herbiciding the North Augusta Road

[Frederick W. Schueler]

Everyone,

North Augusta Road is shown on the Counties website as one of the roads
that are to be herbicided for "noxious weeds" this spring -
https://www.leedsgrenville.com/en/services/roadside-spraying.aspx - and
driving the length of the road this noon, it was interesting to see how
this has played out.

I have described the way herbiciding has effectively eliminated Dicot
wildflowers from sprayed roadsides in the "Triumph of the Bromes" -
https://ngtimes.ca/the-triumph-of-the-bromes/ - as a reply to a
white-washing of herbiciding - https://ngtimes.ca/weed-spraying-facts/ -
and the almost complete width of the roadsides was dense tall green
Grass (of several species, not just Bromes) that was largely unaffected,
except for a few Cow Parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris (an invasive alien
that's fairly resistant to the herbicides, and not on the Noxious Weeds
list). Right at the edge of the gravel shoulders, however, was a nearly
continuous narrow line of wilted herbs - presumably herbicided - of
which Parsnip and Dandelion were the conspicuous species.

The health of the Grass, and the narrowness of the band of Dicot herbs
made it look like only a 30cm-wide shoulder-edge had been sprayed, but
occasional twisted Cow Parsley back in the roadside verge made it look
like a wide boom spraying had been done. We didn't stop often enough to
get a good idea of which species, other than Parsnips and Dandelions,
had been wilted by the presumed spraying, but will look into this the
next time we go south. We didn't notice any of the Bladder Campion
that's also resistant to the herbicide, and was conspicuous on
shoulder-edges last summer.

Tomorrow's meeting of the North Grenville Environmental Action Advisory
Committee (municipal centre, meeting room #1, 18h00) will discuss the
need for this roadside herbiciding, and anyone interested in discussing
the issue is welcome to attend. The documents can be downloaded from -
https://pub-northgrenville.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=4eefddd7-e427-48ed-9b40-da1a4a12e15d&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English&Item=24&Tab=attachments

fred.
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Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
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