Central QLD Grazier Natalie Williams writes:
Steve, this is the information John Rains has sent me on the recent Gamba Grass Conference.Brazil is looming as a world player in the global beef market and will eventually put enormous pressure on Australia’s traditional beef markets.Brazil has hundreds of thousands of hectares of highly productive (African) Gamba grass pastures.
Gamba Pasture at ribeiro Campo Grande Matto Grosso du sol Brazil.
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Brazil is embracing productive pasture plants. Unfortunately Australia did so twenty years ago but have since lost the plot writes John Rains of Southedge Seeds Pty Ltd at Mareeba.
At present no public pasture research is being done here in Australia. We are relying on hand outs from South American research. Attending the Gamba conference held on the 29th of October John wrote, “I had the feeling from the tone of the Conference that the decision to ban the planting of Gamba grass in QLD is a fait accompli. (the Department of primary Industry wants to declare it a noxious weed).
I get the strong impression that if Gamba is knocked off, other productive forage plants like Buffel, Leucaena etc. are next on the hit list, Mr Rains wrote. Gamba under control grazing at Mareeba North QLD.
Some facts about Gamba:
Gamba grass is a tall (c. 4m) grass native to tropical Africa. It is sold and planted in QLD to provide forage for cattle. Gamba grass provides fodder for cattle when fenced and grazed heavily. Its estimated that after sowing Gamba grass on a 5,000ha cleared and fertilised area, stock numbers could increase from 100-250 to 1,250 head and liveweight gains could increase from 80-100 to 110-140 kg/head.
It is climatically suited to Northern Australia, particularly the gulf country.
Savanah fire at Daly Waters in the Northern Territory.
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The main thrust for Gamba to be banned would appear to be driven by the situation and experience at Bachelor in the Top End of the Northern Territory where urban development has encrouched into bush land where Gamba is present and grazing systems have been removed.The dry matter fuel load that Gamba can produce can produce in an uncontrolled situation can create destructive fires when they occur at critical high temperature times of the year. Gamba grass in a grazing system, because of it’s high palatability, will not get to critical fuel loads.
Mr Rains asks:
- Why are these intended controls aimed at graziers only?
- Why is there a percieved perverse attitude to grazing plants, by governments and research agencies?
- Why arn’t resources being directed at controling Giant Rats Tail,Thatch grass and other useless plants. Giant Rats Tail and Thatch grass have a far greater environmental impact, have a greater climatic range, and have a much lower palatability for grazing animals.
For more information on this topic just leave a comment and we will forward it onto John Rains or you can contact him at:
J P Rains General Manager, Southedge Seeds Pty Ltd, 24 Tinaroo Ck Rd. Mareeba
PH 61 740 86 2400 FAX 61 740 922 345 Email Click here
Website www.southedgeseeds.com
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Agree entirely with John. I have watched Giant Rat’s Tail Grass spreading on a property not far away while all our government watchdogs do nothing. They even had a field day, but made no attempt to eradicate the small infestation while it was small.
Same with fire weed, which is coming. But they want to force us to remove useful plants like leucaena, tipuana, Chinese elm.
I live in the Taroom area and realize that Gamba is a tropical grass but am concerned that the rabid greenies /conservationists seem hell bent on destroying the grazing industry. Is there a course of action that I can take to support you ?
G’day Viv & Anita,
As for action to take, I’ll let John Rains come back to us on that.
Also waiting for an update from AgForce on this. In John’s information it was interesting that he pointed out that AgForce had nominated that they would have 3 people attending the Gamba Conference but unfortunately they failed to show up at all.
Cheers
Steve Truman - Agmates 100% Pro farmers http://www.agmates.com
I am not an Australian grazier and I have no first hand knowledge of Gamba grass. I do, however, work on sustainable agriculture in the tropics. I am aware that some of these invasive plant “experts” just surf the web looking for any item that they can interpret as being negative about a plant. I have worked with a totally sterile non-invasive grass (that does not spread) for almost 20 years now. There is a huge body of information on its benign nature yet some of these invasive plant “experts” still condemn it as being invasive, without scrutinizing the poor information they have based their opinions on. I believe that they are just cashing in on a trendy field that they can easily get funding for. Their decisions may well be less than reliable for other species too.
Cheers
Don