Biosecurity officer Will McCaffrey says he often finds it difficult to switch off from his job and that it’s not unusual for him to take mental notes of weed species he spots on the side of the road.
Key points:
- The invasive plume poppy weed has been sighted again after first emerging on the Mid North Coast in 2021
- The Central and South American pest was likely purchased online by a plant collector
- Experts are calling for more awareness on the dangers of invasive plants
He was driving through his local area on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales a couple of months ago when he spotted something that surprised and alarmed him.
Among the roadside vegetation at Upper Lansdowne was a tract of tall plume poppy weed, an invasive species he thought had been eradicated from the area.
“I thought, ‘Surely this cannot be’,” he said.
“Shocked is the first thing, the natural reaction. You start doubting yourself, but we know this plant personally.”
Rapid response
Mr McCaffrey works for the MidCoast Council, which first recorded an infestation of the plume poppy weed (Bocconia frutescens) in the southern part of the Mid North Coast near the Hunter region in 2021.
The Central and South American weed had not been recorded elsewhere in Australia, prompting quick action from the council.
The council’s strategic weeds biosecurity officer Terry Inkson said his team started systematically removing the weed, and had cleared it from more than 35 properties since 2021.
Mr Inkson said he believed they had all but eradicated the plant before Mr McCaffrey sighted it again in September.
“We are very concerned, hence why we are responding so quickly,” he said.
“It [plume poppy] will become another invasive plant of wastelands, disturbed areas, and open areas on the margins of forests … it throws things out of kilter and impacts all forms of biodiversity.”
The biosecurity officers have now inspected more than 30 properties in Upper Lansdowne since the plant was rediscovered.
Mr Inkson said plume poppy weed spread quickly, with mature plants able to produce more than 300,000 seeds in a fruiting season.
“Little birds eat the seeds and distribute them, and quite often we’re talking about properties of hundreds of hectares that this can get on,” he said.
“So far, 405 plants and 109 kilos of fruit have been harvested and destroyed.”
Property owner Mark Johnston is among those in the region to have found plume poppy weed growing, and he said the council approach was thorough.
Mr Johnston first noticed the plant growing quickly on his Rainbow Flats property in the aftermath of the Black Summer bushfires in 2019.
The MidCoast council subsequently destroyed 75 plume poppy plants across his 10-acre property.
“They have re-walked the property and checked for more and haven’t found any more on my property [since then],” Mr Johnston said.
“I think the plan that council have put together has actually worked really well.”
‘The Weed Wide Web’
Mr Inkson said the source of the infestation was thought to be from two avid plant collectors who purchased the seeds online, with recent research highlighting the ease with which invasive plants can be bought online.
Jacob Maher, a PhD candidate from the University of Adelaide, led research into the growth of the online plant trade in Australia, using web-scraping technology.
His findings were published in August, in a report titled The Weed Wide Web.
“Like a lot of forms of commerce, things are increasingly shifting online,” he said.
“We found 155 different declared invasive plants just being sold on one platform, and just in one year.
“And that was just plants that already have got regulations applied to them.
“They are widely available and at cheap prices. And people can not only order an actual plant, they can order seeds, or tubers or bulbs in bulk.”
Mr Maher said invasive plants have effectively cost Australia an estimated $200 billion since 1960, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to monitor online trade of species.
“There is some filter coming into the country, but within the country we don’t have the resources at the moment to be checking a lot of that trade,” he said.
Race against the clock
Mr Inkson said while efforts would continue to check dozens more properties on the Mid North Coast, he is confident the council will eliminate the risk of the weed spreading further in the state.
“It’s not very often that as weed officers we get the opportunity to eradicate a species… with this, we are on the front foot,” he said.
“We are going to work on this until we have achieved our goals.”
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