Pest plant threatens streambank scheme
It will take a team effort to control an aggressive pest plant threatening Taranaki’s award-winning streamside planting programme and biodiversity in the region, authorities say.
Taranaki Regional Council environment services manager Steve Ellis said old man’s beard posed a significant threat to riparian planting along steams and rivers, and indigenous biodiversity, with the potential to infest most lowland forest across the region.
Introduced from Europe as a decorative garden plant, old man’s beard is an aggressive climbing vine which smothers and kills plants to the highest canopy, and prevents the establishment of native plant seedlings.
Ellis said all landowners and residents needed to destroy old man’s beard on their property, as required under Taranaki’s pest management strategy.
There were some exemptions on land within 50 metres of the Waingongoro and Patea Rivers due to highly infested areas. However, these would be lifted once control operations in these areas successfully reduced the pest plant to low levels.
A control operation targeting old man’s beard along South Taranaki’s Waingongoro River, was underway with the next phase due to start in November. It followed a successful control operation along 30 kilometres of the Kaupokonui River in 2012. This operation would expand to the the Patea River, but a start date and area to be covered was yet to be defined.
Contractors would work along 16km of the Waingongoro River in Eltham, from Finnerty to Stuart Rd, over summer. Control techniques would include herbicide sprays and cutting and pasting vines.
The type of technique would be discussed with the occupier or landowner before it began, Ellis said. The Waingongoro operation would run until February.
TRC and Department of Conservation (DOC) funding would meet all costs of the initial control operations, which aimed to emulate the success of the council’s self help possum control programme.
‘‘Controlling this damaging climber is crucial if we are to protect our valuable biodiversity and maintain the hard work by Taranaki farmers, on the regions award-winning riparian programme.
‘‘Landowners continuing to look after their own backyard is our best chance of beating this weed and taking Taranaki forward,’’ Ellis said.
The council provided technical advice and education, undertook property inspections, compliance monitoring and, when necessary, enforcement action to eliminate the pest plant.
Old man’s beard has small greenish-white flowers from summer to autumn and although similar in appearance to native clematis, there are several ways to distinguish the two: Old man’s beard has five leaflets per stem, natives usually have three; it has ribbed stems as opposed to smooth; natives are evergreen but ‘‘the old man’’ loses his leaves in winter.
To tackle the plant, cut the main stems as close to the ground as possible and paint the stumps with herbicide. Leave cut hanging vines in the tree until they die before pulling out.