A prairie-wide mapping project is plotting the locations of noxious weeds to help co-ordinate the fight against them.
The University of Brandon’s Rural Development Institute and the Canada Rural Economy Research Lab at the University of Saskatchewan are producing the maps for leafy spurge, scentless chamomile, spotted knapweed and downy and Japanese brome.
Environment Canada’s Invasive Alien Species Partnership Program is funding the project and Karen Rempel at the Rural Development Institute is managing it.
“Our estimate is that there are 700,000 acres of leafy spurge in Manitoba,” she said.
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“Across the Prairies there are likely over a million acres.”
Those estimates include railway lines, around power poles and along highways.
“But this also includes huge amounts of pasture and natural areas, and these are the most vulnerable,” she said.
Biologists say the threshold at which leafy spurge threatens a resource is 25 percent of an area, but Rempel said that is low, which is why it’s important to begin control early.
“A community group is the very best way to do it,” she said.
Several rural municipalities and regions are working on control projects, including the newly formed North Plains Leafy Spurge Control Project near Regina Beach in the Rural Municipality of Lumsden. The RM is mapping leafy spurge locations as it plans an aggressive attack on the weed.
Rempel said a forum is planned for February in which representatives from the four western provinces will meet to develop a plan.
The maps are available to the public on the rural economy research lab’s website at www.crerl.usask.ca.
