Invasive Non-woody Plant Species (spreading dogbane)

[jayfed]

Below is a photo of a non-woody plant that is beginning to get a bit carried away with the available space on the farm. There are now three small colonies on the farm. It seems to be a partial to fuller shade species.

It has also been found at another small farm in town this year.

The plant height is about three feet with a speading canopy. The pic shows one of the smooth 'branches' and the easily pulled 'root' section of the main bole.  The sap is milky. 

The leaf veins are parallel.  The leaves are a darker green, opposite and the upper stems are a purplish rust color. Leaf backside is gritty, not hairy. Leaf steams hollow.

Flowers are very small white and light pink with the pink predominate. This pic happens to be the one plant which seems to have seed pods(?) coming off seperate stems by the flowers.

Actually attractive overall.  A dime is placed in the photo.

One local business gardener thought it might be a euraisian honeysuckle. I am clueless.

I am concern as to the potential serious of this plant taking over all the other weeds/ flowers that are 'native'. The woods grasses might be in trouble, too.

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Thanks for any help any of you might send this way.

[SwampDonkey]

Does yours branch out some like this?






I was trying to ID this and kinda come close with butterfly pea, but I'm having doughts.

I gotta go take a quick stroll up on the woodlot to console my live plant archives. If it's what I got here, it ain't a foreign invasive. I will have an answer on the id of my plant today hopefully.

[SwampDonkey]

Ok the main twig of my plant branches out and leaves are dark green and parrallel veined. The flowers are bell shaped and pink in color from pink-striping. Flowers are terminal or in leave axils. Mine are almost past flowering now. I think we have the same plant.


I believe it to be spreading dogbane Apocynum androsaemifolium. Plant is poisonous, but has been used in indian remedies and the plant has shown antitumour activity. Believed to be poisonous to cattle and the milky sap can cause rash is very sensitive individuals.

[jayfed]

Yepper, it's the spreading dogbane!   Time for eradication with some brush killer before I have to rename this farm "Dogbane Farm".

Thanks muchly guys.  Seems like a person will always find an answer at this forum in one fashion or another.

Looks like there are three thunderstorms stacked-up to the west of here on the radar.  Storm named "F3" should be here in about 20 minutes, so It's time to pull the wall plugs and phone lines.  The phone lines have been zapped at one house or another on this short road 3 times in the last 15 years. I don't want my phone flying off the wall or, as the next neighbor had in her bedroom, while she was still in bed, a fireball come out of the wall otlet and strike her opposing wall.

Again, thanks for the ID.  Jay

[wisconsitom]

I hope jayfed failed in this old quest to eradicate a decent NATIVE forb from his property.  I guess I'd have to question what his hurry to ID was all about....if he was not going to take the next step of determining whether or not the species was native to his area.

Sorry to respond to so old a post......but trying to make a point.  And that point is....very often, good, native species "invade
" an area.  That is what they do and is inevitable.  Ever see white pine or white-cedar "invading" an oldfield?  It's a beautiful...and necessary...thing.

wisconsitom

[SwampDonkey]

I've never found it outside of the woods here. We tend to plow and cultivate fields every year. Not much for pasture land around here. Mostly we grow taters and grains so the soil is always worked.

[wisconsitom]

But whether found or not, it is a valuable....and non-threatening entity.  My god, the U.P. guy has dogbane to worry about?  Come on down to E-Central WI and get yourself a load of common buckthorn.  You will never mind seeing a bit-or even a bunch-of dogbane again!

tom

[TKehl]

Sounds like your soil is goat deficient.    They likka the bucka-thorn.

[wisconsitom]

I'm afraid that goat thing is being way over-sold.  They don't just like buckthorn.  They will readily consume pretty much all vegetation in their path.  Utterly unsuited to the vast majority of cases, as are most simplistic "solutions".

tom

[TKehl]

I know.  They’re terrible.  Can’t even find a multiflora rose bush in the areas I’ve had them 5 years.  Much less poison ivy to.  They encourage pruning of lower limbs and mostly prefer the leaves of my low value trees over my high value ones.  They even eat the stuff in the pasture the cows leave improving the grass sward.  That and putting money in my pocket instead of paying for spraying.  Yep, goats are pretty terrible indeed.     

