Beetle eats salt cedar plague ( tamarisk )

Cortez Journal ^ | March 15, 2007 | SHANNON LIVICK

[george76]

Insect could help fight spread of tamarisk.

residents who have battled with the invasive tamarisk, or salt cedar, could find relief in the form of a beetle.

The Colorado Department of Agriculture is introducing a beetle - the only known natural enemy of the tamarisk. The beetle comes from Asia, where tamarisk first originated.

The tamarisk is an invasive, nonnative plant that was originally brought to the United States from Asia to control erosion. But the noxious shrub is said to cover 10,000 acres in Montezuma County. It can have roots that run as deep as 100 feet and can consume as much as 300 gallons of water a day.

One tamarisk tree can produce millions of seeds in one summer and can grow even after it is burned or cut down. To kill it with strong herbicides can take up to three years.

So far, it is too early to tell if the beetle's release in Colorado has been successful, Louden said. This spring, when the tamarisk's leaves come back, officials will learn whether the beetle survived the winter.

The beetle has been released successfully in Nevada and in Utah...

The beetles are no bigger than a sunflower seed and munched on a tamarisk branch.

[george76]

The tamarisk are very tough.

Fire, bulldozers, chemicals...only make a small dent in their populations.

My guess is that these beetle will also only make a small dent.

Fires alone apparently make the tamarisk come back even faster.

Part of the problem is that they spread by long root systems ( 100 feet plus ? ) and wind blown seeds.

[Moonmad27]

They clearly didn't learn a thing from what happened after the importing of Kudzu, when in the 1930's it was promoted for (what else) erosion control!

[TigersEye]

I am familiar with Tamarisk. They are indeed tough.

[MHGinTN]

Or if the initial host plant fails to sustain the beetle population and they transfer to other native species.

[george76]

I wish that there was an easier way to get the nice large stands of Cottonwood trees back.

They provided lots of summer shade and fall colors...

[SunkenCiv]

One tamarisk tree can produce millions of seeds in one summer and can grow even after it is burned or cut down. To kill it with strong herbicides can take up to three years.

...and require loads of paperwork, I'm sure. I'm not too sure introducing an insect species is the way to try to deal with it.

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.fdrproject.org/pages/toads.htm

The Unwanted Amphibian

Up until 1935, Australia did not have any toad species of it's own. We had tree frogs and burrowing ground frogs - even microhylid frogs which do not have a tadpole - but none of the world's hundreds of toad species evolved here. However, not wanting to be left out, Australia acquired some - 102 toads, in fact.

These toads were supposedly being used successfully in the Carribbean islands and in Hawaii to combat the cane beetle, a pest of sugar cane crops. After rave reviews from overseas, Hawaii shipped a box of toads to Gordonvale, just south of Cairns...

They breed like flies, as the saying goes. Each pair of cane toads can lay 33,000 eggs per spawning (some published references estimate they produce as much as 60,000 eggs!). Their 'toadpoles' develop faster than many Australian frogs so they can outcompete our frogs for food. Toads and toadpoles seem to be resistant to some herbicides and eutrophic water which would normally kill frogs and tadpoles.

All stages of a toad's life are poisonous so they have no natural predators to keep their numbers in check (although Mike Tyler's work suggests that toad juveniles are not toxic until they reach about 3cm in size but this presents a question: why would an animal lose its toxicity at the juvenile stage when it has it during larvae and adult stages?)

Toads not only eat the food normally available to Australian frogs, there is growing anecdotal evidence that they eat frogs as well, especially metamorphs. Fish who eat toadpoles die. Animals who eat toad adults die. The museums have plenty of snakes preserved in jars which were killed by toad toxin so fast, the toad is still in their mouths unswallowed. Even small amounts of water, such as a pet's water dish, can be fouled by toadpoles and adults. When the pet comes along to drink from it's dish, it becomes sick. Local vets report that a couple dogs a month are brought in ill just from "mouthing" toads.

(Australia has a long list of imported flora and fauna that have become pests.)

[hinckley buzzard]

Yes, this is great news, if it works.

[george76]

The beetles may help some.

The tamarisk have a century ? of growth. It may take another century to put a dent into them.

I miss the big stands of Cottonwood trees that provided summer shade and fall colors.

[SunkenCiv]

And bunnies?

[Fred Nerks]

and last I heard, we have 750,000 camels running around in the interior...some, we sell to the arabs, some we eat...

[george76]

What is your view on this ?

Should we try to remove some of the tamarisks ?

With limited budgets for labor...?

Thank you.

[OpenBar]

<<"I just wish we could convinvce Japanese beetles to eat Purple loosestrife instead of my wisteria.>>

These ancient English Beetles ate the American band species.

[forester]

Salt cedar is a big problem, very much like western juniper in our area. Our company is trying to get permits to build a 13 megawatt biomass plant that runs on wood chips. (we already have purchased the turbine and ran the powerlines, but the enviros sued and have stopped the project)

One of the fuel sources we are looking at is juniper. I see no reason that one couldn't mechanically harvest the salt cedar, and run it through a cogeneration plant, much like we plan to do with the juniper stands that have dried up most of our springs, streams and rivers. A follow up treatment with a herbicide application to kill the stump sprouts and suppress the seeds should do the trick.

Makes too much sense to most enviros - they are educated beyond their intelligence in most cases....