Wednesday, 08 July 2020

14:38 July 8, 2020 14:38 by conser36_wp

Tackling Woody Species Woes

WIGL Launch Graphic to help tackle invasive woody species

Green is not always as good as it first appears. Walking you land, you may think of a lush tangle of shrubs and vines as a sign of good health. It does not take long to discover that a green wall does not produce a healthy woodland. Soon enough tackling woody species on your property moves to the top of your todo list.

Clair Ryan is the Coordinator of the Midwest Invasive Plant Network and the new Woody Invasives of the Great Lakes (WIGL) Collaborative. According to Ryan, “Often, especially near urban and developed areas, forests and other natural areas are clogged with invasive woody species that damage wildlife habitat, block trail access, and harbor larger populations of ticks that spread disease to humans,”

The WIGL Collaborative developed a website to help landowners and others learn to identify the woody invasive plants around them and start controlling them on their properties. Their website, woodyinvasives.org, contains a wealth of information about how to identify woody invasive species and tell them apart from similar beneficial plants. The site contains an interactive map showing how Great Lakes governments regulate these species. In addition, it has detailed management approaches, and non-invasive alternatives.

Besides the website, WIGL is also sponsoring a free two-day Woody Invasives of the Great Lakes Collaborative Summit on November 5-6, 2020. 

The Problem

WIGL was formed because invasive trees, shrubs, and woody vines pose a serious threat to natural areas in the Great Lakes region. They out-competing native plants and damaging wildlife habitat. Forests are a primary water source to the Great Lakes. If the forests aren’t healthy, it will be very difficult for the lakes to be healthy.

Image of the woody species Japanese barberry

Japanese barberry may be a great choice for your yard, but it becomes a menace when released into woodlands.

The current problem has actually been a long time in the making. Most of the region’s most common invasive woodies came to North America more than one hundred years ago. Among these early arrivals are buckthorn, autumn olive, and bush honeysuckle. Growers sold them either as ornamental garden plants or for erosion control. We recognized the problems posed by wood invasive species only after our woodlands became choked and almost unusable.

Birds eat the fruit of these invasive woody plants and spread their seeds. Over generations, seeds can reach even relatively pristine natural habitats. Growers sold them because of their toughness and adaptability to less-than-ideal conditions. However, this a resilience lets invasive plants out-compete native species that would grow in similar habitats.

Most of the woody invasive species listed by the WIGL collaborative are no longer sold in nurseries and garden centers. However, some invasive species like Callery pear, Japanese barberry and winged burning bush are all still available. As a result, your can find them in just about every big box store. 
The WIGL Collaborative joins several other regional invasive species collaboratives funded through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). The federal government funds the GLRI with broad bi-partisan support.

Doing Our Part

As private landowners, timber stand and wildlife habitat improvement are important to our stewardship ethic. Protecting the natural heritage or our property often begins with managing those invasive woody species. Tackling woody species takes good advice; GLRI has what it takes.

2018

May 2018

Sunday, 20 May 2018

08:55 May 20, 2018 08:55 by conser36_wp

Palmer Amaranth Alert: Check CRP Seed Mixes

Palmer amaranth can produce 500,000 seeds per plant.

Native to the desert southwest, Palmer amaranth can produce 500,000 seeds per plant and has developed resistance to glyphosate (Roundup).

DATCP Lists Palmer amaranth as Prohibited Noxious Weed 

The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer protection (DATCP) recently issued a new emergency rule listing Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) as a prohibited noxious weed seed. Including it in a seed mix will now result in a civil or criminal violation for the seed labeler.

Palmer amaranth is a broadleaf weed that grows 2-3 inches a day. It commonly grows 6-8 feet tall, but may reach 10 feet. This plant has separate male and female plants, and the females may produce as many as 500,000 seeds. 

Though native to southwestern states, it became established in the southeast and began moving north. Pollinator seed mixes that contain Palmer amaranth were sold for use on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana and Ohio. More than half the counties in Iowa now report the new invader.

