Show Title: Fighting Florida's Exotics
Producers: Linda Kubitz and Erin Easterling
Time: 27:40
Show begins here:
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>>>TODAY ON IMPACT... TAKING BACK OUR NATIVE ecosystems.
---(It's more than just a scenic problem. It is a problem that affects fish and wildlife, the quality of the environment, for both animals and people.)---
---(It is quite a battle to undertake, but we're hopeful that we'll be able to get this under control in the next several years.)---
>>>THEY SEEM INNOCENT ENOUGH; SOME ARE EVEN QUITE ATTRACTIVE. BUT DON'T LET THEIR LOOKS FOOL YOU. INVASIVE EXOTIC PLANTS ARE THREATENING OUR NATURAL ecosystems. UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCHERS SAY EFFORTS TO CONTROL THEM MUST BE AS VARIED AS THE PLANTS THICSELVES. Music/Animation
>>>THIS IS IMPACT. A WEEKLY LOOK AT ISSUES AND ANSWERS THAT IMPACT OUR LIVES AND THE WORLD AROUND US. PRODUCED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA'S INSTITUTE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES.
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---(tree crashes to the ground)---
>>>THAT SOUND MARKS THE BEGINNING OF A FIGHT. ONE THAT WILL NO DOUBT TAKE YEARS TO WIN.
---(chain saw)---
>>>CONTROLLING EXOTIC SPECIES SUCH AS AUSTRALIAN PINE IS A MONUMENTAL UNDERTAKING BUT IT'S A CHALLENGE THAT MUST BE MET FOR FLORIDA'S NATIVE ECO-SYSTEM AND THE WILDLIFE THAT DEPEND UPON IT.
>>>MARK YANNO-U.S. FISH&WILDLIFE: They're a very invasive exotic species. They come into areas, they're very adaptable, they can grow in a variety of different habitat types and conditions, and they out-compete the native vegetation. The native vegetation is not used to dealing with this exotic species and for some reason these plants such as Brazilian peppers and Australian pines have a competitive edge on our native species. They essentially push them right out and take over the area.
>>>DAVID FERRELL-U.S. FISH&WILDLIFE: The project you see here is a small part of an overall, larger, ecosystem restoration project. We have an agreement with 5 federal agencies, with the leadership of Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt, to restore the South Florida ecosystem. And what we're seeing now is some on the ground activity, which is actually a result of that initiative. It started 2 years ago. And this is part of a coastal ecosystem restoration program, where we are looking to restore a number of spoil islands, plant mangroves along the coastal shorelines of Florida, restore tidal inundation to habitat that needs it, and to otherwise restore the coastal environment.
>>>JANE TUTTON-U.S. FISH&WILDLIFE: The clearing of the vegetation will open up the area for shore-bird nesting. They've lost areas that they can nest on the coast of Florida because of the beach development and a lot of human interruption. The public beaches and things. So some of the birds like the least terns will nest on building tops, but the plovers and other shore birds can't. These islands are important to them, if we can keep them undisturbed, then the birds can nest here again. We can have more shorebird nesting and production in the Indian River Lagoon.
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>>>TRANSFORMING ISLANDS LIKE THIS TO A NATIVE HABITAT ISN'T EASY. IT TAKES HOURS OF INTENSE LABOR JUST TO GET STARTED.
>>>TUTTON: The island, when we started was pretty much, dense Brazilian pepper on the edge, with a lot of Australian pines in the center and some open areas, so we've cut down the Australian--some of the Australian pine and a lot of the pepper with chain saws, and piled them up in a piles, after we cut them into smaller pieces, and then we'll let it dry out and then burn it later on. And hopefully before the nesting season we'll have to come out and see if we need to take out any other vegetation. So that there's more open space for the birds to nest, since they require the open areas, and they make a little cup-like nest in the substrate.
>>>ISLANDS AREN'T THE ONLY PLACES INVASIVE EXOTICS CAN BE FOUND. FLORIDA HOMEOWNERS ARE ALSO ON THE BATTLEFRONT AGAINST BRAZILIAN PEPPER AND OTHER TROUBLESOME EXOTICS.
