Reefcare Report: Tackling Burr Medic, Oat grass, Bromus

Lovely Site photo: clouds and sea are aligned - Photo by Mahi

A lovely sunny day greeted the few of us, that had not gone away for the October Long Weekend; which meant that we did not have the boots on the ground to plant the Carpobrotus tube stock which we had brought along… always another time.

Julie continued to work up the top on asparagus fern as she has done for many, many months, slowing moving further west as she clears an area. Up the top of the site near where Julie is working a red wattlebird was seen - they like the Banksia, so we don't see them further down Long Reef point and on our grassland site.

Julie working on Asparagus fern - Photo by Mahi

Red Wattlebird - Photo by Mahi

The rest of the team, Mary, Arthur, Mahi and myself did some weeding on our site along the path where there was a great array of weeds; before then saying, let’s get onto our real site area where we worked on Burr Medic as well as oat grass and Bromus.  The Burr Medic is not quite as bad as previous years, so hopefully now the targeting of the last dozen years is now starting to pay off. 

The Oat grass and bromus this year are also far less numerous than the previous few years, which is unusual for this time of year.  Has the weather not been good for these weeds? Has our past few years attention in targeting these weeds managed to reduce the number?  Wish I knew the answer – let’s hope it means our past several years’ work targeting this weed has worked.

Below are two holes dug in the dirt which we have now been finding for about a year now, we think these are from bandicoots. - Photos by Mahi

We stopped for morning tea at 10:30am - Mahi brought us a beautiful caramel cake for morning tea and some fruit juice.   

Arthur, Mary and Lisa at morning tea, waiting for the caramel cake to arrive!

We finished the day with several very full weed bags, as some of the Burr Medic can grow to quite a size. Other weeds that were targeted were blackberry nightshade, various thistles and of course – asparagus fern.

Text by Lisa