Identification

Palmer amaranth is related to water hemp and other “pigweeds”, common in Wisconsin, and a casual observer might confuse the two. The leaf stem on the first true leaves are longer than the leaf blade, where water hemp leaf blades are longer than the leaves. The most obvious difference is the length of the seed heads. Palmer amaranth has seed heads that can be 12 inches or longer. Hence it can produce vastly more seed than its native cousin. Purdue Extension has an excellent video that describes the distinguishing characteristics.

Herbicide Resistance

Strains of Palmer amaranth have developed tolerance for the herbicide glyphosate, making control much more difficult. Farmers in other states started using dicamba but are finding that off target herbicide drift is a real problem for both surrounding crops and natural lands.

Keep In Mind

DATCP has the following advice. If you are planting a pollinator or conservation seed mix:

  • Find out what Palmer amaranth looks like. You can find many clear photos in an online image search.
  • Buy local seed mixes if possible, with no pigweed or amaranth listed on the label.
  • Thoroughly clean equipment after seeding, especially if your seed mix came from out of state.
  • Call your University of Wisconsin-Extension office if you suspect you have found Palmer amaranth.

Follow these tips for conservation planting—without weed seed come from our neighbors at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture:

  • Do not purchase unlabeled seed
  • Check labels—and keep all labels used in a specific planting
  • If restricted noxious weeds are present make sure they’re present at a rate of less than 25 seed per pound
  • Don’t use seed with any prohibited noxious weed seeds
  • Ask seeding contractor for planting records including: seed lots planted in specific locations, planting procedures, site preparation and equipment used with equipment cleanout records
  • Keep invoices and paperwork
 Contact your local Extension agent for the most current information about this and other weed problems on your land.

January 2018

Sunday, 21 January 2018

12:56 January 21, 2018 12:56 by conser36_wp

Great Brush Pile Burning

Author with leaf blower brush pile burning in the background.

There is more to burning a brush pile than dousing it with gasoline and throwing a match at it.

Mid winter is a great time for brush piles burning in Wisconsin. My wife Anette and I unpack the Forrester: first the sled; then the leaf blower, pump sprayer and torch fuel. Fill the chainsaw with gas and bar oil. No need to bring along extra as the saw will see limited work today. Some snacks, tea and juice will keep us happy through the upcoming afternoon. Finally, I tuck some dry kindling and a roll of old construction prints what will be our starter.

A mid January thaw during last week put the burn day in doubt. Forecast snow on Sunday night meant plenty of snow cover for the Martin Luther King holiday and our brush burning. A moderate snow, light winds and weather in the twenties meant we will be comfortable all afternoon.

The sled is half full and that is just fine with me. Anette grabs the rake closes up the car are we leave the county highway behind. The local snowmobile club came through this fall after harvest and dragged a beautify trail across the corn stubble. Access to the Vermont creek will be quick and smooth. I throw the rope across my shoulder and make fast work of getting to the easement.

Our first brush pile was made during two days work in early and late fall. The pile is made up almost entirely of honeysuckle and buckthorn with a couple small boxelders for good measure. The first task is blowing the snow off the pile and clearing a small ring around the pile.

It takes one calorie to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water one degree Fahrenheit. To melt that same pound of ice to liquid water requires 36,150 calories of heat. To take that pound of water from 32 degrees to its boiling point requires a mere 180 calories of heat. However, to boil off that heat and drive it out from soaking wet wood require a colossal 241,765 calories. This is called the latent heat of melting and the latent heat of evaporation.

That frozen wet wood on my burn pile needs to thaw out heat up and drive off its water, then continue up to the 700 degrees needed for wood to Ignite. Now consider that there is a cold wind trying to carry off the precious heat from my fire. No wonder it is so hard to get a brush pile to burn in the dead of winter.

Blowing the snow from the pile and around it suddenly makes a lot of sense. So does bringing along paper and dry kindling. These will make sure I have fuel that can easily light and stay burning long enough to dry our surrounding wood in the pile.

