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Beetles defoliate noxious Tamarisk

By Beverly Corbell, The Daily Sentinel

Published July 17, 2008 at 10:50 a.m.
Updated July 17, 2008 at 10:50 a.m.

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GRAND JUNCTION — By the middle of next year, people may notice lots of dead trees along Grand Valley waterways, but that’s because a noxious plant is being killed off, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management says.

Fast-growing tamarisk trees have choked out many native species, said Missy Sider of the Montrose BLM office, but the introduction of a tamarisk-eating beetle in 2007 is making headway.

“It’s a much more cost-effective way to deal with larger areas infested by tamarisk,” Sider said. “We can treat smaller patches with mechanical means, but large expanses become a problem.”

The goal is for native plants to again take over or be introduced in wetlands along the Colorado and Dolores rivers, said Dan Bean of the Palisade Insectary, which is collaborating with the BLM to introduce the leaf-eating beetles.

Bean said he hopes that when people notice the tamarisk die-off in the Grand Valley, they are not alarmed.

“My guess is that by mid-2009 people will see major defoliation,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t scare people to see it, but it’s a slow process.”

Tamarisk trees don’t die off from just one defoliation, Bean said, but it helps other plants grow.

“Even one defoliation opens up the canopy and lets sunlight through,” he said, allowing native plants like willow and cottonwood trees to come back.

Other places will need to have native plants reintroduced, he said.

“Some places are so ecologically trashed there’s not a lot of native seed,” he said.

Places where tamarisk eradication is evident can be seen along the Dolores River near Gateway or along the Colorado River in Utah, Bean said.

Comments

  • July 18, 2008

    9:30 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    FCZ writes:

    “Some places are so ecologically trashed there’s not a lot of native seed,”

    Bad for birds and other wildlife too.

    Their water useage is huge and wasteful.