The federal government will provide $300,000 to trial biological control agents to stop the spread of fireweed, one of eastern Australia’s most invasive pest weeds.
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Funding will go to the CSIRO to accelerate the assessment of flea beetles as a potential biological agent to control fireweed.
Bega Valley Fireweed Association conveyor Noel Watson was excited to hear the news, saying he was told by a one of the research scientist if everything went right flea beetles would be able to be released in 2019.
“We’ll be winners or losers,” he said.
“We would be losers if something goes wrong and they can’t release the bug because it eats something it shouldn’t.”
Mr Watson said the weed had been “poking around” the Bega Valley since the 1980s.
“But nobody took much notice of it,” he said.
“Back then, the DPI put out an ag fact sheet saying it wouldn’t be a problem in areas where there is frost.
“Well, it proved that wrong.”
Fireweed is still spreading and we honestly don’t know where it will end up.
- Noel Watson
The life-long Valley resident said while it looked like there were not many fireweed plants around the region in June, if you looked closely there were millions coming up.
“Come August or September, we’ll be yellow,” Mr Watson said.
“Fireweed is still spreading and we honestly don’t know where it will end up.
“Some people say we are just working for Bega but we are not, we are working for Australia.”
Member for Eden-Monaro Peter Hendy said the CSIRO project will undertake a risk assessment of potential control agents including testing against key plants and progressing the application process for importing the flea beetle into quarantine for further research in Australia.
He said if successful, the research will lead to a cost-effective fireweed management solution assisting farmers with increased pasture productivity, improved cattle health and lower death rates.
Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Anne Ruston said fireweed is a weed of national significance estimated to cost NSW farmers around $18million annually in herbicide costs alone, as well as requiring about 50 hours of additional on farm control works per year.
“This pest weed is an aggressive, invasive weed having spread over the past 100 years from the Hunter Valley to grazing lands ranging from the NSW far south coast to south-east Queensland, with inland infestations as far as the Atherton Tablelands in northern Queensland,” she said.
The fireweed project has been funded from the $50million Established Pest Animals and Weeds initiative from the $4billion Ag White Paper.
