Garden Thugs
- To: "'Medit Plants group'" <m*@ucdavis.edu>
- Subject: Garden Thugs
- From: "* R* <R*@sp.agric.wa.gov.au>
- Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:13:53 +0800
For those Australians on the list and of course for the interest of everyone
else:
Anyone read the "Weekend Australian" this Saturday??
On page 8 there was a large article about a joint effort between the Nursey
Industry Association of Australia and the Cooperative Research Centre for
Weed Management Systems. Some of you may remember a few months (6?) back I
asked if anyone could come up with the origin of the expression "garden
thug".
I can't remember if I mentioned it at the time but it was because a group of
us (the groups above) wanted to release a discussion paper on environmental
weeds in Australia that are still sold, traded or grown in gardens here.
This report is now in its final draft and will be released to the Nursery
Industry here at its national conference later this month. Probably the
most contentious part of the 26 page document will be the three pages I drew
up of the plants considered to be the 100 most significant environmental
weeds found in Australian gardens, our "garden thugs".
This morning the talkback radio was humming with people discussing the issue
and it was interesting to note that some people seemed to think we had a
hidden agenda, that of getting people to grow only native plants. I had to
laugh as some of the most significant weeds on our list are Australian
natives!!
They then quoted figures like "the Australian nursery industry is worth 2.5
Billion Aust dollars per annum" I never had a chance to talk on the program
although they did call me earlier and prime me but I certainly would like to
have mentioned that weeds cost Australians somewhere between 3-4 Billion
dollars annually and for the American economy I read recently it costs them
over 13 Billion US pa. with costs expected to increase 500% if modern crop
management systems (herbicides) were lost. I wouldn't like to see what a
500% cost increase would relate to in terms of an end products retail cost,
horrendous....
Its a shame I can't get to the conference in Melb but I'm sure I'll be
getting some feed back :-)
Cheers, Rod
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Rod Randall
Weed Risk Assessment
Weed Science Group, Agriculture Western Australia
"I weed..."
Weed Risk Assessment Home Page:
http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/progserv/plants/weeds/weedsci2.htm
Weed List Page:
http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/progserv/plants/weeds/weeds/weedlist.htm
Weed Activity Calender:
http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/progserv/plants/weeds/calendar.htm
WeedBusters Home page:
http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/progserv/plants/weeds/buster/buster.htm
Weed Science Group Home Page:
http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/progserv/plants/weeds/
Plant Protection Society & Western Weeds Homepage:
http://www.wantree.com.au/~weeds/
ph: 08 9368 3443
fax: 08 9474 3814
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