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Old 31-03-2003, 01:44 AM
David Hare-Scott
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration

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


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Old 31-03-2003, 01:56 AM
Jane VR
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration

When they do bush regen here in Sydney, they 'cheat'. They use
glyphosate, and occassionally plant stuff as well. Parsley Bay Reserve
in Vaucluse took 10 years to finish, using this method. It's an area
about 600m by 100m.

Jane

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Old 31-03-2003, 02:08 AM
Jane VR
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration


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

David



This site looks interesting

http://www.nccnsw.org.au/bushland/reference/mbrw/

It came up in a Google search.

Jane

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Old 01-04-2003, 11:20 AM
susannah
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration

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




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Old 01-04-2003, 02:56 PM
Andrew G
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration

"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.
--
Remove "not" from start of email address to reply



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

David






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Old 02-04-2003, 01:56 AM
David Hare-Scott
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration


"susannah" wrote in message
...
I'm a bush regenerator David, and have worked on a lot of different

sites.


Susannah

Many thanks for some good information.

David


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Old 02-04-2003, 08:44 AM
Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration

In article , Andrew G wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
. ..

[snip sound advice]
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.


Unless of coure you are in a fire sensitive area like a former
rainforest. The approach there is to encourage seed spreading birds
to come in. If you don't have any large trees, the provision of
artificial perches might help. Of course the birds bring weeds in too
which have to be dealt with, potentially for quite a long time (until
they're shaded out).
--
Replace abuse with kd21 in email address to assure valid reply
address.
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Old 02-04-2003, 09:08 AM
David Hare-Scott
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration


"Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish" wrote in message
...


The approach there is to encourage seed spreading birds
to come in. If you don't have any large trees, the provision of
artificial perches might help. Of course the birds bring weeds in too
which have to be dealt with, potentially for quite a long time (until
they're shaded out).
--


Given my privet forests this seems very likely


I reckon there are generations of local birds who have grown fat
feasting on privet berries, removing the privet could be an ecological
disaster for them! (Well almost).

David



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Old 03-04-2003, 03:32 PM
susannah
 
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Default Bradley method bush regeneration


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

Given my privet forests this seems very likely

I reckon there are generations of local birds who have grown fat
feasting on privet berries, removing the privet could be an ecological
disaster for them! (Well almost).

David


Don't forget that Privet seed is only viable for two years roughly, so
shading it out is often the best practice. the seed is also killed by fire.

There are a few papers around about the impact of winter seeding weeds and
how they have altered teh natural partial migration of certain species
(Sydney based research). Very interesting reading, mostly focusses on
Currwongs, though it would apply to some other species as well.

Currawongs in the Sydney area used to be paritally migratory, ie heading
west over the Blue mountains at the time of year Privet just so happens to
seed, not returning until after the main rush of Spring bird breeding had
ocurred.

It was noticed that Currawongs were hanging around the Sydney area, and that
due to this they were around when small birds were breeding, and when the
chicks were at their most vulnerable, in the nest. The decline of small
birds in Sydney has been directly attributed to Currawongs (by several
ecologists) remaining in the Sydney basin over winter/Spring.

Many introduced natives such as grevilleas encourage the agressive, and
often more attractive, hoenyeaters, and push out the smaller, boring brown
birds...

By you removing the privet, or some of it in mosaic pattern, you may be
altering the short term species composition of your birds, but in the long
term it might be returning it to something more like a balanced ecosystem.
Please note i am not saying you will return it to original condition, as I
don't think that is feasible or realistic.

Susannah





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