Echium plantagineum

Paterson's Curse at Hackett, ACT

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Identification history

	Echium plantagineum	13 Oct 2020	waltraud
	Echium plantagineum	13 Oct 2020	cmobbs

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User's notes

small patch of Paterson's curse under the main powerline running across base of Mt Majura pole number 95260

3 comments

waltraud wrote:

13 Oct 2020

Thanks for notification Chris. Unfortunately, this is a bad weed year and there are too many PC and other weeds for me and Jochen to remove. I'm working 12 hours shifts to reduce weeds at high conservation sites or where we have done work over the past years but I am totally exhausted.
If you like to help, take a big bag, pull the weeds out, bag them and depose off in the green bin (PC makes good compost if the temperature is high enough to kill the seeds. thanks
waltraud

cmobbs wrote:

13 Oct 2020

Waltraud
I did pull up some but others broke
I understand that ACT Parks and Conservation would go into the reserves to treat paterson's curse as noted in this ABC news item yesterday:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-12/patersons-curse-is-invading-canberras-green-spaces-this-spring/12752154
"ACT Parks also want tip-offs about suspicious plants from the public, which you can report through the Canberra Nature Map site."
chris

waltraud wrote:

13 Oct 2020

Contractors employed by Parks would spray PC in rosette stage. It is too late for this treatment. I think ACT weed officer Steve is interested in locations to stop the spread into high conservation sites. I'm not sure how that would be done perhaps by slashing in at high priority sites. You can bet that powerline easements are not high priority sites (unless there is a listed species under threat from being overrun by weeds). I think Parks is interested to know were it occurs to have an eye on it for future years but whether they will have the resources to manage the weed is the question!
I have not seen Parks staff hand weeding PC and certainly with 1 (!) ranger responsible for Mt Majura, Mt Ainslie and a number of other northside reserves he would certainly not have the time to hand weed particulaly not low priority sites; even high priority sites such as critically endangered grassy woodland with critically endangered and endangered species are under threat...
weeds like PC and Capeweed spread in Mts Majura/Ainslie because of heavy overgrazing - native perennial grasses, if they were permitted to grow, are very competitive and would suppress outbreakss. FoMM has demonstrated this over and over again. For instance we spent 100s of hours to free the paddock of weeds, collect native grass seeds (when they were still produced on mt majura) direct seeded them and there were times for instance during the 2011/12 la Nina event when the paddock was thick with native grass and no PC or Capeweed - go there now and you see it is either introduced weeds or bare. We can't battle the overgrazing.
I was talking to Commissioner for the Environment, the Conservator for Flora and Fauna, PCS rangers who change every 5 seconds up the whole ladder to the PCS director and minister, various members of the Leg Assembly, TV, Radio and Canberra Times and I was not getting anywhere.
End of story. I give up.
Waltraud

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