- Author: Belinda J. Messenger-Sikes
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Invasive Pest Spotlight: Pampasgrass & Jubatagrass
The invasive pest spotlight focuses on emerging or potential invasive pests in California. In this issue, we cover the invasive plants pampasgrass and jubatagrass.
Pampasgrass & jubatagrass facts
Pampasgrass (Figure 1, top) is a common ornamental flandscape plant that readily naturalizes throughout California's coastal areas and some interior regions. Historically, pampasgrass was planted for erosion control, but it has since escaped cultivation and spread along sandy, moist ditch banks throughout coastal regions of southern California. Pampagrass can also grow in the hot, dry...
/h2>- Author: Marie A. Jasieniuk
- Posted by: Gale Perez
I read an interesting paper* recently about the sale and spread of invasive ornamental plants in the U.S. The paper describes the results of a study that examined whether identifying a plant species as invasive influenced its availability for purchase from the plant trade industry.
The authors assembled a list of 1,285 species identified as invasive or noxious in the lower 48 states from federal and state noxious weed lists, state invasive plant lists, and the Invasive Plant Atlas. They then searched for places to purchase plants or seeds of the species using Google and a database of nursery catalogs. Two classes of sellers were searched: (1) commercial nurseries with a storefront or garden center and (2) the e-commerce trade...
- Author: Travis M Bean
New research published in PNAS (Fusco et al 2019) highlights the role of invasive grasses in creating new wildfire regimes at not just local but regional scales. Weed scientists are familiar with the concept of the grass-fire cycle (D'Antonio and Vitousek 1992): exotic grass invasions promote hotter or more frequent fires, which in turn facilitates more extensive grass invasion, causing more fires, etc. Perhaps now is the right time to better educate non-scientists about this critical concept as wildfires take up more of the public's...
- Author: Thomas Jabusch
- Posted by: Guy B Kyser
Arundo donax is devastating to riparian habitat and becoming increasingly widespread in the Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta. To counter this growing problem, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy (Delta Conservancy) envisions a delta-wide, long-term Arundo Control and Restoration Program to treat Arundo infestations and restore native vegetation to improve habitat along Delta waterways.
Since 2014, the Delta Conservancy has led a pilot project controlling Arundo and restoring riparian forest habitat in the Cache Slough Complex, funded by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), and partnered with the Solano Resource Conservation District (SRCD) and Sonoma Ecology Center (SEC). As part of the Delta...
- Author: Thomas Getts
There was a post written a few months ago by Rebecca Ozeran entitled “A Tale of Two Grasses,” describing her experiences with cheatgrass and contrasting its characteristics with another invasive annual, medusahead. It was an excellently written blog, and I encourage you to check it out!
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=23889
As I rode my bike through a haze of smoke this morning, I decided it would be appropriate to describe the impacts I see this invasive annual having up in the northeastern corner of the state, because it is just about everywhere! (And I have some cool fire photos to share…) Cheatgrass...