Catchment information

Catchment name
Port Phillip and Westernport – Yarra Valley

Region
Three sub-catchments of the Yarra Catchment – Stringybark Creek, Olinda Creek and Woori Yallock Creek

Map of catchment areas

Overview of region

• The Yarra Catchment lies to the north and east of Melbourne.
• The catchment covers an area of approximately 4000km2.
• The Yarra River begins in the forested Yarra Ranges National Park on the southern slopes of the Great Dividing Range and flows generally westwards to Port Phillip Bay (Dept of Sustainability and Environment 2006).
• The Yarra Valley is situated in the eastern section of the Yarra catchment.
  

Horticulture industry in region

•  The horticulture industry in the Woori Yallock, Stringybark and Olinda Creek Catchments occupies 5471ha of land. Nine different industries are represented in the region:
• pome fruit
• cherry and other stonefruit
• strawberry and blueberry
• rubus
• nursery
• cut flower
• vegetable
• wine grape

Incentives for region
None identified in region

Case study of horticulture in Yarra Valley

Project title / summary

• Horticulture Natural Resource Management Initiative - Yarra Valley Pilot Project

Project author/s

• Alison Medhurst (Catchment and Agriculture Services)
• Alan Shanks (Primary Industries Research Victoria)
  

Objectives of SI project

• Outline the current state of catchment health including natural resource management (NRM) priorities.
• Document the existing NRM targets at the farm, industry and catchment levels.
• Identify how horticultural industries impact on catchment health.
• Understand to what extent horticultural industries are impacting on catchment health, through an analysis of information on current versus best practice.
• Identify what programs exist in the region to minimise impact.
• Identify gaps in knowledge about programs, impact of practices, indicators, measurements and target setting.
• Develop a greater understanding of stakeholders’ barriers to change and some of the opportunities to overcome them.
• Prepare recommendations for future work - include action plan and potential funding sources.

Methodology

• A survey of common industry practices was conducted, with a wide range of data collected during the interviews. The mix of perennial and annual crops and traditional and new industries in the region leads to diversity in production practices both across and within industries. To better understand how these practices may impact on the catchments’ natural resource base a survey of common industry practices was conducted. The survey aimed to:
  • Identify current farm practices relating to off farm impacts
  • Identify any barriers to changing practices
  • Identify areas requiring help and direction.
• An analysis of the key natural resource management risks and current production practices was carried out, and a series of recommendations was made for future work in the region.

Key findings

• This project has endeavoured to consolidate and collect information on natural resource condition, targets and management practices of the horticultural industries in the Stringybark Creek, Olinda Creek and Woori Yallock Creek sub-catchments.
• There is a considerable amount of information available on natural resources in the three sub-catchments; however it is dispersed across a number of agencies and is therefore sometimes difficult to access.
• Some sub-catchments have been the focus of more and wider ranging studies than others and there are some significant information gaps.
• Some of the reports were compiled some years ago, it is unclear if all of these reports continue to reflect current conditions, however updates are not published or are not publicly available.
• Resource Condition Targets in the PPWCMA Regional Catchment Strategy (RCS) tend to be fairly broad (focusing at a catchment or CMA level) and it is difficult to extrapolate these to the farm level and vice versa.
• The RCS identifies and prioritises assets within the catchment and sets broad strategies for their management and therefore is unlikely to be a primary document for horticultural industry seeking NRM management targets. The challenge remains to better link landscape scale Resource Condition Targets and off-farm impacts.
• The accessibility of NRM targets to horticulture may be improved by greater collaboration between the CMA and horticultural industries in the development of relevant sub-for the RCS.
• Of the targets and actions identified in the RCS, those that were relevant to horticulture are generally well aligned with growers’ NRM management performance, however without hard targets to evaluate assessments are subjective.
• Common trends and key practices are presented in the full report under the natural resource and practice areas of water, nutrient management, pests, diseases and weeds, soils, waste, biodiversity and planning and management systems.

Recommendations

• A program assisting farmers to monitor impacts of their practices and interpretation of results at a range of scales from farm to catchment.
• Innovative strategies to assist growers to set up more sustainable water storage options (off-stream, efficient storage) within reasonable cost limits.
• Further work establishing requirements and conditions for sustainable water source options (such as dam sharing.
• Improvement through better soil moisture monitoring and irrigation scheduling.
• Increased (and more formalised) linkages between horticulture and agencies with an interest in natural resource management and other communities in the region to develop a deeper understanding of each groups’ needs.
• Further study into barriers of land managers to adopt more sustainable practice.
• Investigation into options for re-use, recycling or finding viable alternatives to waste materials.
• A full costing of the impact of waste streams on both businesses and the environment.
• A project investigating what would be required for growers to switch to alternative products (e.g. cost point or availability of products
• Investigation into opportunities to develop recycling streams for unavoidable waste products (e.g. waste fruit).
• Programs to increase awareness and management of biodiversity that are strongly linked with production outcomes.
• Increase awareness of land managers’ obligations for native vegetation management in reference to state and local legislation (i.e. growers’ management of planted native vegetation that has removal restrictions).