JUNE 2022

From the Upper Merri Landcare Facilitator

Welcome to the latest newsletter from the Upper Merri Landcare Facilitator and the Merri Creek Management Committee. Please find below information on local initiatives, opportunities and funding.

To subscribe see link below.

If you would like to share photos, events, updates and projects through the Upper Merri Landcare News. Please email through your submissions to: chriscobern@mcmc.org.au

Recent Events

Wallan Environment Group - Taylors Creek Planting Day

On Monday 13th June the Wallan Environment Group (WEG) held a planting day along Taylors Creek in Wallan. A group of dedicated WEG volunteers planted 270 plants in the Indigenous Use Garden and surrounding area of the Taylors Creek Reserve. Most of the plants were grasses, ground covers and small shrubs used as infill plantings.

Included in these photos is the invitation photo from 2014 for the original planting day. Yes, it is the same area of Taylors Creek. Unrecognisable! Most of the original plantings along the creek were done by WEG with the support of Mitchell Shire and the Wallan Scout Group.

A tributary of the Merri Creek, Taylors Creek has developed into a popular passive recreational area serving Wallan’s new housing subdivisions.

Queensland Fruit Fly 

Reports of fruit fly maggots have been coming in recently from the Seymour and Broadford areas.
You need to act now and get ready for next season.
Seymour Agricultural Society are selling fruit fly traps and baits, and you can organise to have you trap re-baited at a minimal cost. Traps and baits are available at the Tallarook farmers market.

For more information contact the Seymour Agricultural and Pastoral Society.
Pam 0422 058 213 or secretary@seymouragshow.org.au

Get your neighbours on board as well with managing their fruit and vegies to reduce the spread of QLD fruit fly. It is a joint effort to manage in the neighbourhood, otherwise infection keeps coming over the fence.

Clean up any fallen fruit, bag and bin it so they don’t act as harbour. Orchard hygiene is extremely important to manage this pest.

It is important not to feed infected fruit to chooks or other animals, or place fruit into the compost bin. The maggots will move down into the soil, and hatch as another round of flies and keep infecting your fruit and vegetables.

Dung Beetle Distribution & Establishment Program

Expressions of interest are open for landcare and community groups that: 

Groups willing to host on-farm beetle nurseries as a way of multiplying the numbers of new species before they are released across your region.

Groups able to identify potential sites for beetle release and then monitor these sites in future years to check for establishment.

Groups who can run beetle monitoring sites to provide information on activity gaps within specific regions.

Groups committed to growing the knowledge of the importance of dung beetles in your area through sharing information and organising training opportunities. 

Find out more here.

Download Expression of Interest form here.

Funding Opportunities

Victorian Serrated Tussock Working Party - Community Grants 

The Victorian Serrated Tussock Working Party (VSTWP) is providing community groups and organisations with the opportunity to apply for grants to manage serrated tussock.
Grants of up to $5,000 (GST excluded) are available to deliver a project which meets the priorities and criteria outlined in these guidelines.
Please see the guidelines and application form below, which includes how to submit the grant application, contact details and the criteria for assessment.

Grants are currently open for application: 
Apply here: VSTWP Community Grant Application form
Guidelines here: VSTWP Community Grant Guidelines

Victorian Gorse Taskforce Small Community Grants - NEW CLOSING DATE - 24 June

Do you have gorse? 

The Victorian Gorse Taskforce (VGT) is calling for grant applications for their 2022/2023 Small Community Grants Program.

The VGT are interested in supporting groups, starting from just two landholders, who are genuinely willing to control gorse and stay on top of it.

Grants up to $5000 are available for successful applicants. Grants are open now and close Friday 24th June.

For more information, and to apply visit: Community Grants - Victorian Gorse Taskforce (vicgorsetaskforce.com.au) or contact the VGT Excecutive Officer - 0417 593 250 

Landcare & Other Resources

Indigenous Plant Use Booklet

Zena Cumpston, a Barkandji woman, and Melbourne University research fellow, has created the Indigenous plants use: A booklet on the medicinal, nutritional and technological use of indigenous plants (The University of Melbourne, 2020).

The booklet has been published to help individuals, schools and community groups in Victoria grow and appreciate indigenous plants. It contains information on more than 50 indigenous plant species, including their uses by Aboriginal people.

The May edition of the Landcare in Focus Magazine is out now.

From a Landcare Led Bushfire Recovery Project bringing together schools, landcarers, landholders, ecologists and Traditional Owners to protect fire affected bird life, to a WIRES Landcare Wildlife Relief and Recovery project empowering citizen scientists to investigate long term impacts of disasters on Platypus – the breadth of landcare work within communities across our country continues to expand.

Together we are showcasing the value of local experience and motivation in caring for our country, and demonstrating to Australia that not only are we future focused, but we are in it for the long haul.

To read the latest issue go to - May 2022 Issue.

Win for Native Grassland

The Grassy Plains Network received very good news recently when VCAT issued its ruling rejecting the developer's application to subdivide the 35 hectare Ajax Road Grassland.  The area now gets to stay and do what it does best – be habitat for birds and lizards and critically endangered plants, provide ecological connectivity, build vital urban resilience and just be a piece of wild nature in the big city. Read more here.