Available Tool for Weed Management

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

There are many tools available for successful integrated weed management - herbicides, mechanical and cultural methods, and biocontrol. Jennifer Andreas, Director of the WSU Extension Integrated Weed Control Project, provides free consultations for landowners interested in experimenting with the biological control of weeds.

ANDREAS: We work with landowners, land managers, and that can be anybody from state, federal, private; basically, if people have an appropriate site for weed biocontrol then we can provide them with biocontrol agents.

Andreas explains what an appropriate site is.

ANDREAS: Generally we need sites that are fairly large and stable; meaning they're not going to be mowed, they're not going to be tilled up. If the weeds are staying on the site and they're not being damaged, then that's a good place for biocontrol. So, areas like vacant lands, rangelands, areas where a lot of times going in and controlling the weed is not economically or civically possible; those are great places for it.

Andreas says the program works primarily with insects but they occasionally work with mites, and are hoping to be able to work with pathogens in the near future.

ANDREAS: All of those insects and mites and pathogens are very host specific; so they only attack the weed species for which they are intended. They don't attack crop species or native plants, or anything like that.

Tomorrow Andreas will talk about the types of weeds biocontrol works best with.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray with the Ag Information Network of the West.