Farmers and environmentalists call for national ban on selling invasive weed gazania

Bright and colourful gazanias are popular at many Australian nurseries, but farmers, environmental groups and researchers are calling for government regulation to ban the sale of what is also an invasive weed with the potential to cause real damage to agriculture.

Gazanias have been recognised as an environmental weed in Victoria (all subspecies), Queensland, Tasmania and New South Wales ( Gazania rigens ).

South Australia has banned their sale, but they can still be found in nurseries outside the state.

They are not only overrunning roadsides, native grasslands and coastlines but have also invaded paddocks in South Australia, Victoria and parts of Western Australia, making productive farmland unviable and causing significant economic losses.

In paddocks where Loxton farmer Robin Sch