Torch fuel is a two to one mix of diesel fuel and gasoline. Diesel has a low ignition point but a high flash point which makes it much safer to work with than straight gasoline.

A wise friend finally put me straight about using accelerants on brush piles. “You don’t want the torch fuel to burn. You want the torch fuel to make the wood burn. Let it set there for ten minutes and see what difference it makes.” He was right! All my life I would pour fuel on a pile and light it, never understanding that the fuel was sitting on top of the wood and burning itself off without heating up the wood enough to get it to ignite.

Now I pour on a quart where I would have used a gallon. By walking away for ten of fifteen minutes, the diesel has time to soak into the wood. There is no big whoosh of flame, instead the dry kindling and paper take off and heat up the surrounding wood that is ready and raring to burn.

Snow on the ground means embers will not ignite surrounding vegetation, making it safe for a couple of people to burn several piles at once. Many towns are weary of issuing burn permits in the spring and fall when dry grass and leaves make spot fires from brush piles a real danger. Winter burn permits are easy to get and are easy to watch.

Anette keeps vigil using the rake to push remaining branches from the edges into the coals where they are quickly consumed.

I head upstream to a downed tree that needs to be cut and stacked. It takes a half hour to get the pile set, but because this is a black walnut that is not yet finished drying out, our efforts to burn the pile meet frustration. After several failed attempts, it is time to move on to a third pile.

Like the first pile this is one has plenty of honeysuckle, which burns easily, buckthorn that burns okay when dry and preheated, and boxelder that has laid there for several years. As this large tightly packed pile springs to life, Anette breaks out cookies, chocolate hot tea. The snow is flying all around; we relax and enjoy the now fading sun as it forces itself through the snow and cloud cover.

As the sun begins to fade, I once again take out the leaf blower. There is a large bed of coals and large sections of trunk burning in the middle of the fire. There remains plenty of brush around the downwind edge of the pile that I am in a hurry to dispatch. Braving the smoke, I rake the remaining unburned fuel into the hot center where it sits listlessly. The small pile seems to be waiting for an invitation to burn.

So I supply just such an invitation. My leaf blower comes out of the sled and springs to life. Its supercharges stream of air turns the bed of coals into a blazing forge. The coals become furious and through intense flames and heat that make short work of the remaining branches that threatened moment earlier to suffocate the those same coals.

A few minutes running around the edge of the fire with the leaf blower moves the mixture of snow, leaves and twigs at the margin out into the snowy barren reaches beyond. A wide patch of charcoal black mineral soil now separates the two worlds and provides a safe barrier for the remaining wood to finish consuming itself.

We pull back across the field and wipe off the snow from the bottom of the sled. It slides into the back of the Subaru as the last rays of sunlight fade.

 

2017

September 2017

Friday, 01 September 2017

08:03 September 1, 2017 08:03 by conser36_wp

Labor Day Resolution: Work Smarter, Not Harder

As Labor Day weekend approaches, my father’s admonition to “work smarter, not harder” comes back to me. I was talking with a friend last week and he mentioned that they had begun pulling buckthorn on their newly acquired property in Columbia County.

There is no other way to say it; pulling buckthorn is hard work. In the following days, I thought about the many buckthorn projects that dot my past twenty years of conservation work in Wisconsin. Along with the blisters and sore muscles came hard earned experience that changed the way I look at habitat restoration in general and buckthorn clearing in particular. First is to avoid the “activity trap.” We see a problem and want to tackle it head on.

More to the point, we see the most obvious problem and take it on with the first or only tool we know. Years ago I learned that being successful means doing right things right. That means before doing anything, it is important to know that you are doing the right thing.

Doing the right thing can only happen once you have looked at the situation strategically. Why do you own a substantial piece of property? Usually there are several reasons, such as: having access to productive hunting land, getting away from urban life, giving your children an opportunity to learn about nature, or secure long-term income from forest crops.

If one of those reasons is that you want to preserve the natural heritage of your property, then protecting native plants and getting rid of invasive weeds and brush are important goals.

