More than 187km of direct seeding using more than 50kg of locally sourced native shrub seeds has been completed by Murray Seed Services staff on four of the nine NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust agreements established through the Restoring Murray Woodlands Biodiversity and Carbon conservation tender.
Although most of the region has received below average rainfall since seeding was completed, some landholders are starting to see signs of healthy germination.
Ecologist Colleen O'Malley said these areas will continue to be monitored over the next four years to ensure a good strike rate occurs.
"The remaining agreements from the tender will be seeded this coming autumn," she said.
"Tash Lappin and her Murray Seed Services staff are in the final stages of seed collection before they start the processes of cleaning, storing and auditing all of the seed."
Tube stock orders for more than 12,000 tree and shrub species have been placed with specialist nurseries across the region, and these will be planted within the direct seeded areas from winter this year. Grass-forb species mulch will be spread over patches of the planting areas to encourage the establishment of a diverse native ground layer.
"I know the participating landholders and our staff are eagerly looking forward to seeing the results of this program over the coming years," Colleen said.
"We hope to successfully show that threatened woodland communities can be restored in these agricultural landscapes and demonstrate the economic value of combining biodiversity payments and carbon credit generation as additional farm income sources for those landholders willing to manage remnant native vegetation on their properties for conservation."