[wisconsitom]

All sarcasm noted.....there are numerous accounts of goats run a muck.  It sounds like in your woods...with exactly that species composition, and in your pasture...with exactly that forb/grass mixture....everything is hunky-dorry.  I guess you then go on to think that proves that this will work everyhwere and all the time.

tom

[catalina]

Tom, all sarcasm noted, the goat thing has been a running thing here for quite some time. Goats are no different than people-we all can run a muck, . I don't think Tkehl ever said that goats can and will work everywhere. There are countless reports of goats, sheep, and cattle being a viable entity in proper management for improving pasture quality and control of non desirable ground cover species in reclamation projects.  

[wisconsitom]

I have heard plenty about this, and yes, for years now.  I maintain, the way it is portrayed-and Tkehl's comments were-in my opinion, of this nature-is an over-sell of the concept.  Far, far more places where it would be utterly inappropriate than where it would be helpful, I think.

Then of course, in all things nature...there's shifting baseline phenomenon, where folks tend to think that what they saw when they were kids is somehow "the way it's supposed to be".  Thus, the sheep-ruined landscape of the British Isles (and New Zeeland, for that matter) is often romantically portrayed-by people with no knowledge of what has happened there-as being of great beauty, when in fact, there is virtually no trace of the original vegetation cover present there.  I think that some of the "good changes" wrought by goats on the landscape may be being felt by folks who don't know or remember what vegetation communities (we call them forests here) that land could support!  Not saying that about Mr. Tkehl here, but many, many folks haven't a clue.

Like the tourist copy I saw the other day..about a certain area of the U.P. and its virgin forestlands!  The area in question has surely been logged at least 4 times!  And burned a half dozen more......or the land around this community I live in....surely, it's always been farm fields, right!

tom

[TKehl]

**First, sarcasm mode now set to off.  **
**Second, I want to say that my label as “contrarian” is more about answering peoples A or B question with a “Actually have you thought about C?”.  I enjoy a good debate, but don’t argue just to be a jerk.**
 
I hear you.  At the same time, what is natural? 
 
There are at least three big events that have drastically changed the landscape of North America over the last… lets say while (because I don’t want to start an argument over years). 
 

•  Introduction of humans with corresponding influence on flora via planting preferred species (Pecan etc.) and burning to open grassland and savannah.
• Loss of large herbivores.  Studies in Africa show the influence elephants have on their environment.  Opening glades for regrowth and edge effect to increase biodiversity.  Frankly, large tracts of closed canopy old growth support less wildlife than a lot of people think. 
• Massive reduction in the number of beavers with equivalent reduction in volume of water retention and infiltration, not to mention the effects on migratory birds. 

 
So what natural do you mean? 
 
 
In my opinion, overgrazing kills species more than particular species do.  The ding dongs near town that run 6 horses on 2 acres where the grass never gets ¼” tall just make me cringe.  I’ve also seen goats run too hard in a single pen and it has the same effect that hogs have, moonscaped,  just with less rooting.  Set stocked cattle themselves do a lot of a damage.  
 
For me personally, growing up as a kid I saw set stocked cattle and unmanaged woods that grew up thick with multiflora rose, honey locust, and green briar.  (At least the rosebushes could be brushhogged in the pasture.)  There are some areas of nice Black Walnut, but 75% of the woods are low value either from species or quality.  I’ve seen terraces installed   and also what lack of planning for terrace discharges will do .  I’ve seen a lot of row crop ground tiled an shaped to increase drainage instead of efforts to increase retention.  (In aggregate, probably influencing the dramatic high and low levels on the rivers.)  I’ve also seen a lot of fencerows dozed out to make row crop fields bigger with fewer turns.  That leads to desertification long term…
 
My plan (maybe not perfect, but profitable and environmentally better than monoculture and the plurality of current ag):  Rotationally graze the cattle and goats, improve the species and quality of timber by heavy culling (80 acres or so was open ground in the 50's that got overgrown), opening up some areas of woods to be glades and savannah pasture, planting a few trees in existing pasture, and converting our few acres of row crop ground to silvopasture with probably hybrid chestnut trees on the hills and black walnut in the low ground.  We also plan to build additional ponds for water retention as well as increasing permeation of the soil.  All in all a 10 year project. 
 