It might not jump out at you right away, but the best way to achieve those goals is to preserve and protect the good stuff first. None of us has enough money to do everything at right now. Once you ensure the best pieces of your land stay in good shape, you can take on the lower quality sections. Using this strategy makes sure the whole property stays at least as good next year as it was last year and hopefully a little better.

With a prioritized list of tasks, you will know you are doing the right things … and in the right order.

Then you are ready to decide whether you are doing things the right way. If there ever was an case of, “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” pulling buckthorn is it. There are a range of methods for removing buckthorn, pulling is the most tedious and labor intensive.

Buckthorn produces both male and female trees. Once they are mature, male trees produce pollen while the female trees produce fruit with seeds. So, when it is time to tackle that big stand of buckthorn, the first targets should be the mature female trees.

A wise man told me that, “when you dug yourself a hole up to your neck, for heaven’s sake put down the shovel.” Buckthorn seed is viable for more than seven years; so the sooner you eliminate the seed producer trees, the sooner you will start running out the clock on that seed bank.

Clearly, mature buckthorn trees are too big to pull with anything but a bulldozer, so we are talking chainsaw work. Cut trees as close to the ground. This will prevent tripping hazards and damage to equipment once the grasses and wildflowers grow up. Treat stumps with Triclopry at the cut stump rate on the label. Add dye to the solution so you can see where you spray. Use a small hand sprayer and only apply the herbicide to the outer ring of the stump where the sapwood is found. This will save you a lot of chemical and limit collateral damage.

If you are cutting this fall, haul and stack the trees in the tightest brush piles you can manage. Run your chainsaw through the brush pile to reduce the size because this will make the piles burn much easier. Burn the brush piles once there is snow on the ground. The wood will have had time to dry out and snow will prevent embers from starting a wildfire.

After the first snow is also a good time to spread seed for next spring. Once you open up the soil by removing the buckthorn, you will be amazed at how quickly things pop there next year. Chief among the spouts will be baby buckthorn seeds. If you do not get native seeds started, you will end up with a stand of new buckthorn even more dense than what was there before.

Because there will be buckthorn seedlings sprouting up next year, consider doing a controlled burn of that section of property in the following fall after the summer grasses and wildflowers go dormant. Fire will kill the new buckthorn seedlings which will still be green but will not harm the native plants that will already be sleeping for the winter.

To my friends getting started on their new property; best of luck and enjoy the journey. Hope these insights will help you see more success sooner. Stepping back and getting to know your land and playing out your plans into the future will allow you to make better decisions and achieve your goals.

June 2017

Thursday, 01 June 2017

20:54 June 1, 2017 20:54 by conser36_wp

June is Invasive Species Awareness Month

What do you think of when you hear invasive species? Some folks see in their minds garlic mustard and buckthorn choking their woods. Others conjure up images of lakes clogged with Eurasian milfoil. Still others may imagine gypsy moths or emerald ash borers attacking their trees. All these threats and more face landowners and those who spend time in the outdoors.

As a landowner, invasive plants tend to present the most common issues for land management. Some problems have been around for many years, like honeysuckle while others like Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana), Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) and Lesser calandine (Ranunculus ficaria) are just beginning to show up on the landscape.

Regardless of the threat, prevention is the best strategy for protecting your land. The Wisconsin DNR recommends, “Be careful of materials brought onto your land, especially soil, mulch, compost and plants. They may come with unseen roots, seeds or invasive earthworms.”

Some folks are really deep into controlling invasive species. Each year the Wisconsin Invasive Species Council recognizes individuals and groups that make significant contributions to finding and getting rid of these problems. The Invader Crusader Awards honor professionals, volunteers and organizations that have made a difference across our state. Find out who is making a difference.

To learn more about invasive species in Wisconsin and what you can do to protect your land, keep up regularly with our blog posts, make the Conservation Digest website for conservation management information and check out this article in the Prioritizing Invasive Plants in the current issue of the WDNR Natural Heritage niche magazine.

