Land In Queensland Research Articles

Humate application alters microbiota–mineral interactions and assists in pasture dieback recovery

Pasture dieback is a rapidly expanding decaying pasture syndrome that affects millions of hectares of agricultural land in Queensland, Australia, making it useless for the cattle industry and decimating farmers’ income and welfare. Since the syndrome was first identified in the early 1990s, farmers and agronomists have tried various methods for pasture recovery, including slashing, burning, ploughing and resowing grass, fertilising, destocking, and overstocking. In most cases, after a minimal initial improvement, the grass reverts to dieback within a few weeks. Here, we present an application of potassium humate, a well-known plant growth stimulator, as a possible long-term recovery option. Humate was applied once at the rate of 12 ml per m2. Humate application did not alter the alpha or beta diversity of soil bacterial communities, nor did it change the mineral profile in the soil. However, humate application altered soil microbiota–mineral temporal interactions and introduced subtle changes in the microbial community that could assist pasture recovery. A single humate application increased paddock plant biomass significantly up to 20 weeks post-application. Eleven months after the single application, the paddock was grazed to the ground by the cattle just before the rainfall season. After pasture regrowth, the humate-treated plots significantly improved root morphometric indicators for both grass and dicots and increased the ratio of grass/weeds by 27.6% compared to the water-treated control. While this treatment will not resolve the dieback syndrome, our results invite more research to optimise the use of humate for maximum economic benefit in paddock use under pasture dieback syndrome conditions.

Community perceptions of carbon farming: A case study of the semi-arid Mulga Lands in Queensland, Australia

International efforts to combat climate change are reflected in diverse national and subnational policies, the effects of which can stimulate fundamental changes in land use at the regional scale. Since 2012, the Australian Government has provided incentives for landholders to implement “carbon farming” through methods that either sequester or avoid the release of carbon emissions in vegetation and soils. While the factors leading to individual landholder adoption of carbon farming is widely researched, there is comparatively limited analysis of broader community perceptions and potential impacts of its resulting changes in land use and management. This research uses semi-structured interviews and qualitative analysis to explore community perceptions of carbon farming in the vast and remote Mulga Lands of Queensland, Australia, a region that supports nearly 200 carbon projects across 7 million hectares. We found that individual landholders were motivated to adopt carbon farming primarily for the economic benefits, despite sharing concerns with the broader community over potential environmental and social impacts. Long-standing local attitudes, values and beliefs around perceived desirable natural landscapes, and their role in maintaining agricultural production, underpin a view that non-active land management and absentee land ownership – considered by some in the community to be a consequence of carbon farming – would contribute to ongoing rural decline. Our findings show that the scale and pace of land use changes facilitated by carbon farming have led to a community impact in the Mulga Lands. Such impacts must be explicitly considered in future research, policy and planning to ensure land use transitions stimulated by carbon farming policy are effectively and fairly managed.

Too much water: drainage schemes and landscape change in the sugar-producing areas of Queensland, 1920–90

ABSTRACTDrainage schemes to reclaim land or improve the productivity of waterlogged land in Queensland’s sugar-producing districts occurred overwhelmingly between 1920 and 1990. To understand the motivations for and timings of these schemes the discussion begins by defining drainage, examining its purpose and establishing how drainage in the sugar-producing lands of Queensland occurred at different geographic scales and involved various combinations of structures and co-operative arrangements. Next, consideration is given to why poor drainage retards the growth of sugar cane and how better drainage improves yields and reduces disease outbreaks. The analysis then considers how floodplain topography and the presence of soils with poor internal drainage, combined with high to very high annual rainfall, contributed to drainage problems in the sugar-producing lands of Queensland. The fifth section contains an examination of what drainage activities occurred throughout the sugar-cane-growing lands of Queensland, particularly after 1950. The environmental consequences of these drainage activities such as the loss of freshwater wetlands and the creation of sites where weeds have flourished are considered in the final section. Three important themes in the environmental and agricultural history of Australia will be explored in this article: the role of the State; knowledge and technology transfer; and human mastery over nature and its environmental consequences.

