Title: Leucaena legume declared Whitsunday weed in Australia

[ABC News 07 March 2012 by Kim Honan] -- Environmentalists see it as a weed, but for graziers it can mean a substantial profit. Although leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala) is not declared a pest plant under Queensland legislation, it hasn't stopped one local council declaring it a weed in its region. Leucaena is used as a forage legume for cattle mainly in the central and southern parts of the state. Dingo grazier Luke Comiskey says the benefits of growing leucaena are evident. "We've been grazing it quite heavily, it's going really well, getting a very high stocking rate from it and an even better weight gain as well so you're getting a double benefit," he said. "Probably one of the better things you can do with your money is put it into planting leucaena, it just gives you so much more scope." But for graziers further north in the Whitsunday region, growing leucaena will now involve the approval of a management plan by the local council, after it decided to declare it a weed. Whitsunday Regional Council's Scott Hardy says leucaena is an invasive plant and infestations of it have increased in the region in recent years. "With leucaena now being a locally declared weed this gives council a little bit of power to work with landholders a little bit more but also issue compliance orders to try to get landholders to control their infestations," he said. "Leucaena's okay when it's in a managed situation but when there's a bit of a lax in management and the seeds escape the grazing property into the creeks, that's where some problems and infestations can occur." [Photo caption: Cattle graze on leucaena near Rockhampton, Queensland. (DEEDI)]

Mr Hardy says council will be working closely with graziers to draw up a suitable management plan for their crops which will need to comply with the Leucaena Code of Practice. "So that there's some understanding that the graziers, if they're going to grow leucaena, they'll be responsible for any rogue seeds which leave their property and infestations which result from that."

DEEDI senior pasture agronomist Stuart Buck says the declaration is preferable to a total ban on the use of leucaena.He says graziers should already be abiding by the Code of Practice developed by The Leucaena Network, 12 years ago, and that it shouldn't be hard for graziers to have management plans approved. "We strongly advocate that graziers follow the Code of Practice and we actually state very clearly that if they don't follow it and have no intentions to that they shouldn't be growing leucaena full stop," he said."Leucaena is a wonderful plant, it can basically double beef production, or more than double beef production, per hectare per year compared to grass only pastures, it's a very profitable plant to grow, it's a long-lived plant so it's highly productive." "I do know that other councils have already been looking at leucaena as a weed and are talking about leucaena as a weed potential in their local area so the actual danger I think would be that they ban it totally or declare it a weed and ban the actual grazing use of leucaena."

And while environmentalists regard leucaena as a invasive weed, Mr Buck says leucaena possesses numerous environmental attributes that often get lost in the weed debate. "It's a deep rooted plant therefore minimises deep drainage; it's a nitrogen producer so helps produce nitrogen for the grass to grow amongst it which helps groundcover minimising run-off and erosion; it has an amazing ability to store carbon in the soil, and also in the stem,s and therefore the above ground parts.""It also has been shown by some good work with the CSIRO people to have some really wonderful methane benefits, so reduction in methane production from cattle on leucaena.

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Article: WeedsNews3036 (permalink)
Categories: :WeedsNews:weed control, :WeedsNews:councils, :WeedsNews:fodder, :WeedsNews:grazing
Date: 8 March 2012; 12:42:44 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time

Author Name: David Low
Author ID: adminDavid