[APWG] Maryland Native Plant Society, Anacostia Watershed Society and Sierra Club Habitat Stewardship Committee Report for 2006

Fri Mar 2 06:36:31 CST 2007

Hi folks,

Your readers can go to  <http://www.anacostiaws.org/> www.anacostiaws.org
and click on programs 

then click on
<http://www.anacostiaws.org/Programs/Resotration/Invasives/plantremoval.html
> Non-Native Plant Removal 

for A Report on the Progress of Invasive Plant Control Program at AWS

Maryland Native Plant Society, Anacostia Watershed Society and Sierra Club
Habitat Stewardship Committee Report for 2006 

Marc

  _____  

From: Marc Imlay [mailto:ialm at erols.com]
Sent: Sun 1/14/2007 9:10 AM
To: ficmnew
Subject: [ficmnew] Habitat Stewardship 2006 for MNPS, AWS and Sierra Club

Maryland Native Plant Society, Anacostia Watershed Society and Sierra Club 

Habitat Stewardship Committee Report for 2006

Non-native invasive species of plants such as English Ivy, Japanese
Stiltgrass 

and Kudzu are covering the natural areas that we in the conservation
movement 

have worked so hard to protect from habitat destruction, erosion and water 

pollution.  Just as we are making progress on wetlands, stream bank
stabilization, 

and endangered species, these plants from other parts of the world have
typically 

covered 20-90% of the surface area of our forests, streams and meadows. 

Many of us feel demoralized and powerless to combat these invaders that 

have few natural herbivores or other controls.

The Maryland Native Plant Society, Anacostia Watershed Society and Sierra
Club 

are establishing a program to provide local groups and public and private 

landowners with several models to draw upon in the region. We are assisting
in 

developing a major work effort (three to five years) at each site to remove
massive 

populations of about a dozen species. Regular stewardship projects are
conducted 

in all seasons including winter, early spring, late spring, summer, and late
summer.  

This high-intensity program is followed by a low-intensity annual
maintenance 

program to eliminate plants we have missed, plants emerging from the seed
bank, 

and occasional plants migrating in from neighboring areas. 

Attachment A announces regular monthly projects at over 40 sites in Maryland

almost all of which were initially started as a result of on-the-ground
workshops 

conducted by current MNPS members in Charles County and Montgomery 

County. The Nature Conservancy has also conducted projects on natural areas 

for many years. MNPS and the Sierra Club sponsor the monthly projects at 

Chapman Forest (800 acres), Swann Park (200 acres) and Greenbelt National 

Park (1.5 square miles). They co-sponsor Little Paint Branch Park (150
acres) 

and Cherry Hill Road Community Park (15 acres) removals in Beltsville and 

Magruder Park in Hyattsville MD (15 acres) with the Anacostia Watershed 

Society and provide considerable assistance to the other projects. 

These sites serve as a visible example of what can be accomplished. MNPS 

with Montgomery County and Prince Georges County MNCPPC, Sierra Club 

and Anacostia Watershed Society developed signs, announcements, flyers, 

safety and plant identification handouts, sign in sheets and evaluation
forms 

(attachment B).  A summary of AWS generated invasive plant control progress 

in 2006 (attachment C) is in chronological order where AWS engaged a total 

of 1082 volunteers at 12 selected parks including one native plant
restoration 

site. Swann Park had 99 volunteers and Chapman Forest had 78 volunteers.

The biggest challenge is to ensure that in subsequent years all the
successful 

projects are carried on by responsible entities. Our advice to others
considering 

similar projects are to recognize that restoration of our native ecosystem
is 

realistic but requires an appropriate level of work effort.

Many of us have done extensive surveys of this area and find that at least
80% 

of the natural areas are salvageable with a combination of mechanical and 

carefully targeted chemical control and no requirement for re-vegetation. 

The natives return on their own since they initially covered the majority of

the surface area. We remove all the class 1 and class 2 exotic species, 

typically 5-20 species, because otherwise if you just eradicate one exotic 

another one may replace the one removed.

Our policy is to use carefully targeted, biodegradable herbicides in natural
areas, 

such as glyphosate and triclopyr, that do not migrate through the soil to
other 

plants. Instead of spraying invasive trees such as Ailanthus, Norway Maple, 

and Chinese Privet we inject concentrated herbicide into the tree either by 

basal bark, hack and squirt or cut stump. Seedlings are easy to hand pull.
We 

wait for wet soil after a rain to hand pull, first loosening with a garden
tool such 

as a 4 prong spading fork so the center of the plant rises perceptively. At
the 

200 acre Swann Park, where we are essentially in maintenance phase after 5 

years, 17 of the 19 non-native species are eradicated or nearly so. Only
Japanese 

Stiltgrass and Garlic Mustard remain serious. Attachment D.

