AgForce is urging primary producers to be on high alert for Mexican feather grass, which was recently detected by Department of Primaries Industries officers, but may have been on sale in Queensland nurseries since 2007.
AgForce president John Cotter says more than 80pc of invasive plants come from garden escapes, their control costs the rural sector $4 billion a year and there is good evidence to suggest it costs the environment just as much.
In what AgForce describes as "a disturbing biosecurity development", Queensland's Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries last week put producers and citizens on alert to stamp out the Class 1 declared weed, Mexican feather grass (Nasella tenuissima).
AgForce says the weed has been distributed throughout Queensland since 2007 by a southern nursery supplier who had mislabelled the plants.
Mr Cotter said Mexican feather grass is a prolific seed producer that has no grazing value because it is low in protein and high in fibre but could cause severe environmental damage to native grasslands and make pasture lands virtually worthless.
"Biosecurity Queensland is conducting a tracing operation to locate and remove plants that have been sold through nursery and landscaping outlets in southern and central Queensland and rural producers will certainly be on alert to this grass and notify authorities if they spot it in their neighbourhood," Mr Cotter said.
"Our industries have a culture of quarantine and we will do what we can to assist but this incursion again highlights the importance of having a well-resourced and expert quarantine regulator in Biosecurity Queensland to respond to pest and disease incursions."
Primary Industries and Fisheries Minister Tim Mulherin said the plants have gone to urban locations in south-east Queensland as well as the regional centres of Gympie, Biloela, Emerald, Goondiwindi, Kingaroy, Longreach, Mackay, Monto, Pialba, Surat, Urangan, Warana, and Yeppoon.
"This highly dangerous weed has the potential to cost Australian agriculture and the environment many millions of dollars if not stopped in its tracks now," Mr Mulherin said via a press statement.
Since 2007 Mexican feather grass has been supplied to a Queensland production nursery and on-sold to nurseries and landscape outlets mistakenly labelled as Stipa capillata or Stipa capriccio.
It was spotted by an off-duty Biosecurity Queensland officer several weeks ago.