To be honest though, my driving goals are more focused on increasing revenue per acre via increased timber value, nuts, and livestock.  Wildlife is considered, but it’s secondary.  There are a lot of other unmanaged woodlots and some managed for wildlife around me, so I’m not overly concerned.  Though I don’t mind leaving a dead snag in the woods and leaving some brushpiles for rabbits.
 
Other than fencing, the biggest negatives I find about goats are they also tend to kill Blackberry and Gooseberry bushes and are real hard on Black Haw shrubs.  However, in a couple years they do more than I can do in a decade bringing the unmanaged scrub to something producing good timber and pasture, and they pay me to do it!  As such, I accept the tradeoff.
 
For converting row crop ground to pasture, goats or hair sheep may be the only way to do it without massive chemical inputs.  The seedbank is dead, so the grass get’s choked out by henbit, ragweed, pigweed, and a number of other large forbs.  Seeding the ground as well as feeding good quality hay to the cattle when the ground is froze, then keeping cattle off during growth, but rotating goats through, has been effective. 
 
No it won’t work everywhere, but it works in most places as long it’s not wet, brittle, or sensitive ground and things aren’t overgrazed (though targeting some species requires some pulsed short term overgrazing).  Goating an area HARD in areas where an invasive is predominant and again when it starts to get regrowth will do a lot to knock it back and let other species get a foothold.  Bush Honeysuckle is the local invasive a lot are panicking about.  Has choked out a lot of acres along nearby creeks.  On our property, when found, they are hinge cut over for the goats to eat, then later they eat any regrowth and stump sprouts.  QED  
 
I am still a student of goats, not an expert.  My herd is pretty small, only about 50, and only been on about 30 acres so far.  My experience is geographically limited to the Ozark foothills of MO.  But, I’m going on almost 6 years of hands on experience with results that fit my management plan and am expanding fencing to the rest of the farm now as my herd expands.  

Without goats, the alternate plan would be to log heavily, then doze and burn large areas of low grade, like what neighboring farmers have done.  As such, I like goats a lot for what they do even if they are a PITA!  
 
It sounds like you have had some negative experiences.  I would like to hear about them.  Frankly, I’m hoping I can learn from them to avoid making the same mistakes. 

[wisconsitom]

TKehl, all of my negative experiences have been in the literature.  I think I'm in a sufficiently different kind of area than you,and here, I'm talking about where my land is, 60 miles north of where I sit now, compared to Missouri foothills.  I do tend to think that for my state's prairie enthusiasts, goats would make perfect sense.  I'm not particularly a prairie guy (although I install thousands of acres of same at my job) and I think the northern "mixed wood" forest type that I own up there would be a poor fit for the goat.  I too can learn more on this topic, however!

Baseline veg, in my world, is not a confusing concept.  You see, I've got the very large, very detailed Original Vegetation Cover of Wisconsin map prominently on my cubbie wall.  It is the bible, conjured by the men who surveyed this state circa 1848.  This does not mean that I attempt to match each site based on this map, but more generally, I know what's what in this region, and what direction things might reasonably take.

I have not one but two hybrid entities with which I'm working on my land, so so much for being against seeing changes or being some kind of purist.  I would, in fact-and this is between you, dear reader, and the fence post...not mind if my hybrid larch (Larix x marschlinsii)were to have some gene introgression into the nearby tamaracks in my swamp.  Flowering timing makes it somewhat unlikely, but I offer this to show.....I'm no purist in any sense.  In fact-and this is highly controversial, I think we as foresters are entering a new era where say, someone might come up to Mr. TKehl and say, sir, can you grow us X amount of fiber, having such and such characteristics, in X amount of time?  I think hybrid tree types are going to be used more, not less in the near future....and that in some cases, these entities will promote biodiversity, not limit it.  That's really another topic though.

