Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups

Kath McGuirk the deserving winner of the 2020 John Betts Award

01 December 2020

Kath McGuirk, Chair of YAN, was the deserving (and surprised) recipient of the John Betts award YAN's AGM on Tuesday 24th November. The John Betts Award was established in 2007 in memory of local Landcare legend John Betts and recognises outstanding service to Landcare. Nan Betts attended the AGM to present the award to Kath. Thanks for everything you do Kath!! Below is a summary of some of Kath's achievements from Linda Thane and Elizabeth Goodfellow from Bowning Bookham Landcare Group.

"Kath was a founding member of the restarted Bowning Bookham Landcare Group in 2016 , and in the all-important secretary role, played a key role in developing the group into the large and active Landcare Group it is now.

Kath has shown both enthusiasm and leadership, which has enabled regional Landcare groups to undertake a number of worthwhile projects, including extensive tree planting operations on many properties in the district and community projects such as habitat regeneration at Bowning Cemetery. Always keen to educate herself by attending workshops and field trips, Kath has championed projects which focus on teaching new skills to school children, landowners and the whole community. These include monitoring habitat change, bird surveys, identifying and collecting native seeds and regenerative pasture management.

Landcare nurseries and seed collections are Kath’s passion. Kath lead the set up and maintenance of the Bowning Bookham Landcare Group’s first nursery at Bowning Public School, and has facilitated the development of two nurseries at the homes of members within Bowning-Bookham. These nurseries have since raised over 20,000 seedlings for members and for distribution to other landholders in the area. At one nursery, a greenhouse has been added to enable seed raising over winter, greatly enhancing the group’s capacity to grow plants. Both of the Bowning-Bookham Landcare nurseries are participating in the exciting Climate Ready Project, growing species from different regions to support research into climate adaptation.

Kath has also been an essential member of the YAN Climate Ready Vegetation project team since 2018 - including setting up the YAN nursery managers network and developing the nursery practices needed to support a trial of multiple species with multiple seed provenances. Taking the Landcare nursery coordination, scale and practices to a whole new level.

Of course, all of this requires money as well as hard work, and Kath has been an effective grant applicant, and always followed through with results, which is essential for future projects. Most importantly, Kath’s can-do attitude and cheerfulness has helped sustain the group’s enthusiasm through a very tough period for farmers, which augers well for coping with whatever lies ahead."

Lets Try It: Native Seed Propagation

17 November 2020

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

17 November 2020

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

02 November 2020

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.