All the methods, techniques and/or findings of these projects can be used 

where the initial cover of non-native invasive species is less than 30% of
the 

total plant cover and adequately where under 70% cover. At higher percent 

coverage the chemical component is more overwhelming and native plant 

re-vegetation may be necessary with native species that are not cultivars
and 

are obtained from the wild or from nursery stocks originally collected
locally 

in the wild. There are several well researched species mixes that include
12-16 

herbaceous and shrub species including nitrogen fixers. Attachment E 

summarizes the status of native plant restoration at Woodworth Park. 

Over 120 professionals and volunteers participated in The Demolition Derby 

Field Session of the WEED BUSTERS Invasive Plant Workshop at Frelinghuysen 

Arboretum, Morristown, New Jersey, August 9, 2006 which provided practical 

experience with sites where it is best to use mechanical control and sites
where 

it is efficacious to employ chemical control of Japanese Stiltgrass,
Wineberry, 

Garlic Mustard, Oriental Bittersweet, Multiflora Rose, Japanese Barberry,
and 

Tree of Heaven.  Other invasive species include Porcelain-berry,
Mile-a-Minute 

and Japanese Knotweed. My presentation was How Our Monthly Invasive Plant 

Removal Project Restored Habitats in 40+ Maryland Sites". This non-native 

invasive plant removal reaches maintenance phase following major work
efforts 

at each site through a 5 year long combination of mechanical and carefully 

targeted chemical control.

Carole F. Bergmann serves as Forest Ecologist/Field Botanist for the
Maryland 

National Capital Park & Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) in Montgomery County, 

MD and presented Mobilizing Citizens to Battle Invasives in a Large County
Park 

System" Learn from our 8 years of experience of reaching out to educate, 

encourage and train 480 citizen volunteers to direct their time and effort
towards 

forest stewardship as WEED WARRIORS

Following is my original exploration to a broad audience about the pros and 

cons of combining true prairie and native meadow restoration with
alternative 

energy. This was followed up by a productive discussion this Fall
(attachment F):   

-----Original Message-----

At the meeting today we talked about the need for ecological research on
growing 

native American Switch Grass as both a bio-fuel and component of prairie and

meadow restoration. We at the Anacostia Watershed Society are planning to 

grow Switch Grass along the banks of the Anacostia as a component of
restoration 

and may be able to contribute to the research.

The following article by Danielle Murray, Earth Policy Institute, advocates 

environmentally responsible sources of biomass energy. In particular she
notes that 

"One likely candidate is Switch Grass, a tall perennial grass used by
farmers to 

protect land from erosion. It requires minimal irrigation, fertilizer, or
herbicides 

but yields 2-3 times more ethanol per acre than corn does."

Research is urgent to determine if switch grass is a practicable source of
bio-fuel 

when harvested from native prairie and meadow restoration. It is great as a
crop 

but if it is also good when harvested as a dominate component of native
ecosystem 

restoration we would have an environmental benefit as well as an alternative
energy 

benefit. Native prairie restoration would get a much needed boost across
millions 

of acres in vast areas of the United States that were natural prairies in
pre-colonial 

times.

Fortunately the research just takes a few years unlike forest restoration
research. 

Research will probably yield good results but is still necessary for us to
be sure.

Maintenance of these open ecosystems is carried out by a mosaic pattern of
fire 

and/or grazing that follows the natural pattern of fire and grazing by bison
and 

other grazers. Maintenance mowing is done once a year in mid or late summer 

about one foot above ground. Switch grass is a dominant component of native 

American prairie and meadow species along with Indian Grass, Joe-pye Weed 

and Bluestem.

It would be great to have your opinion on the status of research on this
issue and 

what we should advocate. Could you also forward this to researchers with the

Kansas restoration project. Cheers.

Marc Imlay, PhD 

Conservation biologist, Anacostia Watershed Society 
(301-699-6204, 301-283-0808) 
Board member of the Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council, 
Hui o Laka at Kokee State Park, Hawaii 
Vice president of the Maryland Native Plant Society, 
Chair of the Biodiversity and Habitat Stewardship Committee 
for the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Thanks again everyone! Marc

Remember our five year goal: It is considered standard that such invasive
plant 

removal projects are normally done throughout the region, the nation, and
the world.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To
unsubsribe from the MD-CONS-COMM list, send any message to:
MD-CONS-COMM-signoff-request at LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv
Lists support site for more information:
http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club
Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the
Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at
http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.plantconservation.org/pipermail/apwg_lists.plantconservation.org/attachments/20070302/94181a3d/attachment.html>