Get rid of garlic mustard, now

Early spring is a great time to go after your local garlic mustard infestation. Garlic mustard is an invasive herb spreading rapidly through Midwestern landscapes and beyond. Its a leafy green monster crowding out native wildflowers by shading them out and by poisoning them, a chemical attack on nearby plants called allelopathy.

Garlic mustard in April. Now is the time to stop the spread, before flower stalks rise.

Garlic mustard uprooted using a spade. The soil was batted off the roots.

Most people don't have limitless time and energy to go after invasive plants so we recommend going after quantity, not quality.

How to go about it:

• We suggest your goal during early spring is, first, to stop the plants from flowering, second, to eliminate plants.
• Use a spade or weed fork, push it into the soil near the base of the plant to dig out or cut off the tap roots a few inches below the surface, lever the plant upward and flop it over upside down beside its hole. Bat the root ball with the tool to knock off soil, then leave it upside down to dry out.
• Don't make perfect the enemy of good enough, do damage to as many plants as you can, don't invest a lot of time in getting every last bit of one plant if you can use that effort in getting most of five other plants. It will take more than one outing and more than one season to get rid of garlic mustard. Get recovering plants next time out. 
• Go after outlier plants first--stop the spread. Go after the core of the infestation after you stop the spread.
• Get the plants before they flower (during late March through April in Ohio). Don't let them flower, go to seed, grow the problem!

What if I have little time and the flowers are already opening before I can get to it?

• You can cut off dozens of plants in minutes. Use a weed-cutter; a manual scythe, a weed-whacker, whatever, to knock the top off of the plants, make it fun. Yes, the plants will recover and try again to flower, and you can go knock off the top of the plants again later in the season.

I have lots of time and energy to devote to invasive garlic mustard control, what should I do?

• OK, you have time, energy, and a strong back: Pull out each plant by the roots. If your soil is loose and moist, most plants and clusters of plants will pull out, tap roots and all. Try to disturb the soil as little as possible. Compost the the pulled plants if you get them before they flower. Once they begin to flower, bag 'em.

I have read that I can just spray garlic mustard with an herbicide, isn't that a whole lot easier?

• We recommend manual methods during spring. During spring, plants grow so fast, they can out grow the impacts of some herbicide applications.
• Use of broadcast herbicide applications will get the nearby native wildflowers by overspray unless you use extreme caution. 
• During late fall, after most native plants are dormant, the green leafy clusters of garlic mustard leaves, the over-wintering form of the plants, are vulnerable to some very low percentage, targeted herbicide applications during warm spells (glyphosate formulations labeled for such use).

When using herbicides: always select an herbicide labeled for the purpose you have in mind, read the entire label and follow the label instructions, exactly. Today's high tech herbicides are not your grandfather's herbicides, enough said!

 More about garlic mustard from GeoEcology blog, here

Environmental History Timeline November, 2006

Sudden honey bee colony losses alarm beekeepers, first report of colony collapse disorder (CCD)

Catastrophic honey bee colony losses reported by commercial beekeeper Dave Hackenberg in late 2006 alarmed the commercial honey bee industry. Hackenberg reported losses impacting 2200 of 3000 commercial hives at his Florida apiary. Beekeepers across North America and major segments of industrial agriculture feared widespread catastrophic honey bee losses as reports demonstrated that colony collapse was continent-wide.

Honey bees have suffered repeated sudden declines in the past, followed by rapid recoveries. More recent pathogens have delivered more serious lasting declines. The Varroa mite, a bee parasite discovered in the United States in 1987, has resulted in a 45% decline in honey bee colonies with its spread across the continent. Colony collapse disorder, so far, has followed an even more alarming pattern. CCD peaked  in many areas during 2007--2008, then eased somewhat, but crippling losses continue. CCD and a host of maladies continue to plague commercial and hobby beekeepers. Most areas see devastating 30% to 50% losses of colonies annually, depending on care, location and weather conditions. Agriculture requires immense numbers of pollinating insects, just in time*. Is agriculture at risk?

How could a spike in colony failures strike across the continent nearly simultaneously? At least half of all honey bee colonies in North America are traveling commercial pollinators. Almost all of these are trucked to the vast almond groves in California's central valley during winter, where hives from across North America potentially share pathogens, including a multitude of recently discovered bee viruses, before returning to origin apiaries. Bee viruses, vectored by the now ubiquitous Varroa mites, plague bee colonies throughout North America. Beekeepers are also concerned about the proliferation of new pesticide chemistries and technologies (possible stressors range from ubiquitous seed corn coatings, to retail suburban landscape maintenance chemicals). Multiple stressors in combination may be defeating colonies.

