We had a great turnout at our Weed Management Planning Day on Saturday 18th April at the The Shack. We worked closely with Mitchell Shire to put the workshop between the time letters were sent to local landowners asking them to submit weed management plans and the date of when the plans were due.
Sonia Sharkey again spent time on her weekend taking people through the weed management approach and the collaboration between Council and our Landcare group. We had Adrian Lamande, an ecologist from TREC Land Services to identify whether plants on people’s properties were weeds or native and to review the plans prepared.
We were excited to give our Upper Plenty Weed Management ChatGPT Chatbot its first public test. It has information about:
- the most common weeds in the area
- details of how to treat them, especially those near water
- what herbicides to use
- who local contractors are
- when to take action
The Mitchell Shire Council Weed Management Plan template is in the Chatbot, so ask it to help you prepare your weed management plan and it will talk you through it and produce a plan for you to download and submit. It will also prepare a colour coded calendar telling you what you need to do and when for your fridge or shed.
This was another activity that was funded through our Partnership against Pests Grant from Agriculture Victoria. As this program has developed over the last year we are seeing visible impact. Our first event was the weed management session for the properties west of Wallan Whittlesea Rd. Since then almost all of the properties have made great progress on weed control. The Council has got Blackberry and Gorse under control and Vicroads has also done work on Wallan Whittlesea Rd. Local landowners have done work on roadsides and public areas and we have been doing a lot of work in the Dry Creek area near Sticks and Stones.
If you weren’t able to come to the workshop today the chatbot is available to everyone. If you need any other type of help with your plan you can email me at