A novel approach to weed management in Australia is being investigated with the start of a project that aims to research the management, economic and social benefits of tackling weeds on a broader scale.

The traditional approach to tackling weeds has been to focus on paddock or farm scale management. Instead, this project aims to take an area-wide approach to weed management.

The theory being that if the number of weeds over the entire landscape can be reduced, everyone in that area should benefit, especially when dealing with weeds with mobile seed and pollen. This includes considering potential benefits across different land uses such as dryland, irrigated horticultural land and public areas like roadsides.

In the Sunraysia region, MSF will be working with broadacre farmers, wine grape, dried fruit, citrus, and almond growers to trial different weed management practices to control flaxleaf fleabane and especially where some industries share a boundary.

There are a number of potential weed issues related to fleabane’s ability to move across farm borders. This includes herbicide resistance spread, new weeds entering districts and spray drift. In the MSF Sunraysia region, we will be trialling weed management practices in partnership with local stakeholders and the potential broader economic impact of reducing weed spread will be evaluated.

A weed management survey has already been conducted to assess the herbicide resistance status of plants as well as genotyping to determine how far populations move and we hope to share the results of this very soon.

This project is all about bringing land managers together to identify cases with likely high payoffs and what it would take for a more collaborative approach to be attractive and successful.

Called the ‘Area Wide Management for cropping systems weeds, investigating the weed management, social and economic opportunity’ this project aims to take a new approach to weed management.

This project is supported through funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources as part of its Rural R&D for Profit program and the Grains Research and Development Corporation and the Cotton Research and Development Corporation.