New agribusiness models operating at grand scales and new technologies in agriculture; nutrient delivery systems, systemic pest controls, and so on, have greatly increased acreage, acreage productivity, and agribusiness profitability in recent decades. Food production demands from the ballooning global population threaten to outstrip reliable food supply nevertheless. The future of agriculture at scale may prove to be nonlinear and unpredictable in outcomes and profitability, too much of a good thing. Already, local produce movements and clean food initiatives are bringing some purchases and profits back home to local green growers, but will there be enough pollinators left to deliver the goods? 

Honey bees are non-native, introduced to North America by colonists by 1622. Feral colonies rapidly swarmed beyond European settlements of the time. The initial 17th century ecological impacts; the losses among native bee species and other native pollinators caused by the newly introduced colonial honey bees to North America can never be known. Researchers fear that modern honey bee maladies impact native pollinators. Do ecological impacts of honey bees in North America continue?

Today, honey bees and diverse native pollinators are essential for agriculture, one out of every three mouthfuls of food consumed in North America required a pollinator to help bring it to market. A healthy diet demands healthy pollinators, whether our produce is home-grown or purchased through a supply chain from far flung mega-growers.

Honey bees cannot do it alone. Native bee species are important pollinators for agriculture and for native plant species, many of which are not effectively pollinated by honey bees. The recent honey bee crisis is occurring against a backdrop of continued long-term native bee declines. Today, both native bees and honey bees (and other native pollinators) are in crisis.

Do something for pollinators.

What can we do? Check out Pollinator Partnership.
See Scientific American 2009 CCD summary here or here.

*"just in time" is a business strategy to reduce production cost by bringing in just enough resources, just when needed. California's almond groves are manicured hectares that support local native pollinators and honey bees poorly, excepting a few weeks of almond grove bloom and a few more of stone fruit grove bloom. I stretch the just in time concept a little, herein. Honey bees are brought in to the groves for seasonal pollination services (2.5 million hives were needed for the 2013 season) in place of maintaining diverse floral support for local year 'round pollinators. During 2013, service prices per hive are rumored to have reached over $200.00 for grove owners who did not contract lower prices in advance of the colony survival projections for 2013 (colony losses expected to exceed 50% in 2013). Maybe now it will be good business to support local pollinators year 'round by re-introducing and maintaining diverse flowering plants in and around the tree groves? Trouble is, only narrow roadsides remain in major growing regions, very  limited space for native habitat restoration to take hold. How about one dedicated acre per hectare to start?

Environmental History Timeline June, 1780

David Zeisberger records the arrival of European honey bees in eastern Ohio

David Zeisberger, indomitable Moravian missionary, penned his detailed observations, knowledge and experience with Native American life ways and of wild North America during the Contact Period as tentacles of pioneer settlement fingered westward across the Alleghenies. Zeisberger cataloged wildlife in later sections of his history while at his remote mission, Schoenbruun Village, near today's New Philadelphia, Ohio, most likely completing his notes during the summer of 1780.
Zeisberger noted (page 152):

Of bees, nothing was known when we came here in '72, now they are to be found in large numbers in hollow trees in the woods.

Zeisberger's fascinating history and bestiary can be viewed online here: David Zeisberger's History of Northern American Indians.

Honey bees were, and remain, agricultural partners with Western commercial agriculture. They were introduced alongside pioneer European agriculture and alongside the many species of undesired European weeds that came with imported livestock feed and crop seeds. Westward spreading exotic flowering weed species provided essential nutrition for westward spreading honey bees. Pioneer honey bees, always just ahead  of  pioneering peoples, did not reach eastern Ohio for 150 years following introduction in Virginia by 1622.

Native American agriculture produced abundance through partnerships with native pollinators, among them, butterflies, hummingbirds, ants, flies, beetles, and our numerous species of solitary bees, small semi-colonial native ground-nesting bees, and our heavyweight pollinators, bumblebees.

More on honey bees:
Colony collapse disorder CCD
First record of honey bees imported to North America

Environmental History Timeline April, 1622

Honey bees introduced in North America by early colonists, beehives listed as ship's cargo.

Bee historian, retired USDA Apiculturist Everett Oertel summarized available information about the introduction of honey bees in North America in his article, History of Beekeeping in the United States, Agriculture Handbook, No. 335 (1971):

Information available indicates that colonies of honey bees were shipped from England and landed in the Colony of Virginia early in 1622. One or more shipments were made to Massachusetts between 1630 and 1633, others probably between 1633 and 1638. The author was not able to find any records of importing honey bees into other Colonies, but it is reasonable to assume that they were brought by the colonists to New York, Pennsylvania, Carolina, and Georgia.

