What are you aiming to achieve on your farm?

Ask yourself:

• What existing natural assets are there on the farm (e.g. native grasslands, woodland patches, rocky outcrops, creek lines)?

• What areas of the farm will benefit from restoration or revegetation activities (e.g. erosion sites ,farm biosecurity, weed control, pest insect control, water table or salinity issues, biodiversity, threatened species)?

• What do you want your farm to look like and how do you think your revegetation activity will contribute to your farm in the future (short and long term)?

Answering these questions will help create a foundation for a whole farm plan and with prioritising revegetation activities.. It will also help with understanding how your farm fits into the local area, how you might set out to achieve your aims plus the budget and time required.

Do you restore your site or revegetate your site?

Generally, if your property has some existing natural vegetation or other natural assets aim to retain and restore these sites first. If the site you wish to work on is highly modified from grazing or cropping you would be revegetating or replanting, basically starting from scratch or what can be referred to as a greenfield site.

The five R’s principle can help you decide if you are aiming to restore a site or start from scratch and how you might prioritise these activities on your farm.(adapted from Chapter 9 Native Vegetation Guide for the Riverina by Martin Driver).

1. Retain and improve the native vegetation type or natural landscape feature you have (e.g. wetland, rocky out crop, creek line, swampy area, native grassland, large old standing trees - dead and alive). Select these areas first and work out from them. Also retain, record and treat with respect any sites with artifacts or sites of cultural significance and work to improve conditions for threatened species. Look after the good stuff first.

2. Regenerate from the remnant vegetation you have (by letting seed baring plants naturally seed or by encouraging suckering of those species that reproduce this way- basically getting plants for free). To achieve this requires reducing the grazing pressure on the site to enable young seedlings to germinate and grow naturally.

3. Reseed into remnant vegetation using appropriate species and technique (e.g. by planting tube stock or direct seeding).

4. Replant or replace plant species that cannot grow through direct seeding and suckering OR are very special and rare OR where planting of a green field site is required such as highly modified paddock due to current and past land use e.g. cropping and grazing.

5. Revisit your site to monitor changes, check results and other necessary maintenance needs such as fencing repair or weed control.

Examples of why you may do revegetation activities on your farm:

• Shelter belt or block for stock in paddocks

• Biodiversity outcomes

• Aesthetics/biosecurity/privacy/stock management and movement

• Strategic grazing of shelter belt or block for seasonal weather events or extreme weather events

• Environmental markets

• Protecting and enhancing existing remnant vegetation or natural regeneration

• Firewood plantation

• Erosion control

• Salinity management

• Water course protection and management

• Protecting and managing significant sites

Once you are clear in what your work hopes to achieve the following planning details can be addressed.

Select, map and measure you revegetation location and activity

The best location, shape and size for revegetation will depend on the outcome you are hoping to achieve e.g. it might be a recharge site for water table control, it may be around paddock boundaries to add shelterbelts and biosecurity measures, it may be a corridor to connect remnant patches to support threatened species? Measure the length of fencing required, confirm the number of gates, corners and any other fencing requirements needed to build a fence. Measure the hectares or area to be planted to help calculate how many plants will be needed.

Decide on the Revegetation method

If there is the opportunity to retain and protect existing vegetation start with this, then look at any natural regeneration and protect this, then build out from these sites. Healthy remnant sites will have some evidence of existing native grasses, some existing shrubs and lower levels of annual or introduced grasses. The simple first step is reduce grazing pressure from stock or pest grazing animals such as rabbits to allow the existing plants to grow, flower, produce seed and then let the next generation of plants germinate. This can take 5-10 years to occur but is worth the time to allow for this to happen.

Does the site suit direct seeding or is it best planted with seedlings? If you are looking at only adding a shrub layer and your site has at least 4km worth of direct seeding this can be a suitable option. Generally 1 ha of bare round will give you approximately 4 km of direct seeding. If your site requires trees and shrubs in a corridor-like formation then planting tube stock may be the best option.

Research the plant species to include

Identify what your plant community type is for your site (see the Trees near me app https://www.treesnearme.app/

Consider what your site will require. It may be just tree species, it may be just shrubs or perhaps both trees and shrubs. Will you include climate considered species, is the site for a threatened species?

Calculate how many plants you will require

Your objective will help you determine how many plants. Generally, in the West Hume Landcare area you are in a Grassy Woodland so you would aim for approximately

• 300-500 plants per hectare and

• a ratio of 30:70 trees to shrubs or 20:80 trees and shrubs (depending on the outcome you are working towards)

Most of the calculations for West Hume Landcare projects are based on 400 plants/hectare at a 5 mt spacing between plants which results in 30-40 tree species per hectare at maturity with shrubs between.

Direct seeding contractors usually require a minimum distance of 4km to justify using this technique. This is the equivalent of approximately 1 ha of open ground (area outside of a trees canopy).

Plan for the on going maintenance needs

Keep returning to your sites and check for changes, any maintenance needs such as fence integrity and any tweaking that might be required such as planting to fill in gaps where plants may have died or if rabbits are a burden. Plan for how to build this into the farm planning and programming.