Low Cost Rehabilitation of Perennial Grass Pastures by Managing Seedling Recruitment (CSU)

Summary

The Project developed lower-cost management practices to successfully re-establish perennial grass plants within existing typical native/naturalised grasslands of central New South Wales without resowing. Such grassland types occupied 10-15m ha in New South Wales alone with similar communities in the other south-eastern states.
The Project is a modification of the terminated project USY.022, between The University of Sydney (Orange) and MLA. The first milestone in this Project included a review of the planned program (as this project replaces the previous project (US.022) using the residual of the funds available) and consider additional arrangements that took into account related projects (principally MLA/AWI Weed.125 and SGSL Kings Park project on stimulating seed germination).
Research was in two main phases. The first phase investigated the micro-sites where recruitment naturally occurs within grasslands and the mechanisms regulating germinable seed production within those grasslands to determine new approaches to managing re-establishment. The second phase integrated the results from the first phase and explored those management practices that producers could use to enhance recruitment of desirable perennial grasses over the general weed flora (particularly the dominant annual grasses) in grasslands.