Magazine - New Grass a Bird Repellent

By Cameron Henley in General News on 1st Jun 2010 6:00

A grass repelling animals, birds and insects could reduce dangerous bird strikes at international airports and provide new revenue sources for New Zealand seed producers.

Bird collisions and insurance premiums against them are a costly problem internationally estimated at US $6 million (NZ $9b) a year.  A large trial planting has already been found to lower bird numbers at the Christchurch International Airport Grounds.

New Zealand partners in the project which borrows AgResearch technology in fungal endophytes for pastures, see it as a solution also for parks, golf courses and waterway reserves where birds or other wildlife are causing a nuisance.

This particular type of endophyte grass cannot be used for pastoral agriculture because its bioactives are unpalatable to livestock.
This means the stubble of seed crops cannot be fed to animals after they are harvested and scientists are looking at ways to solve this and find a valuable use for the straw as part of a $1.73 million Primary Growth Partnership between the Government, Foundation for Arable Research (Far), Grassland Technology and PGG Wrightson Seeds.

Grasslanz Technology Chief Executive John Caradus said the patented deterrent grasses would be a world first, and airport managers were excited by its potential to reduce bird collisions with aircraft. There has been some interest from a number of airports. This will not be a silver bullet, but will be another way of reducing birds at airports and an also be used in parks, golf courses and waterways.

“Think about how many airports are around the world, and each has around 500 hectares to 1000ha”.

The United states has 6000 airports and only a fraction of these would need to show interest for the deterrent grass to become successful commercially, John Caradus said.

Grasslanz technology is the subsidiary of AgResearch. It is beginning the process of commercialising the grass and establishing markets with PGGW. The grass is a spin-off of grass endophyte work which developed the pastoral ARI and AR37 ryegrasses for increasing animal health and the resistance of pests and increasing tolerance of drought.

Scientists discovered a compound, ergovaline, which can be found naturally in the wild and acts as a feeding deterrent to wildlife. They then identified which endophytes produced it in high levels. Caradus said a wide range of birds such as Canada geese and ducks avoid natural sites with the grass.

“We have found that once birds have tasted this they feel crook and move on. It is acting as a feed deterrent. “This compound and a few others from these endophytes have insecticidal properties which reduce insect loading in the grass”. He said the supply of seed would be strictly controlled to ensure buyers knew it had specific purposes for deterring birds and other wildlife.

Other horticulture benefits may arise from preventing birds ruining fruit crops and reducing seed and grain yields.

The endophytic grass has been tested on deer and sheep and is not recommended for animals. When they graze on it in its natural state they come under heat stress and weight loss in natural doses.

Caradus said a large part of the project funding would go to funding ways to manage the seed production of grass which should not be fed to grazing animals and to add value to its green biomass, possibly in composting.

Once the grass was established in airports and parks, seeding would be minimised by short mowing, he said.





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Read more articles in General News, by Cameron Henley or from June 2010.