A group concerned with the spread of leafy spurge says the noxious weed is spreading through Manitoba like a bad disease.
A study completed by the Leafy Spurge Stakeholders Group shows the amount of land affected by the weed has more than doubled since 1993.
Leafy spurge was found on about 125,000 acres of land in 1993. The amount of affected land in the province’s agricultural region has since risen to about 340,000 acres.
“It’s a major, major problem,” said Herb Goulden, who heads the stakeholders group.
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“It’s like a creeping disease.”
The estimates of affected acres are conservative, said Goulden, suggesting the problem is greater than the study indicates.
The study found that leafy spurge costs Manitoba producers up to $17 million a year. The weed can reduce the number of livestock a pasture can carry. As it progresses, it can also hurt land values. In some cases, assessed land values in the province dropped to $60 an acre from $200.
Chemical and biological controls are used against the noxious weed. Grazing pastures with sheep or goats can also help. However, there is nothing to eliminate the problem.
“There are no magic bullets,” Goulden said, noting that an integrated approach appears to work best.
“There is no one single chemical or one single bug that is going to solve the problem.”
The stakeholders group, formed in 1998 to learn more about leafy spurge, has members from livestock groups, government departments, wildlife organizations and conservation groups.
It also includes the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, Keystone Agricultural Producers, the Manitoba Weed Supervisors Association and the military base at Shilo, Man.
The goal is to pool resources and avoid an overlap of control efforts.
Wildlife and conservation groups are involved because of the weed’s impact on native habitat and sensitive ecosystems
Kent Shewfelt, past president of the Manitoba Weed Supervisors Association, said leafy spurge doesn’t usually establish itself in fields where annual crops are grown and chemicals are applied.
Instead, it likes lighter, sandier soils. Shewfelt knows of one instance where a leafy spurge plant sent its roots eight metres into the ground.
There are some sections of land in Manitoba that have been rendered useless as pasture because of severe infestations.
“It’s a general weed problem that is not going to go away by ignoring it,” Shewfelt said.
