News

Currently dune restoration focuses on the most visible flora and fauna, however Renee Johansen from the University of Auckland is embarking on a three year PHD that will identify and assess the importance of some of the tiniest, and possibly most significant, elements required to build healthy robust dune ecosystems in the longer term.

Renee, recipient of the 2013 Coastal Restoration Trust/Quinovic Postgraduate Student Study Award, started her PHD in August 2012 with the University of Auckland and Landcare Research.

Renee is investigating the communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in spinifex and marram grass. AMF are fungi which exist entirely in the plant root or surrounding soil. The fate of the plant hosts they live on and these fungi are intertwined - with the growth and survival of many plants dependant on AMF.

Overseas studies have shown that AMF are important to plant health in harsh dune environments. In addition to providing nutrients, it’s likely that AMF protect dune plants against pathogens, sustain them during drought, and help them tolerate saline sand.

Renee’s study involves indentifying the range of AMF on spinifex and marram. “Only a couple of hundred of these fungi have been described worldwide but new technology enabling us to sequence their DNA suggests there are thousands.” She will investigate whether spinifex and marram host different AMF communities and examine their relationships with these communities.

Renee suggests that, whilst dune plants may look healthy immediately after planting, especially when fertilised, healthy AMF communities are likely to be vital to buffer plants against environmental extremes and to help prevent disease outbreak in the long term.

Practical application of this research could, for example, show whether spinifex planted into areas previously occupied by marram, and/or alongside marram, would benefit from the co-introduction of natural AMF communities.

Community groups don’t need to restrict themselves to registering and being affiliated to only one NGO or environmental organisation. Friends of Rarawa Beach, a Coastcare group that is registered with the Coastal Restoration Trust, recently benefited from being registered as a Weedbusters group as well.

After visiting Rarawa Beach at the 2012 Coastal Restoration Trust Conference, Graeme La Cock (DOC technical advisor and Coastal Restoration Trust Trustee) suggested the local group – Friends of Rarawa Beach - take on the control of the sand wattle Acacia longifolia subsp. longifolia. As a group, one of their objectives is to replace weed cover with natives in the backdune area, this clear objective made Graeme’s work supporting them with technical advice & planning much easier.

The best control method of Acacia longifolia is mechanical, because it doesn’t coppice if you cut it below the lowest leaves or branches. Core members Vicky Rawnsley, Betsy Young and Ada Wedding made a dent in the first patch with their standard gardening equipment, but it took them a long time. Wayne Petera helped finish it off with his chainsaw, but they’re working on public conservation land, so there were health and safety issues. DOC had undertaken to spray other weeds at the site, and do any major chainsaw work - but there was still a lot for the group to do - so they investigated Weedbusters.

Weedbusters, with support from DOC and most regional councils, administers a small scale initiatives fund to help groups purchase equipment required to do a decent weed control job.

Friends of Rarawa joined Weedbusters, and applied to the fund to buy pruning equipment to assist their core members and volunteer groups (mainly schools and corrections). There is no doubt that having clear objectives and a decent work plan helped their application.

Russell Evans, Levin Sawmakers, came to the party with a really good deal - taking the time to pick out top quality loppers and saws for the core members, and some end of line, cheaper gear, suited to use by an army of volunteers. His efforts meant Friends of Rarawa got a heap of quality tools that will make their job a lot easier and more palatable.

Another benefit of being a Weedbusters group is that they hold the occasional competition with vouchers or equipment from appropriate companies as prizes.

So the moral of the story is, don’t be shy. Sign up wherever you might get some help or advice, or be able to learn from other groups doing similar work. These NGOs and environmental organisations were established to help groups meet their goals, so use them.

Graeme La Cock, DOC & Coastal Restoration Trust Trustee

Bay of Plenty staff member Pim de Monchy was one of two Regional Coastal Champions recently announced by the New Zealand Coastal Society. Pim, well known to those in dune restoration and Coastcare received the award for his outstanding efforts co-ordinating thousands of volunteers to clean up Bay of Plenty beaches after the Rena disaster in 2011.

Barry Turk received a Regional Coastal Champion award for work instigating Onemana Beachcare in the Coromandel. The group has planted over 30,000 plants with the foredune now in total spinifex cover and the backdune supporting a diverse range of native shrubs.

Email [Enable JavaScript to view protected content] for more information about the awards or to make nominations.

September and October are months that plants suddenly start growing after winter dormancy. Unfortunately it often seems that the weeds grow quicker than the plants we want. Consequently, this is the time that coast care groups need a pest plant contractor to ease the work load of hand pulling weeds by doing some spray work.

Not only do the contractors need to be able to tell the difference between marram and spinifex, there are often other plants in the dunes they need to avoid spraying.

Native grass species, sand wind grass (Lachnagrostis billardierei), looks very much like Yorkshire fog, an introduced grass. Carex pumila, sand sedge, is also found in mobile sand dunes and is often in damp seepages. It can easily be mistaken for couch grass.

In the Wellington region, there are other difficulties for contractors - the biggest being the weather. Renowned for its wind, Wellington’s windiest months are in spring. Northerlies are the predominant winds in spring, but they are still interspersed by southerlies that come from Antarctica on a regular schedule, often until November.

Northerlies during spring and summer often arrive without rain and cause a huge build up of salt on the leaves of plants. Living on the west coast of the region, my north facing windows are proof of this, often needing a hose down after a good blow so we can see out the windows.

For this reason, contracts for spraying on the coast usually include a condition that spraying must be done within 24 hours of at least 5mm of rain. This condition often restricts a contractor to a handful of days over the period when, in any other part of New Zealand, this would be ideal time for spray releasing of the previous winters plantings or the initial spray of marram for next winters planting.

Good contractors give us good value but given these constraints they are in short supply and in the future we could end up doing more weeding by hand. Perhaps we could help our spray contractors by building up resources or holding workshops on plant identification and site specific seasonal spray requirements. If you think this is a good idea, please contact [Enable JavaScript to view protected content] or [Enable JavaScript to view protected content].

Recently one of our Trustees, Tim Park, along with Tony Silbery (DOC) and amateur botanist Pat Enright visited a remote raised shingle beach on the Wairarapa coast to search for a tiny and short lived plant - Myosotis pygmaea var. minutiflora. It is a notoriously difficult plant to find, being a short lived annual and almost microscopic - the flower in the photo is approximately 2mm wide, so could be painted on a pin head in its actual size. Fortunately a few tiny plants were found.

This species has a nationally endangered threat classification due to loss of habitat by over crowding by weeds and land development. It has quite specific habitat requirements, it only lives in the open on fine shingle, and while possible to propagate, it is quite fussy.

This site is home to many threatened species including a good population of sand tussock and is a breeding area for banded dotterels. Interestingly, the miniature forget-me-not appears to be finishing flowering early this year, perhaps the result of a dry spring and possibly a sign of a long summer to come!

For more information visit the NZ Plant Conservation Network site http://nzpcn.org.nz/flora_details.asp?ID=136 or the Landcare Research link http://floraseries.landcareresearch.co.nz/pages/Taxon.aspx?id=_7b37c57f-8fcc-4a21-897e-d030137a5fa2&fileName=Flora%201.xml.

Photo: Tim Park