Overview
Overview
The Stomping out Sediment in the Burdekin project took an unconventional approach to gully management , testing and evaluating the use of livestock as a tool to remediate gullies , as well as implementing more conventional gully remediation approaches .
The five-year project ( 2017-2022 ) was conducted at 16 sites across nine properties . The project sites generally had poor land condition — D or C land condition — with loss of native pasture species , reduced biomass production , even on more productive black soils , and were dominated by Indian couch ( Bothriochloa pertusa ).
Treatments at sites included :
• livestock exclusion ;
• planned grazing practices , which included :
o “ regenerative ” or rotational grazing practices on project paddocks ;
o planned , higher density , rotational grazing ( for example , 3000 weaners on 60-100ha paddocks for 2-3 days );
o ultra high density livestock treatments ( for example , 1100 head on 8ha for 24hrs on a black soil site );
• biological carpeting ( for example , overnight or a day camping a large number of livestock on a small area such as 800 head on a 1ha alluvial gully site );
• management of livestock grazing in contributing gully catchments through fencing and water point distribution :
o 22km of permanent conventional fencing ; o 10km of permanent electric fencing ; o 5 water tanks ; o 11km of piping ; o 15 troughs ;
• the construction of earthworks and other interventions such as diversion banks , water spreading banks and whoa-boys , reshaping of gully features , sub-catchment ripping and reseeding , and construction of porous check dams ; and
• full remediation of some erosion features such as the construction of three rock chutes , reshaping and capping , and soil amelioration of severely-eroded sites such as the alluvial gully site at Strathalbyn and the gully complex at Johnnycake .
A number of project sites were focused on more productive soils such as black cracking clay soil sites at three of the nine properties . Weed management activities were carried out on black cracking clay soils at two sites . All other project sites were implemented on less productive soil types , often with fertility , structural or chemical constraints , with the more extreme examples being an alluvial gully , part of a large gully complex with severe , deep erosion and tunnelling features and another on a gully complex .
A range of monitoring techniques were used based on the Gully and Streambank Toolbox , a technical guide for gully and stream bank erosion control programs in Great Barrier Reef catchments . These included photo monitoring , land condition assessment , remote sensing and analysis , and high resolution LiDAR . Graziers provided details of livestock treatments such as timing , stock numbers and classes , and duration of graze periods , for each site . Monitoring and analyses was carried out by project manager Rod Kerr , of NQ Dry Tropics , Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Executive Summary — P3