Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board (1919 - 1935)

Summary

The Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board was constituted by the Federal Government, along with the New South Wales and Queensland Governments, to try to eradicate the infestation of Prickly Pear in the two states. Prickly Pear (Opuntia stricta had been introduced into Australia by the 1830s for use as a hedging and ornamental plant. It proved to be an aggressive weed: by the mid-1920s millions of hectares of farming and grazing land had been overrun. Early attempts at control by spraying poison and shooting birds to stop the spread were unsuccessful: the Commonwealth Government's reward offered for a solution was never claimed. The Board began its work with a study tour in the United States, Central America and Mexico. Three research stations were established in Queensland and one in New South Wales. A program was instituted of importation and testing of insects, 52 species in all, in an attempt to find an effective control mechanism. In 1926 larvae from the Argentinian moth Cactoblastis cactorum were released and proved highly effective. This, together with the cochineal bug Dactylopus opuntiae, largely eradicated Prickly Pear in New South Wales and Queensland within ten years. The Board consequently ceased operations.

Related entries

Published resources

Books

• Alexander, W. B., The prickly pear in Australia (Melbourne: Executive Committee of the Advisory Council of Science and Industry, 1919), 48 pp. Details
• Dodd, A. P., The biological campaign against Prickly Pear (Brisbane: Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board, 1940), 177 pp. Details
• Dodd, Alan P., The progress of biological control of prickly pear in Australia (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1929), 44 pp. Details
• Johnston, T. Harvey and Tryon, Henry, Report on the Prickly Pear Travelling Commission, 1st Nov 1912 - 30th April 1914 (Brisbane: Government Printer, 1914), 131 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Dodd A. P., 'The biological control of Prickly Pear in Australia' in Biogeography and ecology in Australia, Keast, A.; Crocker, R.L.; and Christian, C.S., eds (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 1959), pp. 565-77. Details

Journal Articles

• Dodd, A. P., 'The control and eradication of Prickly Pear in Australia', Bulletin of entomological research, 27 (3) (1936), 503-17. Details
• Dodd, A. P., 'The conquest of Prickly Pear', Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 3 (5) (1945), 351-61. Details
• Dodd, Alan P., 'The campaign against Prickly Pear in Australia: work of the Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board', Nature, 117 (2948) (1926), 625-6. Details
• Frawley, Jodi, 'Containing Queensland Prickly Pear: Buffer Zones, Closer Settlement, Whiteness', Journal of Australian Studies, 38 (2014), 139-56. Details
• Freeman, Donald B., 'Prickly pear menace in eastern Australia 1880 - 1940', Geographical review, 82 (4) (1992), 413-29. Details
• Johnston, W. R., 'The Fight Against Cacti Pests in Queensland', Queensland Agricultural Journal, 108 (July/August) (1982), 215-221. Details
• Williams, W. Wynne, 'The conquest of prickly-pear', Australian quarterly, 13 (2) (1941), 67-72. https://doi.org/10.2307/20630937. Details

Reports

• Knibbs, George H., Institute of Science and Industry, Second Annual Report of the Director: for the period 1st July, 1922 to the 31st December, 1923 (Melbourne: Commonwealth Government Printer, ). https://csiropedia.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Institute-of-Science-and-Industry-Second-Annual-Report-1922-to-1923.pdf. Details
• Knibbs, George H., Institute of Science and Industry, First Annual Report of the Director: for the period from the date of his appointment (18th March, 1921) to the 30th June, 1922 (Melbourne: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1922). https://csiropedia.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Institute-of-Science-and-Industry-First-Annual-Report-1921-to-1922.pdf. Details

Resources

• Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1474415. Details

See also

• Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Technology in Australia 1788-1988, Online edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, 3 May 2000, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/index_c.html. Details
• Cullen, J. M.; Palmer, W.A.; and Sheppard, A. W., 'Biological control of weeds in Australia: the last 120 years', Austral entomology, 62 (2023), 133-48. https://doi.org/10.1111/aen.12638. Details
• Frawley, Jodi, 'Prickly Pear Land: Transnational Networks in Settler Australia', Australian Historical Studies, 38 (130) (2007), 323-38. Details
• Rae, Ian D., 'Making good use of arsenic's toxicity to control pests and diseases', ChemTexts, 6 (24) (2020), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40828-020-00122-x. Details