Dowerin Field Day award 2013... Sustainable Best Farm Practises

Bill Davey principal with Plantation and Landcare Services with this year Dowerin Field day award

Dowerin Field Days

It was great to get the recognition of over 28 years working with landholders and farmers across WA winning the company offering the Sustainable Farm Practises award. The key to this prize was the ability to incorporate fodder shrubs across the landscape and throughout all the landcare projects. Increasing the profitability on marginal or poor yielding soil types incorporating trees and shrubs in the areas where water table management is critical is the key to dryland salinity control.
As mentioned in my acceptance speech the federal and state funding has decreased somewhat so the landcare dollar from the farmers need to be well spent...farmers and landholders are always looking to add value and thriving for a return on your investment, even if it is long term.
The display at the field days of lots of project photo's of before and afters across the state helps promote the whole concept of making landcare profitable. With over 28 years working with landholders prospective clients get excited when they can see and visualise the end results. Many farmers have expressed interested in getting projects underway for the 2014 season.

Offset planting for Main Roads West Aust

I took a drive from Perth to Perenjori last week, winding through Bindoon’s orange orchards and the intense green of the emerging wheatcrops.

While our agriculture showed the diversity of food growing in WA it was the beauty of the mid winter wildflowers, especially the brilliant yellow of our wattles, that captured my attention.

My drive was to check out a landcare project revegetating roadsides near Perenjori where Plantation and Landcare were planting out some 150,000 seedlings of local area native plants including hakeas, melaleucas, small eucalyptus mallees and wattles.

These seedlings, like the wildflowers by the roadside, survive only on the rain that falls from the sky and were chosen to create a relaxed yet colourful landscape that will enhance the drive through the central mid west Wheatbelt.

Wattles are one of the first plants to flower in winter and part of a big family containing about 900 species ranging from big trees to small shrubs.

They are a legume with roots that adds nitrogen to the soil and are an early coloniser of disturbed sites and post fire regeneration. Most wattles have phyllodes rather than true leaves which is an adaptation to their dry environment. They are beloved garden plants and most have fluffy yellow pom pom flowers and many have edible seed.

One of the most useful small shrubs flowering now from Ravensthorpe to Geraldton is prickly moses (Acacia pulchella), which grows 0.5m to 2m high and provides a protected habitat for birds as it has small spines along its stems.

The revegetation team’s wattles included the summer scented wattle (Acacia rostelifera), a shrub from 2m to 5m, dead finish (Acacia tetragonaphylla) a spreading, prickly shrub growing 2m to 4m tall, Acacia multispicata a dense to wispy shrub from 0.2 to 2m tall and Orange Wattle (Acacia saligna) a dense, often weeping shrub from 1.5m to 6m tall.

I’m looking forward to driving back that way late next winter when I expect the roadside to be a sea of yellow and green.