April 2017

Monday, 17 April 2017

09:00 April 17, 2017 09:00 by conser36_wp

Get Plugged Into the Invasive Species Network

Healthy land includes plenty of diversity of both plants and wildlife. Invasive species crowd out native animals and plants; making for property that is both boring and much more susceptible to erosion. Invasive aquatic plants and animals pollute our lakes and streams and reduce habitat for fish. The best strategy for dealing with invasive species to prevent them from getting a foothold in the first place.

Find out what you can do by logging joining a Taking Action webinar on Aril 21st at noon, sponsored by the Wisconsin First Detection Network.  Learn about GLEDN, a great website and mobile phone app that lets anybody report invasive species throughout the Great Lakes, including Wisconsin.

In addition to learning how to use the GLEDN app to report invasive species, we’ll learn about statewide Phragmites efforts from Jason Granberg (DNR) and purple loosestrife efforts in Washington County from Bradley Steckart (Washington Co. Land & Water Conservation Div.).

The Wisconsin First Detection Network is made up of landowners, land managers, scientists, consultants and volunteers who work to protect Wisconsin from new invasive animals, plants and diseases that can take over our land, lakes and streams.

For more information about WFDN and this, the third in a four part webinar series this spring, contact Ann Pearce at the UW Extension.

Thursday, 06 April 2017

08:00 April 6, 2017 08:00 by conser36_wp

Getting Ahead of Gypsy Moths

Picture of gypsy moth egg masses on maple tree.

There are only a couple weeks left until gypsy moth caterpillars emerge from their egg masses to start eating their way through your trees. You can stack the deck in your favor by taking action now.

Start by learning to identify gypsy moth egg masses. They are typically 1-2 inches long, often appearing like a light tan teardrop shape.

Picture of gypsy moth egg mass black locust tree.

Remove the egg masses before the caterpillars crawl out in mid-April. Wear gloves when removing the egg masses as the small hairs in the egg masses can cause a skin rash.

You can scape the egg masses into a jar and microwave them for two minutes. Another way to kill the eggs is to cover the egg masses in the jar with soapy water and leave them covered for two days.

There is an insecticidal spray called Golden Pest Spray Oil, by Stoller Enterprises, Inc. (800-777-2486) that works by coating the eggs and suffocating the larval embryo inside. The active ingredient is soybean oil which is coupled with adjutants that allow the soybean oil to penetrate the hairy egg masses. Thoroughly soak each egg mass to ensure adequate coverage.

March 2017

Friday, 17 March 2017

20:04 March 17, 2017 20:04 by conser36_wp

Let’s Get Cutting

Volunteer using chainsaw to cut up a boxelder tree.

Southern Wisconsin Trout Unlimited volunteer cuts up boxelder as part of Sugar River work day last December.

If you have been waiting for the right time to cut wood invasive trees, shrubs and vines; now is the time. Snow is off the ground so it is easy to find and cut buckthorn, honey suckle and oriental bittersweet.

Stack the cut branches into a tight brush pile. I like to point the branches all in the same direction to get a tighter pack. Try pushing the pile down and even climbing on it to crush the branches. I even use my chainsaw to slice through the pile to compact it even more. A dense brush pile will light easier and burn hotter because the wood is packed closer together, making it easier to get the fuel to its ignition temperature.

Remember to cut close to the ground and immediately treat stumps with herbicide (e.g., Garlon 4 or Roundup). Read and follow label direction for the correct dilution. For those larger trees like boxelder and bigger buckthorn, you only need to treat the outside sap ring because the inner heartwood is not living and will not transport herbicide.

Time is running out, so don’t delay. Once the buds begin to swell and break the sap will be running from he roots up into the leaves. When that happens, the tree will not only stop pulling the herbicide down into the roots, but it may actively push the herbicide back out of the stump. Once the sap starts running, wait several months until the leaves have fully opened. At that point the shrub or tree will again start pulling nutrients down into the roots and along with those nutrients your herbicide.

Thursday, 02 March 2017