Yahoo! News promotes UC botanist's solution for honeysuckle

Yahoo! News shared an herbicide-free technique of eliminating invasive honeysuckle that was developed by a University of Cincinnati botanist.

UC College of Arts and Sciences Professor Denis Conover has been helping parks battle nonnative invasive species across the United States by studying which methods work best for long-term eradication.

Amur honeysuckle can be especially persistent because it's labor-intensive to remove. This hardy flowering shrub is outcompeting many native plants because it produces so many seeds and has a prolonged growing season late into the fall.

“Not very many caterpillars eat honeysuckle leaves. It’s a big pest. It can become so dense that not even tree seedlings can regenerate underneath it,” he said.

“So you might have some native trees poking up above the canopy. But once those trees die, that’s it. They’re not regenerating. Eventually, you could have an entire monoculture of Amur honeysuckle where once there was a complex ecosystem of native deciduous forest.”

Conover said cutting the plant's woody shoots down to the stump provides no guarantee of eliminating it because honeysuckle typically produces fresh shoots from its cut base.

Traditionally, the solution has been to apply herbicides to the exposed stumps to kill the plant. But these chemicals can kill desirable plants and insects as well and end up in waterways where they can also harm aquatic life.

Conover developed a simple solution. He covers the cut stumps with black plastic garbage bags that he pins to the ground with landscaping stakes, depriving the stump of the sunlight it needs to regenerate.

The system is simple, low-cost and effective, he said. And once the honeysuckle is dead, the plastic can be removed and reused.

Conover recommends planting native bushes or trees in its place to help prevent honeysuckle from taking hold again.

Read the Yahoo! News story.

Featured image at top: UC Professor Denis Conover holds up an acorn to plant in place of honeysuckle he removed from a patch of forest. He is perfecting chemical-free ways to eliminate Amur honeysuckle. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC