Title: Curse strikes menace at Hattah-Kulkyne National Park
[Sunraysia Daily, 30 Oct. 2010, p. 17 By Eugene Boisvert] -- IT was while protecting his bees from locust spraying that Ian Oakley noticed a bigger menace Paterson’s curse invading Hattah- Kulkyne National Park. He is worried the purple-coloured weed could spread to nearby farms and compete with crops. Mr Oakley, who runs Beekeepers Choice Honey with his wife Pat, has transferred his honey-producing bees to the national park to avoid them being killed by poisons used by farmers to kill locusts. He still has some bees working on pollination near Horsham and Mount Gambier and will continue to fulfill contracts locally. When he went to check on bees at the northern border of the park, Mr Oakley noticed something unusual.
"I saw some curse on the side of the track, and all have this purple plant in (the hives)," Mr Oakley said.
"I thought it might be another plant.
"I thought there wasn’t much curse in the park." He then went further south and noticed more.
"I thought they would be able to get a hold of it but then I saw this and thought they will have to get all Melbourne to pull it out," he said.
"All this sand will end up nothing but curse.
"It will cut out these trees."
While the concentration is not as heavy as one might see in parts of South Australia and New South Wales, Paterson’s curse, also known as Salvation Jane, is not common in the Mallee. It produces a large number of seeds and can quickly dominate the landscape. It can be eaten by sheep but is poisonous to horses. It is favoured by bees but produces a bland honey.
Mr Oakley believes it will take Parks Victoria "millions" of dollars to pull out the weed.
"They said they had tried poisoning it and that didn’t work," he said.
"Every year we have a wet year it will choke the rest out.
"Not to mention they will be an absolutely nightmare neighbour." About 1000 hectares of Hattah-Kulkyne National Park has been identified for locust spraying using the Greenguard fungus, which is not as poisonous to bees as the commercial chemicals used by farmers. Mr Oakley is testing how close he can keep hives to the spraying without them being affected.
Roger Cornell, Friends of Hattah treasurer, said he had "noticed there was quite a lot of it" but the group was "in recess at the moment". As far as weed control is concerned we haven’t done anything," he said.
WILD: Carwarp apiarist Ian Oakley says the noxious weed is spreading throughout Hattah-Kulkyne National Park
