Developing a Weed Management Plan
Without an effective plan of attack, the task of controlling weeds can seem overwhelming. Developing a weed management plan provides a practical approach to help landholders determine what’s achievable, where to start, and how to develop an ongoing strategy for managing environmental weeds on their property.
The outcomes of environmental weed management can be substantially improved by approaching the task with a plan. A well thought out plan that takes a strategic approach can make weed management tasks easier, more achievable and can result in significant savings of time, effort and money.
Follow the steps below to create your own Weed Management Plan.
Step 1: Identify Your Weeds
List the weeds present on your property and document key biological factors that influence their management e.g. Are they an annual/perennial species? Are they a woody, herbaceous or climbing weed? how do they reproduce? What time of year do they actively grow and when do they produce seed? How long are seeds viable for? etc.
Document the weed risk of each weed present (Very High Risk, High Risk, Moderate-High Risk) using the Mornington Peninsula Shire Weed Risk List
🌿 Pro tip: You can use the iNaturalist app to get help with identification of species. Remember to post more than one photo and aim to take three good photos of: FORM, FOLIAGE & FLOWER
Step 2: Map Weed Locations
Create a mud map and sketch out areas that you know have weeds. You can map out weed zones by species OR you can map out zones and list species by zone.
Step 3: Assess Weed Density
For each mapped weed area, provide a weed density rating. Categories should be based on the following simplified density ratings:
- Low – weed cover less than 30%
- Moderate – weed cover between 30-70%
- High – weed cover greater than 70%
Step 4: Map Indigenous Vegetation Quality
Overlay a piece of tracing paper and create a new layer over your base weed map that show the indigenous vegetation quality. Use the following categories:
- Low – <30% indigenous cover, low species diversity
- Moderate – 30-70% indigenous cover, moderate species diversity
- High – >70% indigenous cover, high species diversity
Step 5: Determine priority work zones
Lay your values map i.e. indigenous vegetation quality map (step 4) over your weed map (steps 2 & 3). Look for areas where values are high and weed cover is low – these are the ‘good’ or most resilient areas and indicate your first priority work zone.
Second priority areas may include:
- high values areas with moderate weed level
- moderate value areas with low weed level
Step 6: Determine Weed Management Priorities
Working in our ‘good area’ is always our priority. Beyond this we can determine our priority weeds by considering the Weed Prioritisation Matrix.
Image: Weed Prioritisation Matrix
Pro tip: We can also consider ‘quick wins’ as part of our weed mgt strategy/plan.
Step 7: Implementation Plan
Develop a worksplan using the weed biology knowledge on growth time and flowering time to determine the timing of weed control activities to ensure effective treatment and prevention of seed production.
Regularly monitor success of treatment and review and update your worksplan annually. Set a monitoring schedule listing a review date and how often will you check weed growth.
Weed Management Plan Tables
Track each step of your weed management plan on the following tables: