I'm a bush regenerator David, and have worked on a lot of different sites.

The Bradley method is how the industry cut it's teeth, and it is still the
backbone to the industry ie minimal disturbance, work from good areas to
bad, don't over clear etc etc.

Modern day bush regeneration does include chemicals such as Glyphosate, and
I wouldn't say it is cheating at all, especially when frilling, drilling and
injecting, cutting and painting etc. Some spray efforts though I would
agree are probably overkill (no pun intended)

Some weeds respond really well to Glyphosate, some don't, so the "bradley"
technique is still used quite extensively, it's much preferred not to use
chemicals if possible.

As for you questions about clearing rates and so on, that is incredibly
variable, many things effect how much you clear, how often you need to
return after primary weeding, etc. Drought, rain, floods, stormwater
runnoff, fire, soil type, vegetation type (rainforest, woodland, grassy
woodland, Open forest, heath, wetland) all these and more will impact or
effect how often you work and how efective your weeding is.

Some sites i have seen that have been cleared paddocks, with no nearby seed
source, for approx 70 years (confirmed by aerial photos) have had "kiddy"
fires burn the kikuyu, after which several Acacia species regenerated. It
is more probably that there would be very little regneration in situations
like this one, though you never know! Some seeds are very resilient.

if you are looking for more information then you could try the AABR
(Australian Association of Bush Regenerators) website at
http://www.zip.com.au/~aabr there is a lot of very useful information,
particularly for the Sydney region. Their focus is expanding and is only
limited by the time volunteers have available to put information together
that can then go on the website. AABR is a volunteer organisation.

you'll find a link for a discussion list there and if you want to ask
questions such as this of very expereinced regenerators, then it is a great
medium for doin so .

Goodl uck with your adventures

Susannah



"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
. ..
I have just read "Bringing back the bush" by Joan Bradley, which tells
us that to revegetate land with native species we proceed with weed
removal only at the pace that natives can take over the cleared space.
Quite obviously leaving large areas cleared is just a waste as most
likely you will just get your weeds back again.

According to Bradley one does a limited area at a time and then wait for
the local species to re-seed or otherwise propagate naturally. During
the time that the natives and weeds are competing for the area you tip
the balance in favour of the natives by removing the weeds until the
natives can take over without help. Then you move on to the next area,
so you incrementally push back the weeds from the most weed-free areas
towards the most weed affected.

Has anybody here actually done this? What were your experiences? How
far was it from the revegetated area to natural bush? How long did it
take per clearing cycle?

What happens where the landscape has been non-natural (cleared for
pasture) for 150 years? If all the land within kilometers is the same
where will your natives propagate from? My impression is that the
Bradley method as it is written is just not going to work in this
situation and that I will need to judiciously introduce the replacment
species otherwise the nearest replacement is going to always be weeds.

I would really like some war stories drawn from experience here not just
theory.

David