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Randy Lauff wrote:
>
>
> 2008/8/9 David & Alison Webster dwebster@glinx.com
> <mailto:dwebster@glinx.com>
>
>
>
> Now herbicide is being used in the highlands park (injecting each
> stem)... but mowing, whenever the shoots reach about 3 dm, would
> be more efficient and effective.
>
>
>
> I fail to see how mowing could be either more efficient or effective.
> Mowing has to be done several to many times a year (every year!) due
> to the vigorous growth. A minimum effective dose of herbicide would
> solve the problem in one bout.
>
>
>
> David Webster continues to be carefree about introduced species,
> including invasive ones. And now he's against the National Park trying
> to maintain natural biodiversity?
>
Hi Randy & All, Aug 15, 2008
If you read my original post you find no indication that I am
against control of this plant in the National Park.
As for efficiency, one can mow with a bush scythe about 10 square
feet of that kind of easy cutting in 4 seconds. In the first year, it
might have to be repeated 2 or more times but mowing would allow
alternative, perhaps native, cover to occupy the spaced released by
mowing. This would serve to protect the soil from erosion which I think
is part of the justification for killing this weed. But if you kill
these plants late in the summer then there will be less time for
alternative cover to move in.
Let us wait and see how this turns out. But I think the outstanding
effects of this program will be herbicide salesmen laughing all the way
to the bank and huge areas uninjected long after the funds are
exhausted. Nothing gives weeds a toehold like unoccupied soil, so total
control of something like Japanese Knotweed is almost sure to prepare a
seedbed for some other weedy plants. Suppression of the 'undesirable'
plant is a more sound approach because it provides for continuity of
occupation.
I continue to think that the most dangerous introduced species is
the one that builds large highways, paves frog ponds, and in general
makes a mess of things. Some more effective pest control there, such a
$5/litre cost of gasoline would be a good start.
And if bees have so many alternative food sources when JN is in
bloom then why do they concentrate over these patches as they do ? There
is usually a Song Sparrow nest in the patch just over the line. Should
someone scold them for nesting in un-Canadian cover ?
While out in North Alton the other day I noticed an apple tree that
for some reason had, to judge from the general brown tone of the
foliage, an unusually high population of leaf-eaters and >5 yellowish
warblers having a ball. Will living off of the avails of a non-native
plant make them less good warblers ?
I think we should judge plants and animals by behavior and
properties not by point of origin. In general, when a plant is invasive
it is because there is some underutilized resource that happens to meet
their requirements.
Yt, DW
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