Production and Adoption of Native Grass Seed in Australia

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Table of Contents

Challenges in the Adoption of Native Grass Seed Production in Australia
Why Native Grass Seeds?
Annual Cropping, No-till Cropping, or Pasture Cropping?
Recommendations
References

I am writing for The Economist to educate the Aboriginal Australian grass production farmers and government agencies faced with challenges of such degradation as losses of perennial grasses with reduced native seed fabrication for revegetation.

Challenges in the Adoption of Native Grass Seed Production in Australia

The adoption of native grass production in Australian industries is an important procedure for both viable agriculture and an economically stable society. Nevertheless, aboriginal species of grass seed production for agricultural programs are failing because of the effects of desertification (Kassam, Friedrich & Derpsch, 2019). Desert encroachment is a major issue in most parts of the native grass production of the semi-arid and arid areas of Australia. For instance, according to Rayment and French (2021), most of Australias grassland farms are affected by a given form of degradation, with the major being the loss of perennial grasses.

The damage to perennial crops is assumed to be a consequence of poor grazing management practices, which are incompatible with sustainable land use. A loss of native grass to annual crops and pastures has resulted in soil salinity, thus a natural resource management problem in the country. The present article aims to institute a strategy that addresses these degradation issues through reseeding and revegetating the dry-land areas with introduced perennial species that are resistant to perennial losses.

Why Native Grass Seeds?

Native grass on the mainland grassland community of the Aboriginal Australian farmers covers a vast landscape in the country. However, in recent research, the production of native grass seeds for revegetation has received a limited application for farmland activities because of the ongoing insight that introduced species are freely customized, more profitable, more dynamic, and more tenacious. In Australia, seeds belonging to the locally sourced cultivars of the extensive species of native grasses that are effortlessly planted in cultivation are only available in substantial quantities (Pedrini & Dixon, 2020).

However, previous forms of revegetation of the seeds have majorly dependent on planting trees and shrubs as the primary practice. As such, native grasses are commonly seeded on small-scale lands with the application of easily sourced species.

The aim of the country is to institute large-scale production of seeds through native plant revegetation. However, if Australia is to follow strategy succinctly, the accessibility of enough supplies of the traditionally modified seed proves an issue of great strategic significance.

Despite the significance of the perennial native farmlands for native grass production, the native seed is required in large quantities to discourse the prevailing such environmental challenges as weed control and wildfire management, loss of biodiversity, and the promotion of the wildlife environment (Corwin, 2021). Conversely, the dry land requires urgent revegetation at a scale that native grass seed enterprises are failing to meet. Moreover, although there is an increased demand for seed, the native grass seed market for native grass production experiences large price fluctuations, hence hampering the stability of the market.

As a consequence, the price fluctuations and demand are instigating the Aboriginal farmers in Australia to cross-examine available strategies for improving the seed production structure. In the past couple of years, there has been a developing interest in environmental challenges in Australia. Particularly, the use of the ecologically sustainable development guidelines necessitates the contemplation of the conservation of biological diversity and ecological reliability for native seed production (Broadhurst, Waters & Coates, 2018). The principle of ecological production results in an improved desire from the local community farmers and the federal government agencies to revegetate native grasses rather than the planning of a single broad range of grass species that are traditionally adapted from each specific species (Broadhurst et al., 2018).

The demand is not only for large-scale native grass seeds production but also for the use of herbicide-resistant seeds that meets the demand of the climatic weather conditions due to global warming. Nevertheless, the issue of seed production increases the dilemma of which method of production is economically viable to provide sustained long-term drivers for the growth of native seed enterprises.

Annual Cropping, No-till Cropping, or Pasture Cropping?

The use of annual cropping for native grass production and revegetation is necessary for increased large-scale food production, though it is faced with a low level of ecosystem regulation leading to loss of environmental control measures. For instance, the losses of perennial crops are associated with such ecological devastating impacts as dry-land salinization of farmers mainland and waters from the rivers due to use of certain herbicides, loss of top-soil through attrition, and such effects of global warming as sporadic floods (Li Liu et al., 2017). Accordingly, the effect of ecological impacts results in annual restricted native grass production, though with increased devastating outcomes.

For instance, in the Narrabri region in Australia, with large pieces of land under grass production, most growers farmlands suffer increased soil erosion. The practice of clearing the native perennial foliage and replacing it with annual crops tends to have more issues caused by climate change, thus reduced productivity (Corwin, 2021). Annual cropping in the region is also associated with soil loss through over-cultivation and encompasses such damages as organic carbon loss and elevated vulnerability to soil erosion (Li Liu et al., 2017). Consequently, there have been losses of soil organic material in the Narrabri area of the Australian grass farming belt since the emergence of climate change caused by global warming.

