[APWG] French Broom Removal
Holly Sletteland
hslettel at calpoly.edu
Mon Oct 15 21:40:10 CDT 2007
We have a project scheduled to remove French Broom on a coastal preserve
in San Luis Obispo, California this winter. We will be removing larger
plants with saws and weed wrenches and smaller plants with shovels and
pulaskis, as well as a few flamers. This activity is going to cause a
considerable amount of soil disturbance - some of which will be on
relatively steep slopes. Initially, I had planned to spread native grass
seed with straw to reduce the potential for erosion when we were through
working an area. However, I am having second thoughts because French
Broom is such a copious seed producer and its seeds are so long lived,
that I'm sure we're going to be going back over the same ground for
years. I'm thinking a non-native annual such as barley or soft chess
might be a more cost-effective and pragmatic approach, given that
whatever we plant is likely to have a hard time getting established and
the preserve is already dominated by European annual grasses. Do others
on these lists have any experience with broom removal and any advice?
(And my apologies to those of you who may be on both lists :-( )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Holly Sletteland
More information about the APWG
mailing list