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MORE TREES ???
This was a big decision to tie up more valuable cattle grazing land for trees. This was a good well drained north facing well fertilised well fenced cattle paddock - they had better be very good trees!! One immediate benefit was that they screen off our boundary with the neighbours and create a great site for future home site. The trees could "Frame" the future view from the house.we could also use the big D7 dozer to level out a building site as well as do the rip lines for the trees.
So we went ahead and set out a tree plan from the aerial photo. We wanted the first "Blackwood seed orchard" in Australia.Around it we would plant more maculatas as part of a provenance trial but also to provide top trees for saw logs - maybe 30 years hence!! We would also trial other species especially E.botryoides ( Southern mahogany). This and E.sieberi had done well in year 2000 trials - so had Yellow Stringybarks...
We predicted that these species would be profitable in the future in Gippsland. - Time will tell...
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SITE PREPARATION 2002 -- I have mentioned the importance of RIPPING but WEED CONTROL is the big thing...
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WEED CONTROL 2002 --
This was much easier than in the wet and boggy year 2000 paddock. We did a better job in 2002. NB. do it well before you plant a single tree. Weed control should be done so that all your trees outgrow any weeds particularly during the first spring. Spray thoroughly BEFORE you plant. After our year 2000 experience we did not want to try to spray around little trees or hand weed ever again!
Our 2002 Weed control was as follows :- firstly the aim was to have no visible vegetation for one metre either side of the rip line (ie.a 2 m. swathe) You can calculate the volume of herbicide per hectare if you know the total length of your rip line. If it is a total of 5 km long (on your aerial photo plan) and 2 metres wide weed free swathe then this area is 10,000 square metres which is one hectare. The paddock had been well grazed and bad weeds had been dealt with by spot spraying, so we sprayed Glycophosphate (Biactive) at a rate of 5 litres/Ha. to create bare earth over the top of the rip line.
To achieve a rate of herbicide of 5 litres/Ha we standardised the pump flow rate to 15L/ min and measured this. We drove the tractor at fast walking pace 8 km/hr. Note that 5 Km.(one Ha.) will therefore take about 40 mins. - If the pump and the jets are going OK at 15L/ min they will have spread 15 times 40 mins, which is 600 litres of water to the hectare. Add to this 600 L of water 5L. of herbicide. As it happened we had a 900L tank so we added 7.5L of Glycophosphate and about 200 ml. of Agral wetting agent.
So that's the mathematics!! Low concentration good volume gets all the weeds saturated and a good result. If it is a little windy or wet then to be on the sure side lower the spray boom and drive the tractor at 5km/Hr.
After cattle had eaten out the paddock we sprayed the herbicide in March and could see the effect by the end of April. We had used 5litres/ Ha and it worked well. This was over the rip line. We then rotary howed to make planting easier and to break up the clay. We also mounded the row up at the same time. We kept the cattle out from now on.
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THEN IN MID WINTER - On a rare dry and windless day do it all again but use STOMP (330gm./L. Pendimethalin) instead of Glycophosphate and add Simazine. Simazine is residual herbicide that must stick on the surface of the bare soil and stop any little weed seeds from germinating. It is vital. The doses we used we used were of Stomp 10litre per Ha. And simazine 4 litres per Ha. plus wetting agent. Note - Simazine blocks the spray jets. As I said, we never needed anymore weed control on the 2002 plantation - so far (at 2005).
THEN IN EARLY SEPTEMBER 2002 - The gang planted 5000 little trees from forestry pots with the hamilton tree planters. We had 98% survival - The 2002 plantation and the blackwood seed orchard were finally underway.
THE FINAL OUTCOME
Congratulations to the Bull-Dozer driver for the immaculately neat layout of the 2002 plantation - seen from the air. NOTE : For the purists they are "COLUMNS" not rows of trees. I think you get these aerial photos off the net.
KANGAROOS - BIG ONES!!!
KANGAROOS - BIG ONES!!!
Dozens of big grey Kangaroos descended on the 2002 plantation. They had always been around from the start in 1999 but with the dry conditions in the nearby State Forest they left public land and grazed (Free of of charge!) on my "Private" land. What would the voters think if I let my cattle do this in the National parks. They ate the well fertilised pastures and trampled some of the trees. To be fair they did not actually eat any trees but accidentally trod on them. We got a permit to cull ( means kill) 30 of them. This put them off a bit and they went to the neighbours instead. The best thing was to ignore them and let them feed between the trees on the grass and weeds. Unlike Black Wallabies which do eat young trees and wombats that burrow under them, the Big Roos tend to stick to the rows and just eat the grass. It's still a bit scary when one is quietly pruning and a mob of 7 foot tall Roos comes charging past. So all in all I quite like them, unlike rabbits and hares - for them you just need a shooters licence - or poison...
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