Muckleford Landcare

Wheel Cactus on the Muckleford-Walmer Road.

Wheel cactus
Last Sunday, March 29th, members and friends met at the Muckleford Bushland Reserve in Muckleford School Road to learn more about tackling Wheel Cactus.
Wheel Cactus has infested large areas of private and public land around Maldon and to the west. It is beginning to appear on a regular basis on roadsides, private and public land in our area. It is largely carried in by birds. If we can spot and deal with it as individuals when it crops up, then there is a good chance that this area will not suffer the consequences of widespread and damaging infestations.
Members of the Tarrangower Cactus Control Group showed us that dealing with Wheel Cactus, particularly in the early stages of growth is easy.

Small-medium plants can be dug up, placed in a bucket, buried, disposed of in household rubbish or taken to the Maldon Tip (free).

Ready for the tip or burial in the garden

Large plants without flowers need to be injected with herbicide. All the outer lobes and as many as possible inner lobes need to injected. Wheel Cactus absorbs herbicide better through the outer lobes. Injecting guns and herbicide can be borrowed from the Cactus Group –
Ian Grenda (0412 015 807)
www. cactus warriors.org

A large outbreak at Gower with cactus warrior in action

The Cactus Group holds regular field days on the last Sunday of each month beginning at 10.30 and concluding with a BBQ lunch at 12.30. Anyone concerned about Wheel Cactus is welcome to attend.
We also have informative pamphlets available. Ring Paul at 0408 566 909 if you would like to obtain one.
Muckleford Landcare would particularly like to thank the generous and engaging members of the Cactus Group for sharing their time and expertise with us.

Thanks to Bronwyn Silver for snaps.

Rubbish Dumpers

While at the venue we discovered a large pile of household rubbish at the inner border of the reserve.
Rubbish dumping on the small, rare and valuable reserves in our area is not uncommon. It is a particularly objectionable and selfish form of behaviour when shire facilities offer reasonable and responsible forms of disposal. Offenders can be fined up to $4000.
After considering cleaning up the rubbish and taking it to landfill ourselves, we decided instead to report it to Parks Victoria. In this case the offender had left evidence of their identity! Parks will contact them and in the first instance, ask them to re-dispose the load.