Invasive Burdock?

[Frederick W. Schueler]

Everyone,

The Ontario Invasive Plant Council has put me on a working group to
consider whether Burdocks (Arctium minus & A. lappa) are invasive
species, and if so how they might be controlled.

Over recent decades, I've had the impression that Burdocks are of
reduced abundance in eastern Ontario, and my suspicion is that the Best
Management Practices document would read - "Stand back and let the
Turkeys do the job." Here's the first google hit on Turkeys interacting
with Burdock -
https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com/2021/03/08/wild-turkeys-feeding-and-making-burdock-balls/
-

This relationship would be hard to study, since it would require
locating stands of Burdock, and then looking for Turkey predation on the
burrs, which would be easy in the winter, but harder in the fall when
there's no snow to record tracks and make the "burdock balls"
conspicuous, and then follow-up to see if the turkeyed stands diminish
over the next few years.

I wonder what others experience with this relationship, or of abundance
of Burdock through the years, may be?

fred.
------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
FI Newsletter -
https://clt1233162.benchmarkurl.com/c/v?e=15E5037&c=12D10A&t=0&l=53EF5F06
Database fund-raiser -
https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/F0DE970?utm_source=BenchmarkEmail&utm_campaign=January_-_February_2023
2022 annual letter: https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/EFE49F7
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca>
------------------------------------------------------------

[rmb...@istar.ca]

First off, I didn't know burdocks are an invasive.

Seems to me to be less of it around than when I was a kid, my brother
and I were forever getting the spurs stuck to our socks. It is
memorable because we had a German shepherd who kept trying to pull
them out of our socks and would pinch our skin on the ankles when we
were watching t.v. during the evening. She was obsessed, and we had
to change our socks or she would pester us all evening.

Now I rarely see burdocks when I roam around in September and October.
We had one big one here beside the house, and when I discovered that
the blossoms attracted a lot of interesting insects and makes for a
neat photography subject I had to do battle with both my father and
brother to leave it alone it was done blooming and the spur balls
would form. I don't see the leaves coming out this spring, it has not
survived the repeated attacks.

Rose-Marie

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "NatureList" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
> send an email to naturelist+...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/naturelist/c79c96f2-494e-d0c0-0ff9-dd26a309d8b2%40istar.ca.
>

[Frederick W. Schueler]

On 19-May-23 10:39 a.m., rmb...@istar.ca wrote:
> First off, I didn't know burdocks are an invasive.

* they're all Eurasian non-natives -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctium - the question is whether they're
spreading invasively. We'd written blog about their tastiness -
https://adaptating.blogspot.com/2021/06/more-than-burrs-eating-burdock.html
- so we're sort of fond of it.

My interest in Burdock in eastern Ontario has mostly been the
replacement of Arctium minus with A. lappa. My local experiment has been
an attempt to scatter burrs on a Goutweed patch across the street from
here, to see if it would crowd out the Goutweed, but no Burdock grew up
there. I don't know if Turkeys got to the seeds, or if the site somehow
was unsuitable - we have lots of Burdock scattered among the ravening
Goutweed in our yards.

fred.
========================================

--

[Stewart Hamill]

On 5/19/2023 10:23 AM, Frederick W. Schueler wrote:
> abundance of Burdock through the years

I see very few, although where they do exist there usually is a big patch.

Stew

[rmb...@istar.ca]

Was outside working this afternoon and I spied a few up on the
hillside behind my parking area, so they haven't all been eliminated.

Rose-Marie

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "NatureList" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
> send an email to naturelist+...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/naturelist/e8b42509-f5fa-f386-49ac-eb412cac3cb2%40ripnet.com.
>

[Matt Keevil]

It's fairly abundant around our yard where it is persisting and spreading out from the old barnyard. I think old barnyards are the optimal burdock habitat. I don't think it's invasive because I've never seen it look particularly competitive in natural habitats. It's only really abundant on disturbed sites, at least that is my impression. I can't say that I have noticed any change in abundance.

Matt

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/naturelist/20230519142618.147565fedxg3uj4a%40webmail.ca.inter.net.

[V. Kirkwood]

My observations are similar to Rose-Marie's.

Valerie

---

Visit my fine art photography page at http://valerie-kirkwood.fineartamerica.com/