What can I do with weed control data?

Abstract

There are increasing requirements for local, regional, state and federal organisations to collect, summarise and make decisions on data from weed control operations. This paper provides examples of how field control data can be collected to meet the needs of internal and external reporting. Data summaries can assist with documenting past expenditure or for supporting cases for ongoing or new expenditure. They can also highlight infestations that are well managed or identify problems. Examples are drawn from different types of weeds, single and multiple infestations and across different spatial scales. Reports rely on a consistent measure of what is going on at the site (s) over time and can include trends in plant numbers, treated area, herbicide use or worker effort, over time and over a consistent spatial scale. The difficulties inherent in interpreting or reconstructing past survey and control activities show the importance of considering data collection and mapping processes when management plans are constructed. So that operational records can be summarised to justify and learn from the field activities. Ultimately agencies expend considerable effort surveying, controlling and recording field operations, yet the full benefit of those data are not always seen.