Silverleaf Nightshade - Australian Best Practice Management Manual 2018

Silverleaf nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium) is a weed that reduces production in crop and pasture enterprises throughout the Australian wheat-sheep zone. It is a long-lived perennial plant with very deep, resilient roots. It grows during spring and summer and uses valuable moisture and nutrients needed for following crops and pastures.

 

Spread is relatively slow but, once established, it is extremely difficult to eradicate. Established dense infestations are an ongoing annual burden on productivity and costs, and there are no suitable effective herbicide treatments that will kill dense infestations quickly.

Silverleaf nightshade – brief overview

Silverleaf nightshade in Australia

National Strategic Plan for silverleaf nightshade

What can we do about silverleaf nightshade?

 

 

Impacts in Australia

Identification and similar plants

Origin, distribution and habitat

 

Biology, life cycle and reproduction

Spread

Australian legislation

What is Integrated Weed Management?

Developing an Integrated Weed Management Plan

 

 

Where do we start?

Preventing spread to clean areas

Surveillance

Eradicating isolated plants and patches

Managing established infestations

“Dual Action” approach – the foundation of silverleaf nightshade management

 

Management in broad-acre crops and grazed pastures

Herbicides

Management in horticultural crops

 

Management in non-agricultural land

Physical control – cultivation, slashing, mulching, burning and competition

Biological control

Economics of silverleaf nightshade control

 

 

Case Study 1: “The Ranch” (crops and livestock)

Case Study 2: Rutherglen and Toolang (crops and livestock)

Case Study 3: (crops and livestock)

Case Study 4: (crops and livestock)

Case Study 5: (continuous cropping)

Case Study 6: Nil Desperandum (grazing)

References

Contacts – State agencies