- Author: Thomas Getts
A few months ago Rob Wilson wrote an excellent blog highlighting perennial pepperweed patches he was seeing in the Klamath Basin. It is a terrible noxious weed, which is found throughout much of the state, from sea level up to 8,000 ft. in the Sierras.
Where I live in the Honey Lake Valley, perennial pepperweed is widespread and has completely overtaken vast acreages of unmanaged pastures and riparian areas. At one point, it was estimated around 64,000 acres of land were infested throughout Lassen county. Generally, the Honey Lake Valley and Long Valley are hotspots that contain the majority of the acreage. While I live in the Honey Lake Valley, I also...
- Author: Thomas Getts
- Author: Rob Wilson
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Perennial pepperweed (Lepidium latifolium) also known as tall whitetop is a root-creeping perennial weed. It is commonly found along roadsides, ditches, and drains. It is also a big problem in pastures, non-cropland, and even cropland that is not tilled on a yearly basis. Unlike many other weeds of the state, pepperweed is problematic throughout many ecotypes, from low elevation wetlands around the delta up to high elevations in the Sierra's. Perennial pepperweed spreads by seed and root fragments and is very persistent and difficult to control once established.
Up in the Klamath basin, I've been amazed at the number of perennial pepperweed patches flowering along the road and ditches this year. The plants' tiny white...
- Author: Carl E. Bell
- Posted by: Gale Perez
If you have a site, especially a remote site with invasive plants, in particular infested with hard to eradicate invasive plants like veldtgrass or perennial pepperweed, you can't just cut or treat the plants and leave them in the field to rot. You often have to gather them up in trash bags, carry them out of the area, put them in a dumpster or haul them to a landfill. Seems like there should be a better way, right? What if you could treat plant propagative material (seed or vegetative organs like rhizomes or tubers) in the field and leave the refuse there?
Several years ago my colleague Dr. James Stapleton, UC IPM Plant Pathologist at the Kearney...