>>>DAN CULBERT-UF/DIR.-INDIAN RIVER CO. EXTENSION: Right now we encourage homeowners to remove trees from the yards and encourage land owners to periodically remove these trees by applications of herbicides and monitor populations. We can hope for a freeze, but there's other implications for a freeze that may be worse than the cure that we're proposing here. Keeping on top of it is very important, those habitats of special importance that we want to preserve and maintain do need to have this type of maintenance so that we're able to keep those types of habitats available for future generations.
>>>IN AN EFFORT TO BETTER INFORM HOMEOWNERS AND LAND OWNERS ABOUT THE PROBLEM, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA EXTENSION AGENTS ROUTINELY CONDUCT SEMINARS ON HOW TO CONTROL EXOTICS LIKE BRAZILIAN PEPPER.
>>>KEN GIOELI-UF/ST. LUCIE CO. EXTENSION: If you don't control the Brazilian pepper correctly, within a year you can have a problem that's 20 times worse than the one you started out with. When this Brazilian pepper is cut, if a herbicide is not applied to it within a certain amount of time, or if the proper types of herbicides are not put down, the tree will become bushier, and will just become larger. These trees can be up to 10 meters tall. On average they're-they're about that tall. And they can be a real nuisance, when that sort of a situation occurs.
>>>UF EXTENSION AGENTS SAY THERE ARE 3 BASIC WAYS OF CONTROLLING BRAZILIAN PEPPER.
>>>GIOELI: First of all there's a cut stump method. You can go ahead and cut the Brazilian pepper within 2 to 3 inches of the ground. You can use the hand saw or a chain saw, make sure you have your proper protective gear on. Within 5 minutes of cutting that stump, you need to apply a herbicide, such as this super concentrate Roundup, or the Garalon 3A, or if you're in standing water you can use Rodeo for aquatics.
---(Right here I'm going to conduct the basal bark treatment on this Brazilian Pepper tree. This is for land stands of Brazilian Peppers . It's very easy to apply this type of herbicide around the base. This particular herbicide that we're using is a form of triclipier and it has a penetrating oil into it, mixed into it. You don't have to girdle the tree or anything. All you need to do is apply the herbicide all the way around the trunk of the tree, making sure the drift is not spraying back on you. Apply it within half a foot to one foot from the ground and your Brazilian Pepper should be effectively controlled. Basically, if you're going to conduct a foliar application, all you need to do is apply your pesticide on the foliage of the tree. This is the best time of year to do this because there are berries on the Brazilian Pepper and translocation will occur very readily and very rapidly and the plant during this time of the year.)---
>>>UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCHERS ARE ALSO LOOKING FOR BIOLOGICAL CONTROLS FOR BRAZILIAN PEPPER.
>>> CULBERT: As far as biological control methods that we know of at this point, there are none that are effective against the Brazilian pepper tree. They are looking at a saw fly, they're looking at some thrips from the native territory where this plant comes from. Nothing has been proven to exclusively kill Brazilian pepper tree, but not hurt other plants such as the mango and a California type of Brazilian pepper tree that is a very popular ornamental plant in the West Coast area.
>>>BRAZILIAN PEPPER IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO CONTROL BUT WITH THE HELP OF SEMINARS LIKE THIS, FLORIDA RESIDENTS CAN BE BETTER PREPARED TO MEET THE ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT OF INVASIVE EXOTICS AND THE DANGERS THEY POSE TO OUR NATIVE ECO-SYSTEM.
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>>>COGONGRASS CAN BE EASILY RECOGNIZED IN FIELDS OR EVEN ALONG ROADSIDES LIKE INTERSTATE 75. BUT DON'T LET IT'S LOOKS FOOL YOU INTO THINKING IT'S HARMLESS. THIS EXOTIC IS ABOUT AS INVASIVE AS IT GETS.
>>>DR. DONN SHILLING-UF/WEED SCIENTIST: There's a list of approximately 150 desirable grasses, plants that tend to colonize open areas, areas that have recently been disturbed, and Cogongrass is very effective at preventing all these desirable native species from getting a foothold and becoming established to the point where they're never allowed to colonize that area. They will never be present if Cogongrass gets a foothold initially, so the real strategy here is prevention. Try to keep the problem out before it gets started.
>>>TRYING TO FIND BETTER WAYS TO KEEP COGONGRASS OUT IS A TOP PRIORITY OF UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCHERS.
>>>SHILLING: As is the case with other exotic plants because we can't eliminate the plant 100% with herbicides because it's just spread over too large of an area and in many cases, it's in ecologically sensitive areas where herbicide use is not an option. It's very important that we understand our enemy, if you will, in this case Cogongrass, better biologically which is what medical doctors do to try to figure out how to solve diseases, and in a certain manner of looking at it, Cogongrass is kind of a disease of the land.
>>>TEST SITES WERE CHOSEN FOR VARIOUS CHEMICAL APPLICATIONS AND SAMPLES WERE TAKEN TO SEE WHICH CHEMICAL WORKED BEST AND AT WHAT TIME OF YEAR.
>>>JIM GAFFNEY- UF GRADUATE STUDENT: We've applied chemicals at five different times of the year, and each chemical was applied at five different rates. And we're evaluating these treatments, and the way that we evaluate them is by gathering the regrowth from these treatments in each plot. And we gather within a one-meter squared area. We bag these, the growth up, from the one-meter squared after we've chopped it off. Take it back to campus and dry it down, and get a dry weight on these samples that we've taken. And by doing so, we can compare each and every plot to each other and determine which treatment actually worked the best. So we can find optimal rate, for the optimal chemical, for the optimal application date.
>>>AS A RESULT OF THE INVASIVE NATURE OF COGONGRASS, IT'S EASY TO SEE WHY THE FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF PHOSPHATE RESEARCH IS SO INTERESTED IN CONTROLLING IT. THAT'S ONE OF THE REASONS WHY THEY'RE FUNDING THE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH.
>>>DR. STEVEN RICHARDSON-FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF PHOSPHATE RESEARCH: Things grow well in Florida, we have unreclaimed phosphate lands we have basically good soil, and we have abundant sunshine and abundant rain. However, what's good for desirable plants is also good for weedy plants. And the thing we deal with is a term called competition. These two, a weed and a desirable plant are sort of battling, for that site. If we can find methods to try to control Cogongrass, that's not enough alone because if you leave an empty space, that empty space is going to be filled by something. It could be a desirable plant, or it could be a weed, including the re-invasion of Cogongrass. The main concern we have with Cogongrass is that it can be controlled fairly easily on intensively farmed lands because of the normal tilling and spraying operations that are going on. But on lands that are not intensively managed such as forests and some of the uplands, scrub habitats and so on, there's a potential that it will invade those areas and it will be very difficult to re-establish the native eco-systems.
>>>UF RESEARCHERS ARE ALSO EXAMINING THE DNA MAKEUP OF COGONGRASS FOUND IN VARIOUS PARTS OF FLORIDA TO SEE IF THERE'S A GENETIC MATCH OR NOT. THAT INFORMATION COULD HELP SCIENTISTS KNOW WHAT THEY'RE UP AGAINST.
>>>SANDRA MCDONALD-UF GRADUATE STUDENT: From a control perspective, the more alike a plant is, the narrower the genetic base, the easier it is to control, because once you figure out how to control one plant, then all of those would be controlled, but if there's a good bit of genetic diversity, a difference within the species, that means that you've got to look at a number of different strategies, or be prepared that what works in one area won't work in another area because those plants are so diverse.
>>>GAFFNEY: The problem with a perennial grass such as Cogongrass, is that it's fairly easy to kill the above-ground biomass, the leaf tissue. The difficulty is getting that herbicide to move to the below-ground plant parts that are deep within the soil. And we're trying to do things like timing of herbicide applications.
>>>A SEARCH FOR A BIOLOGICAL CONTROL FOR COGONGRASS ISN'T OVERLOOKED EITHER.
>>>CARLENE CHASE-UF RESEARCH SCIENTIST: Where I see the world going, is we evaluate a number of the fungi that we have found in the field so far, to find the ones that are most likely to cause disease on a large scale and utilize those in a spray programs in areas that we can't go in with the usual control methods.
