Farmers model and I couldn't help notice their new emphasis in wholesaling services and finding appropriate partners to assist with the “on the grounds” delivery or retailing. Considerable literature searches paved the way for the new changes and the Alberta scenario of delivering some agricultural programs via Agricultural Service Boards was one of several but studied more closely. I had the pleasure of presenting our local Clearwater County Agricultural Services model in early December to the Landscape Protection Leadership Team and was pleasantly surprised at the time to hear many complimentary words about the unique Alberta Agriculture and ASB partnerships. Here in Victoria partnerships with local Catchment Management Authorities, Landcare Groups and Municipal Councils are now investigated more closely to assist the state in rolling out the Better Services For Farmers model.
Presenting the ASB model has also allowed me to compare more closely programs of mutual interest on bother sides i.e. the Victorian Weed Spotter Program, Weed Stop Training, the Alberta Environmental Farm Plan and the Alberta Weed Free Hay Program etc. I was intrigued to see the interest in our Coyote Control Program, a typical ASB program in most municipalities as coyotes are listed as a nuisance species under the Alberta Agricultural Pests Act, and shared this recently with two regional Wild Dog Management Committees. The interest was not so much in learning about the coyotes but more in how we were able over time to engage the farmers more in managing their own livestock predation caused by coyotes. I quickly discovered similarities with our old program and their current situation with respect to Victorian wild dog management. Different species for sure but there were remarkable parallels with Alberta’s early eighties coyote predation program and the Committees, along with the Landscape Protection Leadership Team, were keen to hear how we went about the transition from direct staff involvement in coyote predation management such as predation investigation, completing the loss compensation application for farmers, issuing coyote control devices to in Clearwater County’s current situation of having moved to a “help you to help yourself” approach on livestock predation via workshops and extension materials. The Victorian Wild Dog Management Program currently costs the state 3 million dollars annually so when the cost benefit analysis was done it was a given that changes were needed. In addition the wild dog genetic relationship with the newly “threatened species” declared dingo has further added arguments for change.
A Victorian Wild Dog Control Staff of 24 each have a trapping area and respond to requests from farmers to trap wild dogs on public land adjacent to the farms either from fear of wild dogs attacking stock or examples of actual kills. Learning from our Alberta experiences in more closely analysing the kills, as we did when the coyote livestock predator compensation program existed, will hopefully disclose the multitude of management related and underlying causes we saw in our coyote caused livestock predation and perhaps this will reflect in the Australian livestock predation by wild dogs as well.
I must say it was a unique experience to tour a trap line with one of the dog control staff and see how the JC Conner, rubber jawed and “humane treatment of animals approved” traps were set complete with a little scenting to attract the wild dogs. The scenting coming from a couple of canine companions that only too willingly lifted their hind legs to deliver a few squirts of urine for collection, nothing like the real thing in the world of canine fragrances!

Wine and Tasmania

Wine making at Henty Estates is a complex process but the skills of Peter and Glen Dixon has gained them envious status within the Australian wine industry with their 2006 Shiraz making the top 100 wines of Australia. I really like their 2005 Shiraz also with a distinct Blackberry flavour from their choice of yeast and oaks. Wine tasting for me will never be the same, having developed a much more critical palette to the one I had before coming down here!!

But there is a lot of work involved in the running of a vineyard, from pruning the grapes, putting nets over to help against the birds, taking the nets down, watching the sugar levels to math the right picking time and then recruit the picking crew. The last bit of Shiraz had to be picked as the grapes were well ripened and the weekend allowing for the best recruitment of friends and neighbors. It unfortunately coincided with cool wet autumn weather descending on the farm. The work got done, perhaps leaving a few extra grapes on the last few rows for the birds and the sheep that would be allowed to graze in vineyard after wards.The sheep especially like when it is time for the Chardonnay. The grapes are crushed only and the sweet leftovers are "to die for" in a sheep's world. Then after the red varieties (Shiraz and Cabinet Shauvignon) have fermented in the vats for a week or so and taken on the deep red color from the tannins there comes another good time for the sheep at Henty Estates as they fight over the alcohol laden grape pulp that is hauled out in the paddock after the liquids are pumped off. Many a sheep stagger around dazed by the effects of the magic feed, the older ones likely saying: "I remember last year and how lousy I felt the next day, better take it easy".

This blog will also take you to Tasmania, a fantastic little island south east of the mainland accessed by air or in my case a ferry ride of 12 hrs. The island is very different in landscape as well as climate from the extremely wet west coast to the drier south east. The lakes and the mountains are stunning and almost on par with the "Rockies"! A great many hikes were enjoyed in and around the famous world heritage sites of Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair and an awe inspiring river cruise on the Macquarie Harbour, a massive bay just inside the ocean, and up the slow flowing and very deep Gordon River, which flows into the bay and out to sea.