Brenda Kellar, Oregon State Beekeeper's Association, assembled additional information from multiple early sources for her paper, Honey Bees Across America. At least two ships arrived in Virginia during March and April, 1622, at least one of them carried beehives, most likely the second identified only as "this Shipp", likely the Bona Nova:

The only evidence we have of the initial importation of honey bees to North America is a letter written December 5, 1621 by the Council of the Virginia Company in London and addressed to the Governor and Council in Virginia, "Wee haue by this Shipp and the Discouerie sent you diurs [divers] sortes of seedes, and fruit trees, as also Pidgeons, Connies, Peacockes, Maistiues [Mastiffs], and Beehives, as you shall by the invoice pceiue [perceive]; the preservation & encrease whereof we respond vnto you..."

Kingsbury, Susan Myra. The Records of the Virginia Company of London The Court Book, From the Manuscript in the Library of Congress 1691 -- 1622 Vol 1 and 2. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906.

Thomas Jefferson penned copious notes about agriculture and all aspects of frontier wilderness, including comments about honey bees, the "white man's fly". Accounts by Jefferson and Zeisberger (see the next blog post, 3/29/2013), together, suggest that pioneer honey bees swarmed westward ahead of pioneer settlers, first occupying broad open landscapes long managed by Native Americans, and presumably, natural prairie openings and pigeon balds--swaths of collapsed forest where vast numbers of Passenger Pigeons had nested or roosted, wherever sunshine reached the ground and abundant warm season flowering plants could be found. Honey bees became increasingly abundant and widespread with the opening of the temperate deciduous forests for European agriculture.

Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia c1781.

The honey-bee is not a native of our continent. Marcgrave indeed mentions a species of honey-bee in Brasil. But this has no sting, and is therefore different from the one we have, which resembles perfectly that of Europe. The Indians concur with us in the tradition that it was brought from Europe; but when, and by whom, we know not. The bees have generally extended themselves into the country, a little in advance of the white settlers. The Indians therefore call them the white man's fly...How far northwardly have these insects been found? That they are unkown in Lapland I infer from Schefer's information...Kalm tells us the honey bee cannot live through the winter in Canada.

 Monticello.org accessed 03/07/2013.

Environmental History Timeline June, 2002

Emerald Ash Borer discovered killing ash trees near Detroit, Michigan

Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Agrilus planipennis, an exotic beetle thought likely to have arrived in North America in green (fresh) wooden shipping containers delivered to the Detroit area from its native Asia, begins devastating ash trees in Michigan at about the start of the new millennium. During June of 2002 extensive damage to local area ash trees is discovered. EAB larvae are found under the bark of ailing trees, disrupting these trees' transport of water and nutrients. Quarantine efforts fail to stop the invasive insect's spread. EAB's devastating history is made anew daily as ash tree death accelerates geometrically.

Today, EAB is established in two Canadian Provinces, Ohio (2003), Indiana (2004), Illinois and Maryland (2006), Pennsylvania and West Virginia (2007), Wisconsin, Missouri and Virginia (2008), Minnesota, New York, Kentucky (2009), Iowa and Tennessee (2010), Connecticut, Kansas, and Massachusetts (2012). EAB continues to expand its range, eventually killing all infected trees in three to five years: current losses of billions of ash trees have cost communities, forest owners and households many tens of millions of dollars.

Federal and state agencies are cooperating with universities in multidisciplinary efforts to slow ash mortality. The SLAM (SLow Ash Mortality) pilot project is testing methods to slow the spread in outlier forest infestations.

The marketplace offers homeowner solutions, some more effective and less toxic to non-target species than others. Valued landscape ash trees can be saved only through costly insecticide treatments: injectable TREE-age insecticide performs best, by far, according to university research. TREE-age (emamectin benzoate) remains inside professionally injected trees, greatly reducing impacts to other species. Without pesticide treatments, once infested, all ash trees of all native species are expected to die.

Ash trees are wonderful dooryard shade trees. They were planted by many homeowners and communities to replace the grand curbside elm trees that once defined so many boulevards in Midwestern towns, until the large elms themselves were lost to another foreign invader, Dutch Elm Disease. Today, urban foresters recommend diversity in selections of trees to green our streets. Single species boulevards may no longer be a responsible choice. Must global commerce equal global species?

