Find uses for it, similar to professor at SFA using it in tests related to cancer treatment. Maybe as livestock food source, etc. Give it value and public will aid in its control.
Giant salvinia is a popular aquarium plant. It was first detected outside of aquarium and landscape cultivation in South Carolina in 1995, was found in Texas in 1997, and rapidly spread to other southern states over the following years.
Biological control agents, like the giant salvinia weevil, undergo extensive evaluation and testing by the USDA prior to being approved for release in the United States. This process has ensured that the giant salvinia weevil is host-specific to the giant salvinia plant. This means that if all the giant salvinia was eliminated, the weevils would have nothing left to feed on and would not be able to survive.
I doubt they will ever truly eradicate it. When I was a kid all the local lakes around me here in Louisiana were beautiful and a lot of fun to fish and boat. Now all my favorite lakes are so full of invasive vegetation that it's a chore to fish them or enjoy boating there. There are 3 lakes within 20 minutes of my home and all 3 have been taken over with this junk. They drain them, spray them, etc and for years they are just basically keeping boat roads open. Some years they will have a hard freeze in the winter which helps but then the next year we get a hot long summer and it's back to square 1 The problem is money to be honest. If the states had unlimited money to throw at this then they could wipe it out entirely. I mean you could just hire multiple crews to work on the lake full time and in a couple of years I think they could eradicate it. No one has that kind of budget though, especially here in Louisiana when our state struggles financially every year. Our LDWF does an amazing job with what money they have but it's never enough. It's gotten so bad at one lake here that some people have even suggested draining the entire lake and starting over. I went there 2 summers ago and could not drive my boat across it with a 50 hp mercury. It kept getting bogged down so we turned back to the boat ramp and went home. At one time it was such an amazing lake to fish with huge cypress trees and tons of big bluegill, bass, crappie, etc. Camps there sold for 150-250 thousand on average. Now you can buy a camp for 50k easily cause no one wants to fish or live there anymore. Some of the really elaborate camps that cost 350-400k 10 years ago can be picked up for 150 now. So many places for sale there that you can pick and choose I wish someone would invent a cheap solution to this problem. It would restore so many lakes and areas to what they once were.
Find uses for it, similar to professor at SFA using it in tests related to cancer treatment. Maybe as livestock food source, etc. Give it value and public will aid in its control.
What about fire and napalm. Our release fish species that eat them?
How did the species get to Texas?
Giant salvinia is a popular aquarium plant. It was first detected outside of aquarium and landscape cultivation in South Carolina in 1995, was found in Texas in 1997, and rapidly spread to other southern states over the following years.
Texas Parks and Wildlife
Thank you for the explanation!
and I can't keep the salvinia in my pond from dying...
What happens when the beetles eat all the salvina?
Biological control agents, like the giant salvinia weevil, undergo extensive evaluation and testing by the USDA prior to being approved for release in the United States. This process has ensured that the giant salvinia weevil is host-specific to the giant salvinia plant. This means that if all the giant salvinia was eliminated, the weevils would have nothing left to feed on and would not be able to survive.
Ugg, that is what is said at this time. I pray someone is researching how to get rid of the weevil should they not die off when the plant is gone.
I doubt they will ever truly eradicate it. When I was a kid all the local lakes around me here in Louisiana were beautiful and a lot of fun to fish and boat. Now all my favorite lakes are so full of invasive vegetation that it's a chore to fish them or enjoy boating there. There are 3 lakes within 20 minutes of my home and all 3 have been taken over with this junk. They drain them, spray them, etc and for years they are just basically keeping boat roads open. Some years they will have a hard freeze in the winter which helps but then the next year we get a hot long summer and it's back to square 1
The problem is money to be honest. If the states had unlimited money to throw at this then they could wipe it out entirely. I mean you could just hire multiple crews to work on the lake full time and in a couple of years I think they could eradicate it. No one has that kind of budget though, especially here in Louisiana when our state struggles financially every year. Our LDWF does an amazing job with what money they have but it's never enough. It's gotten so bad at one lake here that some people have even suggested draining the entire lake and starting over. I went there 2 summers ago and could not drive my boat across it with a 50 hp mercury. It kept getting bogged down so we turned back to the boat ramp and went home. At one time it was such an amazing lake to fish with huge cypress trees and tons of big bluegill, bass, crappie, etc. Camps there sold for 150-250 thousand on average. Now you can buy a camp for 50k easily cause no one wants to fish or live there anymore. Some of the really elaborate camps that cost 350-400k 10 years ago can be picked up for 150 now. So many places for sale there that you can pick and choose
I wish someone would invent a cheap solution to this problem. It would restore so many lakes and areas to what they once were.
I'm with Tracy Bush on this one.