1/16/08 New Field Guide

New Field Guide Available. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Outdoor workers and enthusiasts now have a new tool to help Oregon battle invasive noxious weeds. Much like birdwatchers who refer to a field guide to identify what they are seeing in the wild, all outdoor activists now have a field guide to help detect unwanted invasive weeds in Oregon. BUTLER: It's a loose-leaf guide that is printed on waterproof paper. It's designed for individuals to be able to take into the field with them, to throw it in their backpack or have it in their rig to help us and have more eyes out there looking for these new invader weed species. Tim Butler is supervisor of the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Weed Control Program. He says the field guide- with its 51 pages packed with photo identification and other important information on weeds of concern- will help the state pursue its goal of detecting bad weeds early and eradicating them before they become established. ODA's Tom Forney says the effort can always use more eyes. FORNEY: In many cases, we don't have enough time to cover everything, especially looking for new weeds in a lot of different types of habitats and environments. The more people out there looking, the better off we are. ODA has produced four-thousand copies of the field guide, with the help of cooperating agencies, and is distributing them to county weed control programs and others in hopes that they get into the hands of Oregonians who spend a lot of time outdoors- people who can help in the surveillance of the most dangerous weeds. Butler describes the types of people he hopes will receive and use these noxious weed field guides. BUTLER: Folks that are outdoor enthusiasts and certainly folks that are working outdoors, natural resource type folks and agriculture folks that are out there on the ground to have that available as a reference guide. Butler says the field guide is designed to be updated when new weeds of concern emerge in Oregon. BUTLER: One of the neat things about this guide, it's kind of a loose ringed-type guide. Part of the intent of that, rather than binding it, was to make it very flexible so we can add new cards to it as time goes on. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.