Dealing With Spartina

Dealing With Spartina

Dealing With Spartina. I’m Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.

Spartina is an invasive weed that has been causing problems for ag producers and water management. Mike Louisell with the Washington State Department of Agriculture says they are working on getting rid of the plant.

LOUISELL: The Washington State Department of Agriculture in mid-May will begin it;s annual work to treat invasive spartina in western Washington. The effort takes place in 12 counties and spartina is one of those noxious weeds that we need to take care of. We’ve been very successful to do most of the removal and eradication of spartina from western Washington tide flats. However, there do remain about nine solid acres of spartina around the state.

The spartina is currently found in and around the Puget Sound like Grays Harbor, Hood Canal, Willapa Bay.

LOUISELL: It takes efforts by a group of people, not just our agency as the lead agency but workers from the Department of Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife, other cooperating agencies and volunteer groups to keep control of spartina.

The shellfish industry is really susceptible to the invasion of spartina

LOUISELL: We’ve been doing work on spartina eradication for more than 13 years and it’s gotten down from solid meadows of spartina and some 9000 acres back in 2003 to currently we estimate there's about 9 acres total of spartina.

And that’s Washington Ag Today. I’m Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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