Despite our best efforts, we still come across instances where poor practice is likely to have caused Japanese Knotweed to spread.
I’ve moaned about verge cutting in the past and this still continues seemingly unabated. Gordon last week visited the Marchburn area of Prestwick where we had recently treated some huge stands of knotweed on the edge of the burn and a tributary.
Just one of the large Knotweed stands in Marchburn, near the Airport. The burn in the photo below is immediately behind this stand.
Someone has taken it on themselves to ditch out the burn right through stands of JK that had just been sprayed despite being informed of it’s presence and our actions. Now whilst we do hope to have killed these plants off, it hasn’t allowed much time for the chemical to act on the root system. In fact there is a train of thought that the root only dies off as it starts to grow again in the spring but I’m not sure about this. Anyway, we will now have to wait and see what happens following the disturbance. We will visit the organisation that ditched the burn and find out where they dumped the spoil as this too will need to be monitored as will downstream of the ditched section. More work!
A stand of Japanese Knotweed on the left that has been disturbed by the ditching. This will require monitoring for a year or two to see if it spreads.
