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Lets Try It: Native Seed Propagation

Wednesday 11th November was a lovely evening to be learning about seed propagation with Alison Elvin and Kath McGuirk at the Yass Landcare Community Nursery.
 
Participants learnt about seed collecting, cleaning and storage from Alison before getting their hands dirty and sowing seed. Kath also taught everyone about how to thin crowded seedlings and clean out moss and liverwort that interferes with seedling growth. Some of the plants sown last night will be planted as part of autumn 2021 Climate Wise community plantings.
 
This was the second propagation workshop, part of the Climate Wise Plating Project which is focusing on plants that will be able to survive and thrive with the climate changes that we expect in the Yass area. Climate Wise Planting is one component of the Let’s Try It Project initiated by the Bowning/Bookham Landcare Group. Another component is ‘community conversations’ – talking about what’s happening to our local climate, ways we can respond and deciding where and how we (as individuals, groups and communities) can make a difference. The other hands-on components of the Let’s Try It Project are focused on improving soils and improving pasture management in order to capture carbon and have resilient production systems.
 
The Let's Try It Project is funded and supported by NSW Government, South East Local Land Services, Yass Valley Council, and Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups.
 
  
 
 

The proven value of the Bango hot house

The Community Environment Program grant funded the acquisition of a hot house at the Bango Bowning-Bookham site, and it has proved to be an important resource to enable the Bango nursery team to sow and grow plants over the 2020 Autumn-Winter period.

From April to November 2020 the Bango team have sown 4,320 tubes of native plants in the hothouse. To date 100 plants have been delivered to the BushFire recovery project near Bemboka which is funded by a Michael King grant from Landcare Australia.  A large number of the sowings in the Bango hot house have included Koala preferred Eucalyptus which will be sold to persons who either have an interest in providing habitat for Koalas and-or live near the Mundoonen Range where Koala sighting/sound detection is being progressed through Gunning District Landcare's Mates of Mundoonen project.

 

A sample of the Eucalyptus sown in the Bango hot house over Autumn-Winter 2020 includes:

  • Camaldulensis - river red gum
  • Viminalis - ribbon gum
  • Albens - white box
  • Eurabbie
  • Mellidora - yellow box
  • Microcarpa - grey box
  • Cinerea - argyle apple
  • Polyanthemos - red box
  • Maidenii - maiden's gum
  • Nortonii - large flowered bundy
  • Ovata  - swamp gum
  • Pauciflora - snow gum
  • Goniocalyx - bundy gum
  • Dealbata - tumbledown gum
  • Blakelyi - blakely's red gum
  • Mannifera - brittle gum

 During that same time the Yass Landcare nursery experienced either poor germination and growth or very slow growth over that period - thus a hot house is now high on the agenda for Yass Landcare Community Nursery to enable all year round sowing and growing of either local or project specific plants.

 

 

  

Lets Try It: Propagation from Cuttings

There was a good turn out at the 'Propagation From Cuttings' workshop held at Yass Landcare Nursery on Sunday 1st November. We all learnt a lot from Dave Bishop, who is very experienced with propagation and who has established a wonderful native garden in Yass (check out his page at YASS Australian Native Plants). He specialises in Eremophila species, which survive well in dry conditions. We got to take some cuttings home, as well as leave some at the nursery for community planting days next autumn. 
And big thanks to Kath McGuirk for all that she does at the nursery and helping with these events!
 
The propagation workshop was part of the Climate Wise Plating Project which is focusing on plants that will be able to survive and thrive with the climate changes that we expect in the Yass area. Climate Wise Planting is one component of the Let’s Try It Project initiated by the Bowning/Bookham Landcare Group. Another component is ‘community conversations’ – talking about what’s happening to our local climate, ways we can respond and deciding where and how we (as individuals, groups and communities) can make a difference. The other hands-on components of the Let’s Try It Project are focused on improving soils and improving pasture management in order to capture carbon and have resilient production systems.
 
The Let's Try It Project is funded and supported by NSW Government, South East Local Land Services, Yass Valley Council, and Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups.
 
  

Major milestone: 2020 'Climate Ready' seed now sown

Three Landcare nurseries within the Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups (YAN) completed sowing of local, and what we call 'admixture' seed - seed that is from hotter-drier and cooler-wetter regions during October 2020. This is a major milestone of YAN's Climate Ready Project.

The Climate Ready sowing consisted of Eucalyptus melliodora (Yellow Box), Acacia deanei  (Green wattle) and Dodonea viscosa (Hop bush). All seed was purchased from the Greening Australia seed collecting network. The 'local' seed was sourced from localities including Captains Flat, Cotter, Weston Creek, Boorowa, Bookham and Yass. The admixture seed came from regions within western NSW and Qld and Vic - some localities included Lithgow, Coonabarabran, Holbrook, Urana, Henty, Tomingley, Elginvale, Mathoura, and Moree. Further detail on this project can be found here.

   

 

 

 

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Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups - YAN