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World-first investigation means tutsan's days are numbered
MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday 2 June 2011
World-first investigation means tutsan's days are numbered
The Ruapehu district-based Tutsan Action Group (TAG) has been granted nearly $400,000 from the Sustainable Farming Fund (SFF) to begin a three year project investigating the weed tutsan in New Zealand and Europe.
Tutsan, a.k.a. hypericum androsaemum, is a highly aggressive pest plant which grows along water courses, roadsides and under forest canopies.
Originally formed in 2007 by local farmers, TAG works to tackle the entrenched pest head on and is supported by Horizons Regional Council, Waikato Regional Council, the Department of Conservation, Meat NZ and local territorial authorities.
Horizons Environmental Management Coordinator Craig Davey says the new funding will allow for research to begin in finding insects and diseases that have the potential to stop or minimise tutsan's impact on farms and the wider environment.
"TAG has already investigated the feasibility of biological control and found that using bugs to attack the weed could be the best option for ultimate control of it," Mr Davey says.
The money from SSF will be used to survey Tutsan both in New Zealand and in Europe where it originates, with the hope of importing suitable biological agents back to NZ.
"This is the first time that biocontrol investigation for tutsan has ever been done in the world and the project will benefit the whole of New Zealand by finding out the economic costs of Tutsan to the country and containing the weed's spread," Mr Davey says.
TAG was up against stiff competition to get SFF funding, with 188 other applicants contesting the $32 million dollar funding pool.
"The success of TAG's funding application is due to the over 100 local farmers, businesses and iwi, along with regional and national groups who have pledged to support the project," Mr Davey says. "It's been a bottom-up approach that has gathered collective momentum."
The research, to be undertaken by Landcare Research, will begin in July of this year.
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