THE SOUTHERN
Part of the Farmer Group Rural Newspapers Covering Victoria Published since 1986
SHEEP SALES
SEPTEMBER, 2014
PAGES 16-19
HAY & SILAGE
486 Whitehorse Road, Surrey Hills, 3127
PAGES 20-21
ELMORE FIELD DAYS
LIFTOUT
GRDC says herbicide resistance neglected By DAVID PALMER
SLOW ROAST: When Alan and Lizette Snaith decided to barbecue a 70 kilogram forequarter from
one of their Warialda Belted Galloways a deciding factor was being able to call on a devoted following of their farmers’ market customers to help them to eat it. Bookings for the Argentine-style asado cook-out closed about a month before the mid-August event and about 60 customers arrived on the Snaiths’ Clonbinane farm on the day. They were not disappointed. Here Alan Snaith comes to grips with 12 hour barbecued forequarter before reducing it to edible pieces. See full story page 8.
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GRAINS Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) believes that weed management and herbicide resistance has been neglected in Victoria. “Everywhere in Victoria has herbicide resistance to lots of groups of herbicides,” Chris Preston, chairman of the Australian glyphosate sustainability working group, has told a herbicide-resistance seminar for Victorian agronomists in Bendigo. “We started with glyphosate resistance – the world’s first case of glyphosate resistance was at Echuca in 1996 – but now we have paraquat resistance, too,” he said. In general terms Dr Preston was talking about winter crops but many other crops are also affected. “Everywhere you go milk thistle is resistant to A and B herbicides, cape weed is resistant in southern Victoria and we even have stinging nettles in celery resistant to herbicides in southern Victoria,” said the associate professor of weed management in the University of Adelaide school of agriculture, food and wine. As the name of the sustainability group suggests, chemical companies such as Monsanto, Nufarm, Dow and Syngenta are closely allied with it. “Bayer is coming on board after a hiatus,” Dr Preston said. Glyphosate resistance was first docu-
mented in Victoria in 1996 in annual ryegrass. As part of the new focus on the state’s weeds a crew led by Dr Preston will return to southern Victoria to look for resistant weeds. “We’ll be back surveying and collecting herbicide resistant weeds in the southern region, that is south of the Western Highway this summer, probably in the first week of January 2015,” he said. Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative communications leader Peter Newman said recently that too many Australian farmers were allowing “world champion (herbicide resistant) weeds” – annual ryegrass and wild radish – to become well established in continuously cropped paddocks, making contributions each season to the seed bank. Mr Newman said that to be farming in the future it was essential to incorporate integrated weed management into every-day farming practice. Change was urgently needed across all regions. “Integrated weed management adds another layer of complexity to the farming system and can be a pain,” he said. But Australian farmers had a reputation for innovation and problem-solving and were no longer relying on herbicides alone. Mr Newman urged every crop grower relying on herbicides to employ WeedSmart, a 10-point plan to battle against herbicide resistance.
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