While much of the country was officially mourning the death of Ronald Reagan last June 11, Carol Cook was out in the rain picking leaves from as many purple loosestrife plants as she could find.
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According to a University of Minnesota extension publication, “A single purple loosestrife plant with multiple stems can produce between one and two million seeds that are easily dispersed along rivers and waterways.” So don’t even think about trying to pull it all up. A likelier solution in places like northwest Indiana, where there are large stands of the weed, is to sic another exotic invader on it.
At the April forum Cook, her boss, Tom Anderson, and Brian Kortum, a natural resources specialist employed by NiSource (the local utility’s holding company) came up with the idea of jump-starting local beetle populations by raising them in a favorable environment for a few weeks, then distributing their hungry offspring to willing wetlands owners in northwest Indiana–the National Lakeshore, the Conservation Fund, and NiSource itself. The ultimate goal is to control the purple loose-strife, not eradicate it, says Anderson. “If the plants disappear from an area, the beetles would disappear too, and then we’d have to start all over” when the plant cropped up again.
Even though heavy rains drowned several rearing units, the plan worked almost too well. Spring-dug purple loosestrife doesn’t grow as vigorously as crowns dug the preceding fall and, ever voracious, the beetles ate faster than the plants could grow. Several times Mohlke gathered extra leaves for them along a creek near his home.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Randy Westbrooks, Norman E. Rees.
