Abstract
In the last three decades or so there has been a significant increase in fodder trading, both in terms of the quantity of fodder traded and in terms of its economic value to the industry. Often, this fodder type may be supplied free of charge to graziers in distress due to circumstances that follow natural disasters such as bushfires, drought, and flood. However, because of the obvious urgency arising from these situations, it is suspected that much relief fodder may unintentionally pose an elevated risk for dispersal of weeds since it may be supplied from pasture not normally used for trade in fodder, and therefore is of unknown quality. Previous destructive method to detect weed propagules in bales of fodder are cumbersome, time consuming and of limited ecological and statistical value. Therefore, objective of this paper was to development of a convenient method to assess round pasture hay bales for the presence of weed propagules, to prevent unintentional spread of noxious species in hay bales. To examine this objective known quantity of seeds were added in a series of distributions to bales of seed free pasture hay, and a positive correlation for the amount of seed added per bale with that recovered in core samples was observed. Whilst the number of seeds detected per bale varied according to the distribution of seeds within the bales and the number of cores analysed, the absolute detection of seeds suggests that this sampling method is worthy of further examination. In addition, a pragmatic estimation of bale remnants after stock feeding has been investigated to more closely estimate the potential size of the remaining seed bank. The authors propose that development of this approach is timely, in the light of future climatic uncertainty driving extreme weather events that increase the need for relief fodder, which can be a potential vector for the spread of noxious weed seeds.
Highlights
Agricultural weeds pose significant problems for primary producers
Whilst it is accepted that provisioning fodder for livestock is vital for many agricultural enterprises in Australia, during the last 30 years or so there has been a significant increase in fodder trading, both in terms of the quantity of fodder traded and its economic value to the industry [3]
Of particular interest here is that the broadest definition of ‘traded fodder’ includes that of relief fodder, which is needed at short notice during emergency situations [4]
Summary
Agricultural weeds pose significant problems for primary producers. Effects of weed infestation range from reduced yields due to competition for nutrients and water with cash crops, to the adulteration of the quality of harvested crop material, suggesting that the control of weed dispersal is absolutely essential. In the context of this investigation, the development of a method to take multiple small samples from multiple bales constituted from a pasture would be more desirable method to obtain a representative estimate of the composition of a pasture than with a single hay bale tested to destruction We suggest that such an approach would significantly increase the probability of detection of ‘patchy’ weed seed infestations, facilitating the prevention of noxious weed dispersal. A method of core sampling round pasture hay bales, with the objective of determining the appropriate number of cores to obtain a reliable estimate of weed seed presence or absence, is described in an experiment that was carried out in 2012 in Victoria, Australia To undertake this investigation into testing large round bales, we selected a species whose seeds are identifiable and available in large numbers. The amount of fodder wasted varied from 4% to 25% [30, 31]
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