It’s brutal, all-out war and nobody is taking prisoners.
Waterborne patrols cruise the rivers of central Alberta with one goal in mind – to eradicate scentless chamomile.
When the summer students find a patch, they tear the weeds from the soil, botanically cleansing the riverbank before slipping back into the river to search for more.
It may sound ruthless and it’ll take a lot of hands, but Lacombe county agriculture field worker Orest Litwin says municipalities in his area have decided the weed must be annihilated.
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“If you don’t control it, it will get out of hand,” said Litwin.
Choke out crops
Many prairie areas are now struggling with the weed, which thrives in pastures and untilled fields. From its base in road ditches and along rivers and streams, the weed has spread into thousands of prairie fields. If left untreated, the weed can take over and strangle forage crops.
Litwin said his county and its neighbors fight hard to eradicate any patch of the weeds that appear in a farmer’s field. Once it’s spotted, the producer is informed and told to control it.
If he refuses, weed control officials use their weed control act powers to go in and destroy the weed patch.
Young weeds can be sprayed, but mature weeds have to be pulled from the soil, Litwin said.
Local ditches are surveyed and any weeds are sprayed or hand-picked.
But the pest will always have a base to spring from, no matter how successfully it’s controlled elsewhere, if it’s allowed refuge along the rivers, said Litwin.
So his county of Lacombe, the county of Red Deer and the provincial lands department have teamed up to hunt the weed down. Every summer Lacombe county hires two students to patrol the Blindman and Red Deer rivers in a canoe, searching for the weed.
When the students find scentless chamomile, they tear it out and bag it. Chemical herbicides can’t be used along rivers, so the only way to destroy the pest is to hand-rogue it and then remove all traces of the plants, Litwin said.
Cost of program
The co-operative effort began in 1988. It cost about $17,000 last year to cover about 120 kilometres of winding waterways, Litwin said.
“We feel it’s been successful,” said Litwin, cautioning that the weed’s seeds are hardy and can germinate years after being scattered.
But he believes the authorities keep rooting out scentless chamomile wherever it is found, it can be conquered.