In terms of no-till or low-till cropping ( a method of tillage that involves planting crops or paddock without soil disruption), the Narrabri region has been able to deliver improved seed production outcomes because of the preservation of soil organic carbon and lowered erodibility. Therefore, no-till cropping is significant in lowering the disturbance, oxidation, and degree of disintegration of organic material in the soil. Despite the usefulness of this practice, the method does not concisely report all the problems associated with the dominance of annual seeds for farming systems because perennial seeds require an exemption from annual cropping lands (Kandel et al., 2017). Furthermore, no-till cropping requires the application of such broad-spectrum herbicides as glyphosate.

Moreover, the use of glyphosate as an herbicide for seed production has been implicated. For instance, apart from elevated input expenses with the use of glyphosate, it is a basis for ecological impurity and congenital incapacities in human beings (Avila-Vazquez et al., 2018). This leaves the Aboriginal farmers with only one option; pasture cropping, which is a vital farming practice that comprises the seeding of annual grasses into living perennial pasture (DeHaan & Ismail, 2017).

Using this method, the disturbance in the soil is substantially lowered; where perennial native grass production is significantly sustained and is inter-cropped with the yearly grain crops (Duchene et al., 2020). As such, the pasture cropping technique is suitable for the current climatic weather conditions because it can reduce and inverse several ecological effects linked with native grass seed production.

Recommendations

The native grass production through the use of seeding enterprises has evolved around the pastoral industry to counter the needs of the local private landowners. Comparatively, the native seed production is new and developing, thus contributing to approximately 1% of the all-grass seed marketed and sold in Australia (Broadhurst et al., 2018). However, the measure of revegetation practices in the country has been faced with a lot of problems in seed sourcing and supply and, in some cases, fluctuations in market prices. In essence, a small number of specific productive seed species is available for large quantity production, thus a high demand for most large-scale revegetation practices in Australia.

However, for the cultivars used in seed production to be economically viable, they must have a broad adaptive local range, consequently requiring thorough selection. For instance, according to Craigie and Pattison (2020), Agronomically, you would want to grow these grasses as a monoculture, and because they dont yield much grain, so they would also need some selection and plant-breeding I would think (p. 36). In this regard, it is important to assume an official breeding and selection program where the rates of instituting, testing, and discharging cultivars can be vindicated.

As a recommendation to the reared cultivars, environmental varieties have been established to deliver seeds with both genetic multiplicity and upgraded growth features. As a result, environmental diversities provide an intermediary amount of genetic unpredictability, in which the ordinary capriciousness of a species is preserved while some desirable features such as seed production are, improved (Broadhurst et al., 2018).

Moreover, to address problems of biodiversity of seed revegetation, the Australian Landcare groups have shifted their focus towards sowing seeds with multiple species from the wildland stands. However, because of fluctuating market demand for the seeds, government agencies should store large stocks of seeds that meet the revegetation guidelines and principles, especially when there is high demand than the supply. As a priority, strategies that meet revegetation needs should be included as a factor of natural resource management. Therefore, the government should institute regional community organizations in the Narrabri area, such as Catchment Management Boards, as a core component of natural resource management.

References

Avila-Vazquez, M., Difilippo, F. S., Mac Lean, B., Maturano, E., & Etchegoyen, A. (2018). Environmental exposure to glyphosate and reproductive health impacts in agricultural population of Argentina. Journal of Environmental Protection, 9(3), 241-253. Web.

Broadhurst, L., Waters, C., & Coates, D. (2018). Native seed for restoration: A discussion of key issues using examples from the flora of southern Australia. The Rangeland Journal, 39(6), 487-498. Web.

Corwin, D. L. (2021). Climate change impacts on soil salinity in agricultural areas. European Journal of Soil Science, 72(2), 842-862. Web.

Craigie, C & Pattison, A. (2020). Native grains from paddock to plate: Study of the economic, environmental and social sustainability of an ancient system in a modern context. Web.

DeHaan, L. R., & Ismail, B. P. (2017). Perennial cereals provide ecosystem benefits. Cereal Foods World, 62(6), 278-281. Web.

Kandel, S. L., Smiley, R. W., Garland-Campbell, K., Elling, A. A., Huggins, D., & Paulitz, T. C. (2018). Spatial distribution of root lesion nematodes (Pratylenchus spp.) in a long-term no-till cropping system and their relationship with soil and landscape properties. European Journal of Plant Pathology, 150(4), 1011-1021. Web.

Kassam, A., Friedrich, T., & Derpsch, R. (2019). Global spread of conservation agriculture. International Journal of Environmental Studies, 76(1), 29-51. Web.

Li Liu, D., Zeleke, K. T., Wang, B., Macadam, I., Scott, F., & Martin, R. J. (2017). Crop residue incorporation can mitigate negative climate change impacts on crop yield and improve water use efficiency in a semiarid environment. European Journal of Agronomy, 85(1), 51-68. Web.

Pedrini, S., & Dixon, K. W. (2020). International principles and standards for native seeds in ecological restoration. Restoration Ecology, 28(3), 1-18. Web.

Rayment, J. T., & French, K. (2021). Uncertainty in research about key invasion characteristics limits the evaluation of exotic perennial grasses in natural systems in New South Wales, Australia. Ecological Management & Restoration, 22(1), 53-63. Web.

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