A visit to Lion Match Forestry’s Clifton estate in Mpumalanga, South Africa, led to a surprise meeting with their new weed control team.
They’re black, white and brown, the only fuel they need is grass, and they multiply on their own without help from anyone. Lion Match Forestry’s chief forester, Eugene Kraamwinkel, talks cattle farming almost as passionately as he talks forestry. Some three years ago he decided to try using cattle to control the grass and weeds that grow between the trees on the company’s Mpumalanga estates. The wide open escarpment of the Lion Match plantations is designed to encourage the growth of big, tall trees suitable for the manufacture of matches, but this also allows in a bit of sunlight which encourages the growth of grasses and weeds.
Chris Chapman, editor of SA Forest magazine, brings us this distinctly different approach to weed control in forestry areas. This and a whole host of other informative and entertaining material is in the current edition of Australian Forests & Timber News …. out now.