Emerald Ash Borer
Emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, is an exotic beetle that was discovered in southeastern Michigan near Detroit in the summer of 2002. The adult beetles nibble on ash foliage but cause little damage. The larvae (the immature stage) feed on the inner bark of ash trees, disrupting the tree's ability to transport water and nutrients. Emerald ash borer probably arrived in the United States on solid wood packing material carried in cargo ships or airplanes originating in its native Asia. Emerald ash borer is also established in Windsor, Ontario, was found in Ohio in 2003, northern Indiana in 2004, northern Illinois and Maryland in 2006, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia in 2007, Wisconsin, Missouri and Virginia in the summer of 2008, Minnesota, New York, Kentucky in the spring of 2009, Iowa in the spring of 2010, Tennessee in the summer of 2010, and Connecticut, Kansas, and Massachusetts in the summer of 2012. Since its discovery, EAB has: - See more at: http://www.emeraldashborer.info/#sthash.FK8QIdTK.NHaPRM8R.dpuf

Emerald Ash Borer
Emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, is an exotic beetle that was discovered in southeastern Michigan near Detroit in the summer of 2002. The adult beetles nibble on ash foliage but cause little damage. The larvae (the immature stage) feed on the inner bark of ash trees, disrupting the tree's ability to transport water and nutrients. Emerald ash borer probably arrived in the United States on solid wood packing material carried in cargo ships or airplanes originating in its native Asia. Emerald ash borer is also established in Windsor, Ontario, was found in Ohio in 2003, northern Indiana in 2004, northern Illinois and Maryland in 2006, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia in 2007, Wisconsin, Missouri and Virginia in the summer of 2008, Minnesota, New York, Kentucky in the spring of 2009, Iowa in the spring of 2010, Tennessee in the summer of 2010, and Connecticut, Kansas, and Massachusetts in the summer of 2012. Since its discovery, EAB has: - See more at: http://www.emeraldashborer.info/#sthash.FK8QIdTK.NHaPRM8R.dpuf

Lean about treatment options and follow the impacts of this devastating insect invader at emeraldashborer.info.

Environmental History Timeline July, 1721

Pierre de Charlevoix reports catastrophic epidemic mortality among Native American groups, abandoned anthropogenic landscapes

Pierre de Charlevoix*, French Jesuit priest touring New France in the early 18th century, authored a dispassionate record of conditions he observed during his continent-spanning travels. Charlevoix described forests, lakes, rivers, geography, travel routes, communities among the French and among Native Americans, and the successes and failures of groups and efforts to prosper in New France. Charlevoix repeatedly comments on epidemics among Native American groups. While riding a bark canoe and camping along the west shore of Lake Michigan, Charlevoix estimated epidemic mortality in New France while writing of the...

...depopulation of all the Indian nations, who are at present reduced to less than the twentieth part of what they were one hundred and fifty years ago. If this continues we shall certainly see them entirely disappear. [vol. II page 78]

Charlevoix described fallow abandoned villages and entire landscapes left to nature by lost peoples. Late in December of 1721, near present day Baton Rouge, LA, Charlevoix discovers the ruins of an ancient village in transition to a successful plantation growing mulberry, indigo, and tobacco...

The next day, we advanced eleven leagues, and encamped a little below the Bayagoulas, which we left upon our right, after having visited the ruins of an ancient village... This was very well peopled about twenty years ago; the small pox destroyed part of the inhabitants, and the rest have dispersed in such a manner, that no accounts have been heard of them for several years, and it is doubted if so much as one single family of them is now remaining. Its situation is very magnificent, and the Messrs. Paris have now a grant here, which they planted with white mulberries, and have already raised very fine silk. They have likewise begun to cultivate tobacco and indigo with success. If the proprietors of the grants were every-where as industrious, they would soon be reimbursed their expenses. [vol. II, page 284]

Close examination of documented Contact Period conditions in North America reveal the importance and real value of Native American landscape management practices preceding and facilitating pioneer settlement and successes. Many anthropogenically managed landscapes, later found in various stages of succession, predated European settlement.

*Charlevoix, Pierre-Francois-Xavier De. Journal of a Voyage to North America. London: Dodsley., 1761.

Environmental History Timeline April, 1896

Global warming with increasing carbon dioxide predicted by Svante August Arrhenius

Swedish chemist, Nobel laureate, Svante August Arrhenius recognized the disproportionate warming capacity held by small quantities of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He was first to connect atmospheric CO2 with climate change. Arrhenius summarized scientific opinion about the effect of CO2 (carbonic acid) in the atmosphere, predicting a global temperature increase of 8 or 9 degrees F for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. In future publications, Arrhenius was first to predict global warming must result from widespread combustion of fossil fuels causing build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere.

On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground by Svante August Arrhenius. Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276