Beneath
the browned grasses & sedges of Neponset wetlands,
little
Galerucella beetles with big appetites lie dormant,
waiting for May & dreaming of lush Purple loosestrife....
This
spring, we continue the Fowl Meadow Purple Loosestrife
Biocontrol Project and we invite you to be a Project
Volunteer! Help
harvest rootballs in early April, repair nets in April,
harvest beetles in late May, monitor study
plots in June, release beetles in early to mid-July, and
monitor study plots in September!
Two
summers
of beetle releases already have impacted the exotic,
invasive Purple loosestrife at our
wetland
treatment sites.
In 2009, the plants grew shorter,
fewer in number, and with many fewer
flowers (and shorter flower spires) than normal.
Why is
this? The plants had
to expend energy to "heal" themselves and
re-leaf, after being fed upon by Galerucella
beetles and larvae, and so they
diverted energy away
from growing
taller or producing flowers. Because the
flowers on one Purple loosestrife ("PL") plant can produce 2 million+ seeds, and
taller PL plants block the sun from nourishing native plant competitors,
the now shorter,
flower-less PL plants allow more sunlight into the wetland to nurture
native plants and add far fewer seeds to the
wetland than normal. This is great news in our effort to
encourage native plants to grow again in Fowl Meadow!
