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August 2010

Welcome to the August 2010 edition of Fertile Minds, the newsletter of Sydney Environmental & Soil Laboratory.

In this issue we look at more worrying news about weed resistance to herbicides and how we can manage this. We also look at soils on shale and using treated effluent for irrigation.

If you have any questions you would like answered in Fertile Minds, please write to info@sesl.com.au. If you have any special requirements, we would be pleased to talk with you and tailor a package and price. Please contact the office on (02) 9980 6554 or write to us at info@sesl.com.au.

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In this issue

• The Loam Ranger – Irrigating with effluent
• Combating herbicide resistance in Australia
• Environmental monitoring in Woollahra
• Soils of the shale landscapes of Sydney
• Did you know ... ? – Who needs oxygen?

The Loam Ranger – Irrigating with effluent

Dear Loam Ranger,

I have the opportunity to irrigate with treated effluent. Is it safe?

Generally yes, but there are many variables that determine how much you can apply before problems start to appear:

• What sort of effluent?
• What nutrients does it hold?
• What salts does it hold?
• What contaminants does it hold?

• What microorganisms does it hold?

Click here for why it is vital to analyse both the effluent and your soil (700 words, 3 minutes)

Combating herbicide resistance in Australia

Last month, chemists from around the world visited Melbourne for the Royal Australian Chemical Institute’s National Convention and the 12th IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemists) International Congress of Pesticide Chemistry (4–8 July 2010). Among many topics covered, the emerging problem of resistance to herbicides among weeds occupied several talks.

Herbicide resistance across most of the major chemical groups is already a big problem that is only going to get bigger. By 2018, half of all agricultural weed species will be resistant to glyphosate. There are now significant problems with resistance to “fops and dims” (such as fluazifop and tralkoxydim), sulfonylureas and trifluralin, meaning that Australia has some of the highest instances of weed resistance in the world.

Click here to understand the source of the problem and management solutions (700 words, 3 minutes)

Environmental monitoring in Woollahra

Woollahra Municipal Council, in Sydney’s east, looks after several of Sydney’s most famous suburbs and beaches. Council introduced an environmental levy in 2002, through which it has been able to fund a range of environmental projects. One such project is the creation of an environmental monitoring database, in which Council is gathering information on water, biodiversity, energy, greenhouse gas emissions, coastline, land and heritage. By monitoring environmental indicators within each of these areas, Council will be able to measure its performance in environmental management and identify where improvements can be made.

Last month, Council invited SESL to begin monitoring four catchments in its area (Rushcutters Bay, Double Bay, Rose Bay and Watsons Bay).

Click here for a brief description of SESL’s work in Woollahra (300 words, 1 minute)

Soils of the shale landscapes of Sydney

This is our third article in an occasional series on the soils of the Sydney Basin. In this article we look at the clay soils that develop on shales.

Shale forms the great majority of the geology of western Sydney. For the most part, west of a line through Pitt Town, Kellyville, Parramatta, Ashfield, Canterbury, Heathcote and Campbelltown, the soils are formed on Wianamatta Shales. Shale also occurs on the ridge capping the North Shore and out to Castle Hill.

In the early days of European settlement the poor sandstone soils of Farm Cove could not successfully grow crops. James Ruse grew the first good wheat crops on the shale soils at Rose Hill, just east of Parramatta. Orcharding sprang up in the Hills District to the north, and cropping, dairying and grazing to the west. The underlying shale made all this possible.

Click here for a discussion of Podzolic soils and how to recognise them (600 words, 3 minutes)

Did you know ... ? – Who needs oxygen?

Between 6 and 5.5 million years ago, the Straits of Gibraltar closed and reopened several times. Each time, over the space of only a thousand years, the Mediterranean Sea evaporated, leaving thick salt deposits behind.

Beginning about 35 000 years ago, some of this salt became exposed in the sea bed and began to dissolve into the water. Because its density is greater than that of regular sea water, this hypersaline water runs downhill to pool in at least three places to form lakes beneath the Mediterranean: the l’Atalante, Discovery and Urania basins.

Earlier this year, researchers discovered the first known animals that live their whole life cycles without any oxygen. These animals, called Loricifera (Latin for corset-wearer), belong to a group (a phylum) first identified only in 1983. They are no more than 1 mm long.

The three species found in l’Atalante basin are the first animals and the first multicellular organisms known to live entirely without oxygen. Their existence now challenges established theories of the origin of multicellular life, which might have begun before photosynthesisers released oxygen into Earth’s early oceans.

Click here for further reading and a PDF (250 words, 1 minute)