Back to work in the next blog, wild dog management and weed spread risk assessment.

Autumn in Victoria

Just sent in another article for Grainews so copying a bit of that for you reading pleasure !!(sorry Kristina, too boring I know).

It is a strange feeling, experiencing autumn in a country that boasted temperatures in the mid forties just a couple of months ago. We still see the trademark Aussie sunshine almost on a daily basis. It hasn't rained significantly for the last couple of months, with the exceptions of a couple of very local cloud bursts, but the air is cooler now and the night temperatures dropping to 4-5 degrees. Daylight Savings is erased once again and the sun sets around 5:30 pm giving the weather a startling resemblance to an Alberta mid September day, albeit no night frosts. These cooler days combined with the sunshine are quite enjoyable and a nice break from the heat experienced earlier.

The humidity is also considerably higher and the heavy dew every morning has revitalized the plant community. A gradual greening is evident across the Western District of Victoria and folks are gearing up for crop seeding awaiting the signals from Mother Nature that the last heatwave of the summer is behind them. Seeding too early can cause seedling mortality from a late blast of hot weather but there are deadlines just like in Alberta. Not unlike Alberta’s short growing season, the crops in Victoria need to take full advantage of the short cooler and wetter part of the year, ripening before the scorching temperatures return next summer. Seeding too late causes drought impact such as blast off or small kernels before reaching full crop development.

Work wise I have some interesting involvement with the Australian Fodder Industry Association (AFIA) who wishes to explore the Alberta Weed Free Hay Program. Back in Clearwater County, Rocky Mountain House, Alberta the Agricultural Service Board (ASB) has supported this provincial program since inception back in the early nineties and local hay producers have enjoyed pride in growing certified weed free hay and a slight premium to the prices paid for the hay. On behalf of the province, Clearwater ASB has been the coordinator of the special program-unique twine that identifies the weed free hay for participating municipalities.

The Alberta program was adopted from the US-based North American Weed Management Association and is strictly geared towards ensuring that there are no viable plant components in the hay and achieves this via an actual field inspection prior to cutting. Upon passing the field inspection the above mentioned special twine is issued to the grower, twine produced in Salt Lake City, Utah for all or North America. Alberta Agriculture assists the program with financial contributions towards the additional cost of the special twine over that of ordinary type allowing it to be made available to hay growers at a price similar to ordinary twine and alleviating this factor being a stumbling block to participating in the program.

The Department of Primary Industries in Victoria (DPI) has a wonderful program called Weed Stop that increases the awareness of weed seeds hitchhiking to new places via vehicles and equipment. This program would do well back in Alberta and I will actually be able to take some training in this while here. However, the true preventative aspect of weeds spread that certified weed free hay offers, before seeds end up in vehicles and equipment, has peaked DPI’s the AFIA’s attention.
With so much of the hay harvesting happening through contractors here in Victoria many of these contractors have become certified in Weed Stop, completing a day long course and advertising their services as “Weed Stop Certified” and supported by the Agricultural Contractors Association of Victoria (ACAV). AFIA feels that they would be in a good position to market a Victorian Weed Free Hay Program to its members in conjunction with the Victorian Department of Primary Industries. When this article appears in Grainews it may be good timing for Alberta hay growers to make inquiries into this great but often overlooked Alberta Weed Free Hay Program that is available throughout participating Municipal Agricultural Service Boards.


Besides the content of the above article I have had another busy month following the week long stint in the Bush Fire Recovery Incident Command Center that I wrote about a month ago. This meant some catch-up and I had to spend a fair number of days on the road, which made up-dating the blog really awkward.

From the last blog in Benalla I detoured slightly across the northern part of Victoria on my way back to Hamilton and travelled a bit along the majestic Murray River near Echuca, where the river meanders slowly on its way from the "alps" to the southern ocean south of Adelaide in South Australia, a distance of about 2,500 km. There are several structures on the river to maintain water levels for irrigation, the overall aquatic eco-system and recreational activities, such as a leisurely trip in one of the old paddle steamers used as tugboats to bring in the massive gumtrees to the sawmills back in the early days. You can see the warf's ability to adjust to varying river flows. The warf used top span about 500 meters, when the river traffic peaked in early 1900.


It was shocking to see the effects of the drought and water scarcity. Sadly speaking there is a disturbing trend to sell off the water rights to generate much needed cask flow for many farmers. The water allocations are not attached to the property like in Alberta and, once sold off, thousands of acres along the Murray River are no longer in production, as the lack of rain has not allowed for dry land farming. Only high value vegetable crops, large scale dairy, fruits and vineyards afford the high costs of water and there are some very emotionally charged debates over the strategies for managing the declining water flows in the Murray, which with the global warming prospects will have serious consequences for many communities in the immediate future.
Back in Hamilton the Chardonnay grapes were right for the picking and a fun day was had by picking crew of friends and neighbors of Peter and Glen Dixon at Henty Estates. You will note that even the sheep had a good time, munching on the grape stalks.