Recovering the foundations of Koowarta: the struggle of the Aboriginal Land Fund Commission to purchase land in Queensland

This article examines one of the stories underpinning Koowarta v Bjelke-Petersen; the story of the attempts of the Aboriginal Land Fund Commission (ALFC) to purchase land for Aboriginal communities in Queensland amid conflicting Commonwealth and state policies on Aboriginal rights. Through telling this story, the article reflects on legal historiography, on the role of legal judgments as official records of the events they document, and on how what is recorded in judgments becomes the official memory of events, marginalising and strategically forgetting other stories to achieve judgment and resolution. The story of the struggles of the ALFC to purchase land for Aboriginal people in Queensland disrupts a too easy memorialising of Koowarta, and presents an alternative source for remembering the events surrounding the Koowarta litigation, to deepen our appreciation of official and unofficial struggles for Aboriginal justice in the 1970s and 1980s.

The ecological consequences of Buffel Grass Cenchrus ciliaris establishment within remnant vegetation of Queensland

The effects of Buffel Grass Cenchrus ciliaris presence and dominance in 78 Poplar Box Eucalyptus populnea woodland remnants of south central Queensland are documented, Buffel Grass was recorded from the majority of sites sampled, As the relative cover of Buffel Grass increased at both the quadrat and site level, the number of native ground cover species declined significantly. Most commonly recorded ground cover species displayed significant changes in frequency as Buffel Grass cover increased, Only two species increased with increased Buffel Grass cover: Desert Goosefoot Chenopodium desertorum subsp. anidiophyllum and Galvanised Burr Sclerolaena birchii. The average cover of Buffel Grass decreased significantly from the edge of remnants towards the core areas. The foliage projected cover of the sub-canopy layers appeared to be an important factor affecting the relative cover of Buffel Grass at any one site indicating that shading and competition with the woody layers are important determinants in the structure and composition of the ground cover layer. A number of sub-canopy species were found to produce leachates that were capable of significantly reducing the germination or growth of Buffel Grass seeds, alluding that allelopathy may play a minor role in determining ground cover species assemblages. However, this result can only be interpreted conservatively in relation to its ecological relevance with effects related to competition with overstorey woody species being of greater importance. This study quantifies the long observed effect that the exotic perennial Buffel Grass excludes other ground cover species, which may have detrimental ramifications on the functioning of remnant native vegetation over much of the state. With the recent introduction of regulations controlling broad scale tree clearing on both freehold and leasehold lands in Queensland, it is now important to identify a range of issues pertaining to the effective on ground management of remnant vegetation located outside the existing nature refuge network.

Class, Status and Land Conflict: The Democratisation of Grazing Lands in Queensland

One of the recurring themes of environmental sociology is the manner in which detrimental environmental effects are differentially distributed, disadvantaging those of lower class and lesser status. In the case of agricultural land in western societies, extensive restructuring and industrialisation of agriculture's biological processes has led to concentration of land in the hands of a few, a phenomenon associated with massive land degradation. The grazing industry in Australia is an extreme example of land concentration with millions of hectares held by the top 50 producers. This paper addresses the issues of land conflict arising from Australia's international commitment to ecologically sustainable development and recent court judgements supporting indigenous rights to land tenure and management on grazing lands in Queensland.The paper has three primary aims. The first is to examine how the historical pattern of land holding in Queensland led to the creation of a powerful grazing elite with concomitant perceptions of their rights of occupation of grazing lands. The second thrust is to discuss how ecologically sustainable development has caused land management decisions to shift from being a private business matter to a public process and debate. Thirdly, the consequences of the Land Title legislation, as reformed in 1998, are elucidated and their impact on historical forms of tenure, class and status is discussed. The democratisation of land management in Queensland has profound implications for the historical land uses of cattle and sheep grazing.

Weed Control Research by the Biological Section, Department of Lands, at the Alan Fletcher Research Station

Abstract Full-time research on weed control is carried out by the Biological Section of the Department of Lands at the Alan Fletcher Research Station at Sherwood, near Brisbane. This research is generally confined to weeds of pasture land, reserves, stock routes, roads and waste places. (Weeds of arable land in Queensland are dealt with by the Department of Primary Industries). The scope of this station's work is reviewed.