The other hybrid entity with which I will soon be doing collaborative work with the breeder is a range of hybrid aspens.  We hope to develop aspens which are able to be planted from 12" forestry cuttings, just like their near-relatives, the poplars can be.  Then once this goal is achieved-and things are well-along-we seek to develop clones with "figured grain".  That too is in the works with these "A-G" hybrids, that designation indicating that they are hybrids of Populus grandidentata-the wonderful native tree, bigtooth aspen.....and the clonally-invasive Populus alba-the white poplar.  The PMG hybrids, named after the initials of the breeder, are combinations of traits from these two species, and I think, are going to be both impressive and econo9mically important in the future.  We're working on it!

tom

PS..."clonally invasive" ain't no thang.  It's the plants that birds poop out the seeds far and wide that are giving us fits, not small, clonal patches growing around their edges.  That's nothing.

[TKehl]

I think we are in a good place.  We may not agree with each other, but respect each other and their opinion. 
 
Very interesting projects.  Do you have a blog?  I’d be especially curious to learn more especially your comments about specific fibers.  Something I’ve heard of, and looked into just enough to see there was no viable market locally or that would be practical to ship to.  There are a couple plants doing biomass around here.  Some with grass and others with… maybe cottonwood.  Saw some info about it at the MU (Missouri U) Agroforestry field day.  It’s been up and down though from the people I’ve talked to.
 
The figured Aspen is interesting to, but not something that would probably translate well to my climate. 
 
I was going to suggest you add more about yourself to your profile, but it looks like you’ve already done some of that since the last post. 
 
I agree that goats and praries could be a VERY good mix.  The MO Dept. of Conservation has some beautiful prairie near us that I watch.  Partly because of fond memories from the hay contract we had on it growing up.  They no longer hay the ground, which is probably for the best.  But now they put in a lot of effort to cut down saplings, patches of sumac and a lot of shrubs along the creeks in order to improve prairie chicken habitat by making it harder on coyotes to ambush them.  We go to church with the agent that used to do the hay contracts and have informally discussed doing a goat trial as mechanical intervention is expensive and spraying difficult with the diversity of the native prairie plants.  We’ll see.  Have to get herd number up first, but have also been getting landowner inquires from other cattle farmers and people with vacant land for rent cheap… 
 
I definitely I hear about issues with goats and sheep especially in Mongolia and Africa lately.  They most often boil down to overgrazing for the given conditions though.  At the same time, I do know that I will have to keep the goats out of areas in the future to allow for regeneration.  They may not kill oak and walnut like they will trees they like, but they will stunt them pretty good during establishment.

[wisconsitom]

Quite a primitive presence on the web are I.  No blog, yet to post one photo...that sort of thing.  I do need to get more facility with sharing digital images however, just to better enable my collaboration with;

www.Open4st.com    and

https://larchresearch.com

Those are the two groups with which I am collaborating.  Those recent posts on this board where I'm full of questions about WoodMizer (and equivalent) rigs and so on relate to the fact of roughly 6000 very fast-growing hybrid larch on my property.  Legacy trees are the goal....but many stops along the way, where we'll be primarily thinning out stands and getting rid of runts and poor looking stuff.  As such, my sawing-as far as timber I have grown myself, will go larch...white pine...red pine...Norway spruce....just in terms of rapidity of growth.  It's all about the larch right now.  Oh, and I suppose some hybrid aspens may meet the saw some day.  With aspen, the more you cut, the more stems (ramets) come out of the ground.

tom

[Jeff]

Hopefully this does not happen to your larch. we had over a 90% loss

Loss of our Tamarack (Eastern Larch) in Forestry and Logging

[SwampDonkey]

The larch sawfly hit pure stands here around 2007-2010 (if my memory isn't foggy ), give or take. But tamarack scattered about the woods didn't make as easy a target. I would consider plantations of larch at risk to sawfly and the larch beetle Jeff had of course.

[wisconsitom]

Naturally, I keep a watch for sawfly larvae.  None yet.  The hybrid larch, incidentally, does exhibit greater resistance to larch canker than does our native tamarack.  But yes, I do have a concern over the sawfly.  In truth, because my total land holdings are small, I could probably treat for sawfly if I had to.

Time will tell but these hybrid larch are growing so fast, they may get to marketable size before the sawfly knows they're even there!

tom