Direct seeding has great potential on Esperance soils

 Participants from South Coast NRM, Esperance Regional Forum, the Department of Environment and Conservation, the Shire of Esperance and members of the public recently attended a direct seeding two day workshop conducted by Dr. Geoff Woodall.

The workshop presented by ERF and South Coast NRM was held in Esperance February 1^st and 2^nd.

This was followed by a full day of farm visits to inspect various examples and results of native revegetation.

With the main aim being to improve and restore farmland and nature reserves by revegetation, the key objective of the workshop was to determine the viability of sowing native seed rather than planting tube stock plants in terms of cost and quality of results.

Topics for discussion included machinery and equipment to be used for direct seeding, soil types, nutritional supplements, weed and pest control, drainage, fencing, seeds, seed germination, seed storage and site preparation.

An important aspect of the two day workshop was to determine whether existing seeding machinery owned by DEC and shared with ERF were suitable for the Esperance region.  The group looked at a number of pieces of equipment and discussed modifications. After simple modifications, these machines will be capable of best practice site preparation and precision sowing which should ensure good results from direct seeding in the Esperance region.

Three properties with quite different soil types were inspected.  To the east of Esperance a property owned by Mr. Chris Reichstein had several examples of direct seeding.  Chris explained that he had seeded with mixed success however there were excellent examples of good results.   To the west in rich red Dalyup loam,  Mr. Laurence Bielken provided examples of where direct seeding native trees could be done in a rather stony landscape to achieve property management and biodiversity outcomes.

The final property belonging to Mr. Adrian Welke to the south west provided excellent examples of revegetation on sandy non wetting soils.   Fencing to keep out cattle was a key factor to the success of the revegetation however there was some evidence of kangaroo damage.

Sites were identified to be revegetated, species selection was discussed and later in the year when the seeding machinery has been modified we can expect to see Dr. Woodall back to follow up on what was a very productive two day workshop.