"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
. ..
SNIP

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.

We touched on this Bush regeneration subject when doing my apprenticeship.
The Bradley method was mentioned, and the teacher pointed out the same as
you have (above).
Of course there is very little chance that native seeds will naturally come
up. They may do, and you'd be suprised how and where seeds come from. Ok,
birds play a big part.
This is where Hydraseeding (sp?) now comes in. Correct preparation,
including spraying of weeds and removal of non-native, non-wanted vegetation
is a must.
The Hydraseed is a mix of native seed, even more defined, native to your
area. Mixed with wood fibre for body, it is shot out of a large bore hose
with a "spray" of water to spread the seed.
After that just wait for germination. The area usually rejuvenates quite
quickly and thick. Though recent drought would slow things down.
Of course alternatives would be planting from tubestock but the hydraseed
covers big areas fast, and you may have seen it used during construction of
new highways.
The main priority after the initial weeding, then planting, is the follow up
care, mostly of weeding. This is with all regen work.
We have used something similar to the bradley method at work, and it's been
quite effective. However we did bring in the hydraseeders. So far, after
approximately 18months, we have had to weed the area twice since the seed
went down, and now that is all. The natives have germinated and getting well
advanced, especially the acacias, keeping the weeds down.
Susannah mentioned the burning of Kikuyu, and it brought up acacia seeds.
That could probably happen.
Burning the area first will also kill a lot of weed seeds. The great thing
is it will not really affect any native seeds there. We tried it with
another area as we had no time to spray it before the Hydraseeders come in.
The area was Settaria grass(sp??) in a paddock for probably the past 30yrs.
It had been cleared, soil imported then mulched, sat for about 2yrs, then
mulched again. Full of weeds of all sorts, including the settaria grass.
An absolute mess.
We set fire to the area (probably 300m x 100m), the thick mulched burned
well, creating enough heat to kill the weed seeds. Again, about 18months
later, and only 1 follow up weed, and that was weeds on the edge where the
fire had not quite got.
Not sure if the fire had anything to do with it, but in this batch there
seemed to be a lot more Eucalypts in this batch. Perhaps the seed mix was
different, who knows. But the burn helped with lack of weeds.
I always remember and use the example of the stubborness of some weeds.
Flickweed seeds can remain dormant, yet viable for up to 10yrs after being
released.

Ok, probably strayed a little there, but hope it helps.
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I would really like some war stories drawn from experience here not just
theory.

David