Controlling Alberta’s weeds

Times Reporter 

 

Now that the sun is shining and the rain seems like it will be taking a hiatus, Wheatland County’s Weed Inspector Ron Bartholow is going to be even busier. The rain brings with it both a blessing and a curse to farmers and to Bartholow. On one hand it helps the crops grow, but on the other hand it also helps the weeds grow. It is up to the farmers and the County Weed Inspector to try to control the weeds.  

“Farmers have been doing this for a long time, they do field surveys on a regular basis and they set up a program where in a lot of cases they do pre crop burn down, they crop spray, they even do post crop spraying for perennial control,” said Bartholow.

“They do a lot of desiccating these days and desiccating means that they use a spray formula for ripening up their crop and in doing so they actually get good weed control later in the season,”

Crops like peas have always been desiccated, said Bartholow, and now farmers are starting to do it to other crops to harvest them on their time, not on Mother Nature’s time. 

“When we talk about weed control everybody thinks we go out and spray everything, but we use an integrated pest management procedure where we use mechanical means, we use hand pulling, of course chemical is a part of it, we use bio controls here in this county,” said Bartholow. 

“I have a number of releases for scentless chamomile along the Bow River. We use any method that actually works, is cost effective and gets the job done.”

Integrated pest management means various methods of handling weeds, mechanical, cultural, chemical and biological that all work together. Bartholow said you don’t necessarily always go with the spray end of it, there are times you have to get out there and use the other means. 

Bartholow’s main duties fall under the Alberta Weed Control Act and Regulations, which aims to regulate noxious weeds, prohibited noxious weeds and weed seeds through controlled measures. There are 26 noxious weeds on the list that need to be controlled, and then there are 46 prohibited noxious weeds to be eradicated. By controlling you can prevent the propagation of seeds or roots or whatever the case may be said Bartholow. Timing is very important, in the County he deals with weeds that are annual, bi-annual and perennial and each one is handled a little differently.   

“Annuals you do early in the year. Bi-annuals you try to get the rosette early in the year or if they’re into the stock area already, like if they’re growing up into shoots, then you wait until blooming and you just cut them off and they’re done,” said Bartholow.  

“Perennials are usually a fall application to control them. You can top burn them all year long but to wipe them right out you use a fall program, that’s the time of year they translocate.”

A lot of the ‘weeds’ on the list are actually flowers that people have brought in to plant in their flowerbeds. They make the noxious weed list because they are invasive. No plants native to Alberta are on the list, nor will they ever be, according to Bartholow.

“They are escaped ornamentals, people have brought them in, planted them in their flowerbed and they took off out into the wild so to speak,” said Bartholow. 

“Dandelions aren’t on our weed list, they’ll probably never be because they’re so wide spread there is no way in the world to eradicate them. You can control them to a point but you can’t put them on the list because they’re just too wide spread.

“The only ones on there are what we call invasive non-native plants. Invasive as you know means they wont stay put and they do move around. They can infest to the detriment to farmers, or anyone actually.”

Bartholow is the only Weed Inspector for the County. All summer long he travels along county roads checking the weeds in the area. 

“When I see problems that need to be dealt with then I go to the landowner and I meet with them and we come up with a program. If it’s County property we handle that ourselves, we mow our roadsides and we spot spray our roadsides,” said Bartholow. 

When he first came to work for the county he would get about 40 or 50 weed complaints a year from people. Now he says that number has dropped to one or two a year but he gets 40 to 50 requests for assistance in dealing with weed problems.

“The most common weed is probably Canada Thistle. We have a bit of an issue with Yellow Toadflax and these again are some of the ones under the act. Some Leafy Spurge, we deal with a little bit of Hoary Cress in a few areas, we’re getting it cleaned up it’s been here for a millennium,” said Bartholow.

“We have some Black Henbane and some common Burdock in areas. Along the river we used to have an issue with Purple Loosestrife, when I first started here there was an estimated 110,000 plants along the Bow River, last year I think we counted 33, we killed 33, that’s all we have left so it’s been a bit of a success that story.”

The Alberta Invasive Species Council have put out many brochures on weeds that we shouldn’t be planting and weeds that we can plant and that’s what they call weed wise planting.  The 2012 Alberta Invasive Plant Identification Guide can be found by going to http://www.wheatlandcounty.ca/index.aspx?NID=260. There you will be able to determine if the lovely new plant you are bringing home is one the list, or if it is safe to plant in your garden.