Once back at the office I had to book a number of visits across the state the following week to catch up on my work plan such as meeting with the Landscape Protection Manager Brendan Roughead, who many moons ago was a "Trainee" under the International Agricultural Exchange Association on the Keilor Farm, Berwyn, Alberta, good friends of ours and an amazing testament to how small the world has become. Brendan is in a way my boss here in Victoria and we had a quick meeting to see how the Hosting Program was running.


Also during the week I caught up with immediate supervisor Steve Young and some of the staff involved with weed legislation compliance. The Central Goldfield Shire in Maryborough was the next stop visiting with Andrew Steed, a keen young lad organizing some new programs for the roadside weed and pest issues, not unlike what I do back in Alberta. Engaging the shires into taking a stronger lead role with road side weed and animal pest management is a new concept and cautiously accepted by the shire municipalities. Up to Bendigo to meet Kristy Roche to get a sense of how the department connects and engages with the ag. industry on weed and pest issues. This ties into the mentioning earlier in this blog on the Weed Free Hay Program.

From Bendigo I headed over into the beautiful Gippsland area of Victoria to meet John Balfour and his staff to assist with some Linear Reserves work, basically connecting with the land mangers of rail lines, quarries and state roads to monitor their compliance with the state weed and pest legislation. This visit also connected me with Gerry O'Keefe who put me up for the night on his Noojee property after a hearty meal an the local pub, the Outpost.













The return trip back from Gippsland took me across the Port Phillip Bay on the Sorrento Ferry instead of through the city of Melbourne, which is chaotic at the best of times. I wrapped up the week with a visit to a large private house yard with a fantastic garden area, which unfortunately also battled a small infestation of the state prohibited weed giant knot weed (Polygonum sachalinese), a very deep rooted and difficult to control perennial weed.


I have also been able to take a bit of time off and visit the absolutely stunning little island of Tasmania. I'll cover this in my next blog, to follow in a few days, promise!

Tour of Duty Benalla Incident Management Team

Top row is Gary McLarty my Field Team partner and then some photos from the field. Second row left is the Planning Team which I sat on and more specifically with the fancy officious title of Situations Officer. Now; the trees in the back are not in their Fall colors, they are burnt eucalyptus trees, which ordinarily remain green all year unless a fire scorches their leaves.

In my last blog I covered a bit of the February 7, 2009 Victoria Bush Fires, the largest natural disaster ever to hit Australia but I think it might be of interest to stay on that topic in this blog as well as I have become involved with the gigantic agricultural recovery program that commenced after the fires and in some cases while the fires were still burning.
I work ordinarily for the State Department of Primary Industries (DPI), Farm Services Section and the Landscape Protection Portfolio on weed and animal pest related programs. Consistently across the DPI state department, however, rests the responsibility for the Bush Fire Recovery Program to quickly assess the agricultural losses from fires and prepare assistance programs. The main scenarios are stock losses, stock gathering and confinement, veterinary assistance, fencing, crop losses, feed shortages, dwelling and farm building losses. This often is done in conjunction with the state department of Human Services and the local municipalities. Following this are the more long term rehabilitation issues such as soils erosion, revegetation, weeds and pest animals issues.

Bush Fires are a part of life in Australia and preparedness is well integrated into rural communities and state departments. The state department of Sustainability and the Environment is responsible for fire awareness, education and calculating the daily Fire Danger Index based on current temperature, humidity, drought factor, days since last rain coupled with weather forecast. The final calculation often triggers Total Fire Ban days during the summer (Dec-Mar), which was done ahead of the Feb. 7 fires, to warn people to prepare to activate their Fire Plan. The plan could as simple as evacuating when threatened by an approaching fire. It remains a choice to evacuate, but it is stated that the fire area may be cordoned off by police for safety reasons so access back in after evacuation may be restricted. The plan could also be more detailed and involve the setting up of fire fighting equipment on the property. Most fires start by embers that blow ahead of the fire front as the typical bush fires involves the very hot, strong and dry winds from central Australia and at times exacerbated by a sudden wind change late afternoon shifting winds from north to south west. On a Total Fire Ban day open fires, the use of welders, cutting torches, mowers etc. are also banned.

The local Country Fire Authority, which in the rural areas are totally voluntary, assist DSE with the actual fire fighting and goes into Stand By on Total Fire Ban days to, at moments notice, mobilize some amazing manpower and equipment. The actual management of the fire fighting and also the subsequent recovery aspect is done using a similar concept to what I have been exposed to in Clearwater County following floods and fires called the Incident Management System (ICS).

