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Bowning Bookham Landcare | Winters Dinner

A wonderful diverse group of members and friends came together at the Bowning hall to celebrate what the Bowning Bookham Landcare group had achieved this year at our annual winters dinner. 

After a warming winters meal from the Bookham Berriemangra Red Cross the group settled in to listen to the inspirational story of John Ives, Ultrafine merino breeder. John talked the group through how he and his wife Robyn took on a heavily saline affected property, “Talaheni”, and how they reduced the impact of the salinity, lowered the water table and turned it into a productive farming property over the last few decades. John’s dedication to monitoring the progress of the changes they’d implemented and his willingness to observe, adapt and change his thinking over time was motivating to many in the group. 

Everyone had a great evening meeting new people and enjoying a meal together. 

 

 

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This event was supported by south East Local Land Service though funding from the Australian Governments National Landcare Program.

Landcare Australia Michael King Grant Funds Climate Ready Plants

YAN and Murrumbateman Landcare has been very lucky over the last few years to have won grants from the Landcare Australia Michael King grant to fund nursery activities.  

The 2022-23 grant is funding our acquisition of native seed for 40 plants on our Climate Ready nursery list.   For each of the 40 plants that we grow - we attempt to source seed from 3 to 6 different bio-regions across the eastern states, this requires a lot of negotiation with seed suppliers.  We also test each batch of purchased seed to ensure its viability before distributing to our nursery team for Spring-Summer sowing.

In our Landcare nurseries each Spring-Summer we sow seed - we then weed, thin and oversee the growth of paddock plants which are usually ready for planting the next Autumn. 

Thank you Michael King for your ongoing support of our Landcare nurseries.

 

  

 

 

Monitoring our Waterways

YAN  has been contracted by NSW Department of Planning and Environment to undertake water testing on local waterways in the Yass, Bowning, Bango, and Murrumbateman regions. Sampling points on the following waterways are included in this water flow and salinity testing process, Derringullen, Bowning, Washpen, Limestone, Gallop, Derringullen, Bango, Mantons, Murrumbateman, Englands, Dicks and Hickeys Creeks.  Water testing results feed into NSW water databases.  This is an  example of our regional Landcare network working with a State Government agency to collect water flow and salinity information from our regional waterways. 

   

Bowning Bookham Landcare| Revealing the Potential of Remnant Vegetation Guided Walk

As a part of our Habitat Hops project a keen group took a short guided walk by Sue McIntyre & Alison Elivn through some areas of remnant vegetation on the Black Range Road. In a short area there was a variety of different forms of remnant vegetation including the treed areas, midstory shrubs as well as native grasses and forbs.

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Some great discussions were had around;
- What remnant vegetation is and how to enhance what you have
- Different management techniques, such as using thinning, fire, fallen timber, grazing management and adding specific plants back into an ecosystem.
- The plants that provide a winter food source for native birds and animals
- The distinction between the native love grasses and the invasive introduced Afican Lovegrass (Eragrostis curvula)
- Lovely rich detail about many of our native grasses, shrubs, forbs and trees.
- Parasitic plants such as mistletoe and hemi parasitic plants like the native cherry tree

It’s always a pleasure spending time with Sue & Alison and you always head home with something new.

More information about our Habitat Hops Project and how to get involved can be found on the Habitat Hops page.

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