A natural weed control for dreaded Parramatta Grass has been pulled from market after the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority decreed ‘Parra-Trooper’ is an agricultural chemical rather than an indigenous microbe.
In the past graziers, with help from Department of Primary Industries (DPI), planted infected plants into paddocks to help spread the control.
Jeremy Bradley and Cathy Eggert, Beechwood via Wauchope, built on Department of Primary Industries’ research and spent most of their savings developing a user-friendly way of spreading Nigrospora fungi – a naturally occurring native microbe indigenous to the North Coast.
“Nigrospora is a native fungus that attacks introduced Giant Parramatta Grass,” explained DPI researcher David Officer, Grafton, who has continuing trials in the field. That data, when it becomes available, will be used to defend the Parra-Trooper product.
“We have been moving diseased plants around the North Coast for years and we’ve never seen any evidence of the fungus going ‘off target’,” he said.
When Nigrospora is not killing Giant Parramatta Grass it is helping break down dead tissue into humus which is good for the soil.
Federal Member David Gillespie, whose seat of Lyne includes the Hastings, has presented awards to Mr Bradley in the past for his work on microbial solutions to agriculture. He has used the Parra-Trooper product on his own paddocks. “I found it amazing,” he said. “I am perplexed that it has been suspended from sale.”
The APVMA has said: “Chemical products require APVMA registration if they fit the definition of an agricultural chemical product.”
The authority is also concerned about a clash of product names with another registered herbicide – Imtrade Para-Trooper – with active ingredients amitrol and paraquat.
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