Invasive Plant Alert - The Scourge of Spotted Knapweed.

Allison Creek - the Invasion of Spotted Knapweed.

Before we showed up, you could ignore the environment and know that all would be well with it.  Everything had its place and was in balance with each other.  Disastrous events happened, much as they do today (although we aide the process liberally), but nature even had a way to manage that with the natural process of primary and secondary succession.  Rivers would overflow their banks and renew nutrients to floodplain soils, volcanoes would spew carnage upon the land only to see it later develop into some of the most fertile places on the earth.  It seems that time was on nature's side.

Today, ignoring the environment has costs.  We have introduced non-native plants and animals.  Some are invasive in their new habitat.  They grow without the culling measures they experienced in their homeland; there is nothing to stop its spread.  A good example of this is spotted knapweed.  I saw large amounts of the stuff throughout my travels in the interior this summer.  When unchecked, it spreads dramatically.  It chokes out other species and ends up being the lone member of the plant kingdom in an area.  This has terrible consequences for the ecosystem.

Many would ask at this point, "What does it matter?  After all, a plant is just a plant, and one is as good as another, isn't it?"  Imagine if the only plant matter we could grow were carrots.  Some would be fine with that, rabbits no doubt would herald the day this came to pass.  The truth though is that carrots are, in themselves not enough.  We could not survive on them alone because all the nutrients are not present.  They would not be suitable food for all livestock all the time, and we would no doubt end up with a disaster on a cataclysmic order.  But you cannot deny that carrots have value.

Knapweed is great for bees and other pollen and nectar collectors.  The flower itself is pleasant enough, and great fields of purple could actually be pretty.  However, the plants it displaces would be sorely missed.  Many insects are highly selective in their feeding habits, both as larvae and adults.  Wiping out 90% of the insects because knapweed is not edible to them, not to mention the fact that many vertebrate herbivores avoid it.  Even worse, the plant produces toxins that contaminate the soil so that, in ten years, the soil will no longer support other plants.

This is where environmental disaster comes in.  First, the number of native plant species declines because the knapweed begins to take over.  Then the organisms that depend on the varied mix of primary producers declines as there is little food for them to eat.  This is followed by a reduction in the number of second and third order consumers.  When, finally, there is nothing around except spotted knapweed, the ecosystem completely collapses.  Purple death has come to dispatch the slow but certain demise of the environment. 

What's strange is that it is not just the land that suffers.  Streams and stagnant water bodies are fed by a constant supply of organic matter that comes from the land.  Nutrients, detritus, and even insects.  Fish take their meals wherever they can find them, and often it comes in the form of a terrestrial blessing.  Water leaching through the soil picks up the toxins produced by knapweed and affects aquatic production too.  It may even impact groundwater, meaning the water that eventually makes it ways into wells.

This is where we come in.  The fact is that it is here, and something has to be done about it.  It must be burned, uprooted, and removed from every place it finds a home for.  It will be expensive and time consuming.  To do nothing though invites disaster.  There is no longer a balance, for we have released the Kraken.  It has a purple flower and looks pretty, but is the plague in disguise.  Time is no longer on nature's side.  It's running out.

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com   Eric Svendsen