Good morning, and welcome to the sixth edition of our monthly newsletter, Reading Landscapes.

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

• The Power of Green Growing Plants

• Managing Fireweed

• Connection with UN goals

• What we’ve been learning

🔎 Looking at the Landscape

Like us to discuss a photo of your landscape? Share it with us here. 

The Power of Green, Growing Plants

In this month's edition, I want to look at our landscape and the importance of green-growing plants—no matter the type of plant, whether edible or inedible.

The photo you see above is of our house yard lawn at Forage Farms in the middle of winter. As you can see in the photo, most of the grass has browned off with the cold weather and is no longer photosynthesising, meaning all the crucial functions completed in that process are now no longer occurring.

But in the middle of the image is a patch of green growing vegetation; why? Well, in the centre of that patch of green are two Milk Thistle plants - an accumulator species that is handling the cold weather and continuing to grow. Because their actively growing, they are;

🌫️ Creating a micro-climate with a functioning small water cycle that is capable of evapotranspiration during the day and bringing back the dew at night time to keep them growing. This keeps moisture in the system and creates an environment for the other grass plants around to keep going.

🍽️ The Milk Thistle also uses its tap roots to unlock nutrients and bring them back to the surface, which the grass plants then steal from the weed. So, the Milk Thistle is also helping feed the grass.

🌳 The Milk Thistle's taller height also protects the grass plants from colder weather in that functioning micro-climate that we discussed above. You can also see that same process happening in the top left-hand corner of the image, where the citrus trees still have green-growing grass underneath them.

Examples like this show the importance of having a diversity of plants in your landscape. The Milk Thistle takes up very little room and still has grass growing all the way up to its base, but it is creating an environment one foot around it that keeps the grass green and growing. If you have plants like that all throughout your paddocks, you have a mini forest and have the necessary diversity to try to keep a cover of green, growing plants all the time. And like the citrus trees in this image, incorporating trees into your landscape also helps achieve that goal.

We should all focus on creating maximum diversity, with the goal of having green, growing plants for as long as possible.

🌳 Learning from Plants

Have a plant you’d like to discuss? Share it with us here.

Fireweed

Common Names: Fire Weed, Madagascar Ragwort, Madagascar Groundsel

Scientific Name: Senecio madagascariensis

Where in the Succession: Late Succession Accumulator

What is it telling me about my landscape?

Thanks to Meredith and Melanie for sending in this month’s plant species.

Fireweed is an accumulator species tasked with the role of building fertility and soil.

Where am I going to find Fireweed growing, and why is it growing there?

Fireweed is an opportunistic plant and will quickly take up residence when provided with the ideal growing environment.

It is largely restricted to the south-eastern coast of Australia.

It is a highly adaptable plant but prefers landscapes with little competition, resulting in it regularly being found growing in areas such as;

• Cultivated or disturbed ground

• Roadsides

• Lower fertility, light soils

• Overgrazed pastures

• Acidic soils

Fireweed itself most often grows as an annual but can act as a short-lived perennial. In ideal conditions, it can grow year-round rather than a seasonal focus. It is an incredible seed producer, capable of producing thousands in a season. Finally, it is also toxic to livestock, with all animals having different tolerance level - sheep are the most tolerant, more on that below.

The characteristics of the areas in which it grows and the features of the plant itself lead to a strong understanding of the role that Fireweed is trying to complete.

The hardiness, incredible seed production, and tannins all indicate that fireweed is definitely an accumulator species that is coming in to build up a landscape and move the plant succession forward. This is further backed up by its preference to grow in landscapes with poorer quality soils, overgrazed areas or areas with less competition from other plant species.

How can we manage Fireweed?

Now, we understand the potential characteristics of a landscape in which fireweed is growing. We know that the plant is trying to;

• Build up soil fertility and organic matter.

• Provide ground cover to bare areas and have green growing plants in areas that are lacking.

• Manage grazing pressure by being a toxic plant that is not preferred by livestock.

So, knowing what Fireweed is trying to do, how can we manage our landscape in a way that complements what the plant is already trying to do?

🐂 Change our grazing practices. Livestock overgrazing, particularly cattle, can cause fireweed to dominate. The landscape is coming in to change those practices by growing a plant that is less desirable to those animals. It is using Fireweed as its protector. Knowing that we could look to change our grazing patterns, make our paddocks smaller, increase our density, and increase the paddock’s recovery time before being grazed again.

⬇️ Stop the leaching of fertility. Fireweed is more prevalent in our higher-rainfall coastal regions. These landscapes are prone to the excessive leaching of fertility, and as a result, Fireweed is coming in to manage those losses and build fertility back into the system. Therefore, for us to manage the Fireweed, we need to complete its job. We can manage the leaching of fertility by implementing contours, focusing on a constant cover of green growing plants and returning fertility to the top of our landscape to manage against losses.

🐑 Incorporate different species. As discussed below, sheep have a much higher tolerance to Fireweed than cattle or other species. As a result, they could be used as a tool to manage the Fireweed while focusing on promoting other species to come in. Other options could include incorporating species like chickens and pigs which can be fed with grains and don't require the Fireweed but can cause the impact to change the succession and cycle fertility to help push it forward.

⬆️ Increase soil fertility and organic matter. This can be done through the increased growth of plants, or you can help it along by bringing in external sources of fertility (compost, chicken manure, worm tea, etc.) and adding them to your landscape. Additionally, incorporating more organic matter into your landscape will also help move it forward.

How to make the most of your Fireweed

🪨 As a Soil Indicator: Low Calcium, Very Low Phosphorus, High Potassium, High Manganese, High Copper, Low Humus, Compacted Soils, Anaerobic Bacteria, High Salt, Low Fertility

🐮 Livestock: Fireweed is toxic to livestock because of the presence of pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs). Cattle and horses are the most sensitive to its toxicity. Meanwhile, sheep and goats are up to 20 times more tolerant and can consume plants¹ .

💊 Medicinal: Fireweed is a toxic plant, so there is little evidence of its use in traditional medicine. Modern studies have researched the use of Fireweed and other plants from that family in the context of its cytotoxic effect on cancer cells, which is the ability to kill rapidly dividing cancer cells² . However, as these plants are toxic to humans, research into that use case is still being explored.

🍽️ Consumption: Fireweed is toxic for humans.

🙋 Answering your Questions

Ask the Team! Share your question here, and we’ll answer it in a future newsletter.

💬 Bridget Asks:

I’ve been a distant admirer of Natural Sequence Farming for a long time. Just wondering if you are working with the 17 sustainable goals stipulated by the UN to be implemented by 2030.

Thank you.

🎙️ Hamish’s Answer:

Thanks for that question, Bridget.

The United Nations has actually deemed the practices of Natural Sequence Farming as a demonstrator of their goals. The Natural Sequence Farming project started at Mulloon Creek Farms in 2006 after the airing of the first Australian Story between Peter Andrews and Tony Coote, which has been recognised as delivering on three of the UN’s goals.

📚 What We’ve Been Learning

A quick list of our favourite things we’ve been watching, reading, listening, and writing.

Episode 122: Exploring Tillage, Aggregation, and Biological Innovation with Rick Clark: This is a very interesting episode that really establishes the importance of plant diversity and the important role that plants play.

Permanent Multispecies Cover Crop: An excellent example of incorporating diversity into productive agricultural systems and, like our discussion at the start of the newsletter, thinking in layers.

Ep. 369 – Dr. Stephan Van Vliet and Dr. Allen Williams – Growing Nutrient Dense Food | Working Cows: A very informative episode full of interesting points around the way that we run our farms and landscapes and the direct impact that has on the quality of the food that we produce.

1  Fireweed (Senecio madagascariensis)

2  Cytotoxic effect of Senecio madagascariensis (Asteraceae) extracts on cancer derived cell lines

3  The Role of Wetlands in the Carbon Cycle