Alien Invasion - I want my pond back !

[clemsonfor]

Yep time for the aquatic herbicide!! and you dont have fish so thats good!

Some aquatic glyphosate can take care of that above water stuff and possibly may kill underwater portions as its all connected but i would proably go stronger!!

Reminds me of our Hydrilla!!!

 

[Eric Salop]

"everyone else calls it Australian stonecrop"

It wasn't ME! I haven't been to the UK since '91 at the Racal College in Heckfield (yes, that's it's actual name), between Reading & Bassingstoke.

It wasn't me who brought it over, I was last in the UK in 2010 and I never went any where Shropshire.

It's ok, neither of you need an alibi, Crassula made it to these shores well before your time. It is on sale in the "Perry's Hardy Plant Farm" catalogue - 1927 edition.

 

[Eric Salop]

Autumn 2014 - How to evect an alien
I read lots of official recommendations on how to bring death to Crassula.
All of them say it is only a temporary measure - it will come back.



Chemical Attack
The good news is that there is a very effective chemical control.
The bad news is that the chemical was thought to be too good at killing humans too, so they banned it from sale a few years ago.
As clemsonfor said, a form of aquatic glyphosate can be used.
Using pesticides on water is strictly regulated and if I were to go through the official channels I would have a lot of red tape, plus that would be another magnet for bureaucrats coming round checking on me. I would also have to go and sit an expensive exam before I was deemed competent to do it myself. Alternatively, I could bring someone in, but with glyphosate it is highly likely that it only kills the part above the surface, they would have to keep coming back to get the shoots that then grow up from the stuff lurking beneath the surface.




Excluding All Light
On small ponds Crassula has been killed off by covering in black plastic sheet for 6 months.
Doesn't seem a feasible solution on a pond this size, although there is a variant on this which I will come back to later.



Explosives
Not an officially recognised method. It was suggested by a friend who enjoys such spectacles and it could even work. Set a charge, or charges, underneath the alien and blow the whole mass outwards onto the bankside. It would be interesting to give this a go. Pity there is a public road running alongside one bank ...




Drain and dig it out
As much as I enjoyed the siphon, I don't plan on emptying this pond again, or this thread could turn into a groundhog day.




Lift out on Pallets
Nope, I promised I wouldn't go there.



Simply Pull It Out
The Institute of Hydrology warns not to attempt to remove Crassula "by mechanical extraction", otherwise it will grow again from the broken shoots. As much as I repect that the boffins in this revered institution know the biology of this plant, they underestimate the sheer satisfaction it would give me to physically evict the alien and pile it high on the bankside. They haven't come up with any good viable alternative, so despite the warning, dragging it out is what I will try and I will then do my best to find ways to stop it coming back. More on this tomorrow

 

[RedNeckGeek]

You did say that the pond resides next to a public road, right? It is not uncommon for things to fall off such public conveyances, even some as large as trucks, even from trucks that may be carrying aquatic herbicides. And if such a truck lost such a container on such a road and it happened to roll into your pond before it broke open, without a traffic camera there would be no record of the truck to trace the chemical back to its rightful owner...

 

[Eric Salop]

Pull it out

With a piece of pipe and 10mm diameter steel rods, I made a grappling hook, expecting this to easily pull in a little bit of weed. First problem was getting a purchase. If I simply threw the grapple up into the air, it would land with an impressive splash but could not penetrate the mass of green below.

[Picture above was taken more recently with a mark 2 version grapple. You can see a steel rod sticking out above the surface as it rests on the weed]

Wading out with a spade I made a hole through the Crassula and dropped the grappling hook in, then returned to the bank and pulled on the rope. The green matt came to the surface and stayed there. No way could I get it to move. Another defeat.



Next try was with a much heavier rope, fastened to the Subaru tow bar. A steady pull and the grappling hook came to the bank with only a small clump of Crassula. It had bent back the 10mm grapnel rods. I repeated this a few times and each time I got a good purchase a rod would bend.
The alien had won again.

The mark 2 grapnel was made with 12mm rods and these did not bend. Finally I pulled a clump of Crassula to the bankside, however the clump was no larger than would fit in a wheelbarrow. With my wife driving we repeated this a few times. It wasn't a complete failure, but it certainly wasn't a success either. An hour later and we hadn't made any significant progress.


