Hi Liz (and Gil)
Graham Strong and his family at Narrandera has had
good success with direct seeding local tree species - they were featured on
the front cover of "The Land" newspaper earlier this year - they use a 30
foot (I think) air seeder. Seems to me the common thing that successful
direct seeding implements have is (as Gil described ) a system of blade
scraping or similar to clear aside the shallow topsoil layer containing the
weed seeds and leaving a strip a foot or so wide of completely bare soil to
seed into.
Liz for info on chemical effects try the Northwest Co-alition Against
Pesticides NCAP search should locate it. Look at roundup and the soil active
herbicides first - there is a lot of references - also David Suzuki's book
"Naked Ape to Super Species" heaps of reference material too. The scientists
have done the research work and its published but nothing gets any further -
funds are cut and the info gets buried.
Also Gil there was a feature on Landline several months back about clay
pelleting seed these people were doing it by hand - making pellets about
marble size with a mix of native seeds in the clay - so that if enough rain
came to dissolve the large clay pellet and expose seed there was a
reasonable chance there was enough moisture to get germination and
establishment of the seeds. Is this what you are doing??
Cheers
Lloyd Charles
