Passport to Texas

Arrundo Donax is ready for its close-up.

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This is Passport to Texas

Mike Eckert lives just outside of Fredericksburg. He’s battling with an invasive plant called Giant Reed, or Arrundo Donax that’s taking over a creek on his property.

As best as I understand, it’s doesn’t spread from seeds. It spreads from pieces washing out and lodging somewhere, and then starting to grow again.

Next week on the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV series watch a segment called Razing Cane that explores the impact of this invader that threatens nearly every river system in Texas.

We’re almost to the Pedernales. Another half mile and you’ll hit the Pedernales down here. And they’ve got this stuff in the Pedernales, too. And it’s spreading pretty quick. And it’s all over. Everywhere you go, it’s there. It’s going to take a massive effort to wipe it out. And I’m not sure they’ll ever wipe it out.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Aquatic invasive species specialist, Monica McGarrity and a team of biologists is fighting back. They’re using an herbicide that will hopefully kill this introduced invasive weed.

Arrundo is a grass, but it’s a grass on steroids. It grows 30 to 40 feet tall. Huge, dense canes. So dense that wildlife can’t even get through it. And so this is a really aggressive plant, and it’s important to take equally aggressive action to manage it.

View the Texas Parks and Wildlife TV segment Razing Cane next week on PBS. Check your local listings.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 7th, 2017 at 12:00 am and is filed under Arundo Donax, Texas Invasives, TPWD TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.