Over the next few days I tried all sorts of hook type devices to try and extract more with each pull. All were either ineffective or too slow.

At that point I changed tactics and looked for a way to cut the mass of Crassula into smaller, managable pieces that could be easily handled.
Neither shears nor hand saw were effective.
A long handled knife did cut.
My hand sickle cut really well, so I took the blade off and fastened it to a longer handle.

Finally I was getting somewhere. As long as I kept the edge sharp, I found I could cut the Crassula into strips and then tow them back to the bank. The days were getting shorter, however I was making steady progress, cutting for an hour or so every day. It was a good excuse to go play in the water and was very satisfying to see the green mounds around the bank grow ever higher.

 

[dave1949]

Holy Cow, that's a heap of vegetation.

Must be good for something. Compress it into bricks, dry it, feed the wood stove. Stall bedding? Compost?

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

At this point, I would have called back the bureaucrat and told him he must've brought you this scourge on his mucked up boots. Pin it on him and take them to court.

 

[texasjohn]

You, Sir Eric, are what in Texas we call "hardheaded!" Meaning, you start on a project and continue until you "get 'er done!"
You know, kinda like The Alamo, then Goliad, then San Jacinto! I predict that you will be victorious in the end...but it may take a while since we are still getting a history lesson. Surely, you would not have started the thread unless there is a happy ending to this delightful tale!

 

[Eric Salop]

Autumn 2014 - Out on a limb

I had cleared a lot of weed out from the shallower water, where it was easy to wade. With chest waders I wouldn't be able to get to the centre of the pond and keep dry, though keeping dry was the least of my concerns. I didn't trust this stuff and having a large matt close around my chest as the wind changed direction made me even more cautious, I didn't want to provide cover for the local newspaper who would no doubt be overjoyed to run a "Drowned by an Alien" headline.

The plan was to cut a strip all the way around the edge of the pond so the weed was no longer anchored back to the shoreline. Once it was free I would find a way to drag the entire mass over to shallower water.

So I set to cut my way right around the perimeter. By this time I had done so much weed cutting that my wrist joints were aching, I could do no more than an hour at a time. At first the weed would bind on the sides of the blade as I tried to cut. Once the cut opened a little, I would wedge my knees in either side of the cut, just enough to ease off the sideways pressure of weed against the blade and gradually work my way around. Once the cut was a yard in length, I would make another parallel cut about a foot further out, then slice it off into a yard long strip. Each strip was raised for the water to drain, then tossed over onto the bank.

It was slow going, but eventually I had a foot wide strip all the way around the top side and around the far bank by the roadside.

Here an old oak tree had a branch growing out into the water, so I started to cut around this too.

[This picture taken June 2015]

Cut a strip, lift, drain, then throw to bank, cut a strip, lift, drain etc. Repetitive work, but it was a lovely evening for the time of year and I was very satisfied with the progress, although here there was still a fair bit of mud, I had to wriggle myself free of it before taking each step away from the bankside and towards the end of the branch. With the last strip cut, I dragged it back to the shore and tossed it up on the bank. It was very pleasant weather, warm, calm and very quiet. Not anymore though, that last strip of weed and possibly one or two before it had landed on a hole in the bank. I heard the buzz first and looked up to see dozens of angry wasps streaming out.

They were looking for someone to blame for the mess that had landed on their home and if I didn't move quick, they would soon figure out that was me. The only way to shore was to wade back through the strip I had just cut, right past their nest, so instead I headed back out a far as possible back along the branch. By the time I made it to the end of the branch I was in deep water, only just below the level of my chest waders. It took quite a while for the wasps to calm down and all the time I had to push up on the branch to stop me sinking further down into the mud.

Eventually I waded back around the pond and when I got back on the bank I could see the funny side of things. As wasps tend to make a new home in a different place each year, I decided to leave them well alone and come back to finish the job the following year.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

They say no good deed goes unpunished... :laughing::laughing::laughing:

 

[texasjohn]

I hope you are not paying for a gym membership...I think the exercise you are getting is enough to cover your needs in this regard!

 

[rd_macgregor]

If your pond was a bit smaller, you could try chaining it. A long, heavy chain (or cable) between two dozers. (eg. Chaining for Brush and Deer Management | Deer Management at Buck Manager)

I had that same water weed in my fish aquarium for years, but the snails finally overpopulated and ate it all.

