To identify the optimum sowing time for establishment of sub-tropical grasses to the east of Eneabba.

• The early growth of the sub-tropical grasses (panic grass, Rhodes grass) was slow and they appeared to have cold stress.  The seedlings were cold stress with all three TOS and they took a while to recover.
• An interesting observation was that the surrounding paddock was sown to a sub-tropical grass mix (Gatton panic and Rhodes grass) just before the 3rd time of sowing, however the early growth of the perennial seedlings in the paddock was superior to the small plot trials.  Gatton panic is apomictic (i.e. all plants are essentially clones), so any difference must be due to the environment.  In this case, the markedly stronger early growth and less cold damage maybe due to the improved nutrition from the fertilizer applied at seeding. 
• To evaluate whether there was a nutrient deficiency an application of fertilizer - 150 kg/ha of DAP plus 100 kg/ha of MOP was applied to half of each rep in mid-December in a split plot design.  Subsequently there has been little rainfall, so no opportunity to measure a response.
• By mid-February there was not a substantial difference between the three times of sowing for Rhodes grass and Gatton panic which makes sense as in effect the sub-tropical grasses all emerged in early to mid-September for all three TOS.  The only species to emerge in any numbers before the third TOS was perennial veldt grass. However, by mid-February about 35-40% of the veldt grass plants had died and many more plants were highly stressed and may die over summer –autumn.  Sowing veldt grass in late winter – early spring with the sub-tropical grasses may not work in that persistence over summer may be poor.  Perennial veldt grass is a C3 so does not have the same soil temperature requirements as the sub-tropical grasses (C4).  An autumn sowing may be more successful for veldt grass.
• The results from the TOS at Eneabba in 2012 suggest little or no advantage in early sowing of sub-tropical grasses in early August.  The optimum sowing window appears to be late August with more flexibility with Rhodes grass than Gatton panic for early sowing.