I am writing this from the Benalla Incident Management Team Complex, which under the ICS concept has a designated Incident Controller (the top gun!) and below this matrix the Planning sector looking after mapping, situations reports, information and resources; Operations look after the phone team, field teams, data entering; and Logistics look after accommodation, meals and safety.
Being part of such structure has been extremely enlightening and provided some valuable experiences. The Bush Fire Recovery IMT here at Benalla deals with the recovery aspect of the largest fire, the Murrindindi Kilmore fire that eventually succumbed to the efforts of firefighters and mother nature after consuming more than 500,000 acres. The team is comprised of 23 staff, but two weeks ago when the fire was still burning I assisted in the actual fire IMT and in contrast we had close to 800 people deployed. I have mainly been helping with the collecting of data for the printing of the daily Situation Report, which forms part of the daily Incident Action Plan but also, saw some field action yesterday conducting some farm visits collecting loss data.
State wide the impact are truly unprecedented and validates the declaration of this being the worst natural disaster to hit Australia. Over 1.1 million acres burnt; 210 lives lost (likely to climb slightly upon further forensic work); 1445 homes lost; 4,714 farms impacted (3461 assessed at this time); 2832 sheep lost, 1392 salvaged and 810 missing; and 1486 cattle lost, 1709 salvaged and 6,079 missing.

This is the State map showing where the fires were.

The landscape around where the bulk of the fires were is truly spectacular with massive eucalyptus treees that are named Mountain Ash (don't be confused, nothing to do with our North American Mountain Ash). The tree below, in the Yarra Ranges, was felled as part of the fire effort after the Black Saturday fires. Hollow trees like this close to the control line become chimneys. On fire inside, sparks funnel out the top of the tree and can fall across the other side of the fireline - re-igniting the fire. Still, a great shame to see it come down, it would have been very old.

The black spur area of Victoria was burnt during the fires. This is a picture of what the forrest looks like.

A few facts
Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest of all flowering plants, and possibly the tallest of all plants although no living specimens can make that claim. Tallest of the eucalypts, growing to 70-120 m (230-400 feet) with the tallest reported tree 152m.
It occurs in cool, deep soiled, mostly mountainous areas to 1000 m altitude with high rainfall of over 1200 mm per year. They grow very quickly, at more than a metre a year, and can reach 65 metres in 50 years, with an average life-span of 400 years.
Unusually for a eucalypt, it tends not to recover by re-shooting after fire, and regenerates only from seed. The seeds are released from their woody capsules (gumnuts) by heat and for successful germination the seedlings require a high level of light, much more than reaches the forest floor when there is a mature tree canopy. Severe fires can kill all the trees in a forest, prompting a massive release of seed to take advantage of the nutrients in the ash bed. Seedling densities of up to 2.5 million per hectare have been recorded after a major fire. Competition and natural thinning eventually reduces the mature tree density to about 30 to 40 individuals per hectare. Because it takes roughly 20 years for seedlings to reach sexual maturity, repeated fires in the same area can cause local extinctions. If, however, no fires regenerate an area, the trees die off after about 400 years and are replaced by other species.
The tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 99.6 metres tall in Tasmania. Before the discovery of the Centurion, the tallest known specimen was Icarus Dream, which was rediscovered in Tasmania in January, 2005 and is 97 meters high. It was first measured by surveyors at 98.8 metres in 1962 but the documentation had been lost. 16 living trees in Tasmania have been reliably measured in excess of 90 metreshttp://en.wikipedia.
Historically, the tallest individual is claimed to be the Ferguson Tree, at 132.6 metres, found in the Watts River region of Victoria in 1871 or 1872. This record is often disputed as unreliable, despite first-hand documentary evidence of it being measured on the ground with surveyor's tape by a senior forestry official (see below). Widespread agreement exists, however, that an exceptionally tall individual was reliably measured at 112.8 metres in 1880 by a surveyor, George Cornthwaite, at Thorpdale, Victoria (the tree is known both as the Cornthwaite or Thorpdale Tree). When it was felled in 1881, Cornthwaite remeasured it on the ground by chain at 114.3 metres. The stump was commemorated with an insignificant plaque that exists today. That tree was about 1 metre shorter than the world's current tallest living tree, a Coast Redwood, 115.55 metres.
The tallest specimens encountered by early European settlers are now dead as a result of bushfires, logging and advanced age. Few living specimens exceed 90 metres; old records of logged trees make varied claims of extreme heights, but these are difficult to verify today.

Close to doing some grape picking in a week or so at Henty Estates and on my way back tomorrow I'll slip up past the mighty Murray River, which forms the boundary to New South Wales. So that's what the next blog will feature.

Cheers mates!