 

[zing]

If your pond was a bit smaller, you could try chaining it. A long, heavy chain (or cable) between two dozers. (eg. Chaining for Brush and Deer Management | Deer Management at Buck Manager)

I had that same water weed in my fish aquarium for years, but the snails finally overpopulated and ate it all.

Snails? What kind of snails? If some alien eating snails got stuck on the legs of a bird and accidentally ended up in his pond, it sure would be a fortunate accident!

 

[Eric Salop]

No Wind in the Willows

It is not quite as much fun playing in water when it gets cold. With a good part of the pond back to clear water, over the winter I felt it was time to give the remaining Crassula a stay of execution while I concentrated on ways to keep it from growing back again.

There are 2 other ponds on this land that have been around for a good number of years.

The first is slightly smaller than the one that got invaded. It has remained clear, without any trace of the dreaded Crassula. This could just be luck, however I feel it may also be that the water and soil here is different as it lies on peaty ground, so it is probably more acidic.

In contrast the other pond is larger, about 3 1/2 acres and quite shallow, ranging from 1 to 3 feet in summer. Crassula has tried to invade this one too and it is present almost all the way around the banks, however it has not spread out into the open water. The question has to be, is it just taking it's time, or is something else happening to prevent it spreading out ?

The big pond is very open and exposed to the prevailing westerly winds. It doesn't take much wind to transform it from flat calm to little waves.

I reckon this may be a key factor in keeping the Crassula in check, although it is only my theory at this stage, I haven't yet come across this being reported on by biologists. If wind and waves does hold it back, then I made things worse when I plated willows down one side of the pond. All the willows are coming out for firewood. I took half out this winter, the rest will follow later in the year. Hopefully the wind will then once again put a good ripple on the water and help chase away any attempts to invade again.



Sorry Mr Vole, no more wind in the willows for Ratty.

.

 

[Wagtail]

I take it that the willow isn't good enough for a home-made bat, then?

 

[Eric Salop]

I take it that the willow isn't good enough for a home-made bat, then?

Afraid not. Wrong type of willow for hitting balls, unless you meant

 

[rd_macgregor]

Do any of these ponds have vegetarian fish (eg, any of several UK-native species in the family Cyprinidae), by any chance? [edit] Actually, I see that most of the cyprinids are omnivores with preferences varying quite a bit from species to species. I found this (for example) about Rudd in Wikipedia: "Mature Rudd, which are about 18” in length and weigh about 3 pounds, eat mostly aquatic vegetation. The Rudd can consume up to 40% of their body weight in vegetation per day". Tench, Roach, Crucian Carp or Bream might be other (native) possibilities. I think going this route might put you on a diversification treadmill, since you'd pretty soon need to introduce a predator species to help control the numbers of vegetarians!

Bob

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I'm confused Eric. Are you now caught up with the past and relating current events?

Or can we all look forward to your solution?

:confused3:

 

[zing]

I am also confused. Your last post says a good part of the pond was back to clear water, but the post before that says you had taken a single strip around the outside of one side of the pond and then the wasps stopped you. How did you go from the single strip along one side, to a large part being open? Did it suddenly pull out easily, once you had cut the strip along the edge? How much did you get cleared out?

 

[Eric Salop]

Sorry for the confusion, this is still in the past, but only just. That weed round by the oak tree is still there. The part that has been cleared so far is at the other end of the pond, where it was easier to wade - I'll find or take a picture to make it clearer.

Do any of these ponds have vegetarian fish (eg, any of several UK-native species in the family Cyprinidae), by any chance? [edit] Actually, I see that most of the cyprinids are omnivores with preferences varying quite a bit from species to species. I found this (for example) about Rudd in Wikipedia: "Mature Rudd, which are about 18 in length and weigh about 3 pounds, eat mostly aquatic vegetation. The Rudd can consume up to 40% of their body weight in vegetation per day". Tench, Roach, Crucian Carp or Bream might be other (native) possibilities. I think going this route might put you on a diversification treadmill, since you'd pretty soon need to introduce a predator species to help control the numbers of vegetarians!
Bob

There are no fish at all in any of the ponds. That wiki piece must have been written by a typical fisherman - exaggerating as usual. 18" Rudd ! More likely to be 6-8". A 2lb Roach or Rudd is a rare fish on most waters unless someone is feeding them every day.