>>>WITHOUT NEW CONTROL METHODS, INVASIVE EXOTICS COULD HAVE THE WINNING HAND IN THE HIGH STAKES GAME OF ENVIRONMENTAL DIVERSITY.
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>>>IN SOUTH FLORIDA, MELALEUCA IS A NIGHTMARE, WHERE IT IS ESTIMATED TO BE SPREADING AT A RATE OF 50 ACRES PER DAY. HERE AT EMMY THOMPSON STATE PARK, NEAR MIAMI, THIS RAPIDLY GROWING EXOTIC HAS INVADED A LARGE AREA OF THE PARK'S SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY ACRES
>>>SANDRA WELLS -RESTORATION BIOLOGIST -METRO-DADE PARKS: Over time the melaleucas came in, and created almost a forested wetland, as opposed to an open glade. So you lose all those wildlife species that need that open marsh area to forage. Some good examples are your snail kites and a lot of your herons and egrets that really want to have the open areas.
>>>A COMMON PRACTICE FOR CONTROLLING MELALEUCA IS TO CUT DOWN THE TREES AND TREAT THEM WITH AN HERBICIDE. WHEN PROPERLY DONE, THIS METHOD CAN BE EFFECTIVE, BUT IN MANY CASES, OUT OF ONE STUMP WILL COME SEVERAL NEW TREES. SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT OVERSEES MANY OF THE NATURAL AREAS IN THEIR DISTRICT. WHILE THEY'RE USING MECHANICAL AND HERBICIDAL MEANS TO RID THESE AREAS OF MELALUECA, THEY ARE HELPING SUPPORT RESEARCH TO FIND BIOLOGICAL AGENTS THAT COULD BE INCLUDED IN A MORE WELL-ROUNDED CONTROL PROGRAM.
>>>FRANCOIS LAROCHE -ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST -SFWMD: Bio-control is probably one of the key pieces into keeping melaleuca under control. What we're doing is trying to bring or find out pathogens and insects that control the tree. Naturally controls the tree. It's a big investment at first, because you have to go and research these agents, and once they're introduced then there is nothing much you need to do beside keeping the population of insects or pathogen at a certain level to provide some control to the melaleucas.
>>>UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCHERS HAVE ONE POSSIBILITY, A NATIVE FUNGUS DISCOVERED IN 1993, FOUND KILLING MELALEUCA TREES IN THE LOXAHATCHEE WILDLIFE REFUGE. AFTER EXTENSIVE GREENHOUSE EXPERIMENTS PROVED SUCCESSFUL, THIS PATHOGEN IS BEING TESTED IN THE FIELD. IT'S ONLY DRAWBACK, IS THAT THE MELALEUCA TREES IT IS EXPOSED TO MUST BE STRESSED FOR THE FUNGUS TO BECOME AGGRESSIVE.
>>>DR. MONICA ELLIOT -UF PLANT PATHOLOGIST: Either drought stress, cold stress,, leaf removal, that type of thing. It's not going to kill a perfectly healthy tree. So it's going to have to be a combination or an integrated approach to the biological control of melaleuca.
>>>DR. MIN RAYACHHETRY HAS BEEN GROWING THE FUNGUS IN A LABORATORY IN FT. LAUDERDALE. FOR HIS FIELD TRIALS, HE'S TESTING IT IN COMBINATION WITH ARSENAL, THE ONLY HERBICIDE USED ON MELALEUCA THAT THE FUNGUS WILL SURVIVE AND ACTUALLY GROW IN.
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>>>DR. MIN RAYACHHETRY - UF POST DOCTORATE RESEARCHER: In this experiment, we are cutting trees, and putting in ten different treatments. So among those 10 treat--treatments, we are using water, as control, and fungus alone, and fungus plus Arsenal, and Arsenal alone from 5 to 50% concentrations.
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>>>RAYACHHETRY: The idea behind this experiment is to see if the if the fungus alone can be as effective in killing melaleuca stumps as Arsenal, and number two, is to see if we can use minimum concentration of herbicides on the stump, and supplement with fungus, and make it as effective as 50% Arsenals, which is commonly used by government and state agencies, whoever are involved in controlling melaleuca trees in South Florida.
>>>AT UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA'S FT. LAUDERDALE RESEARCH CENTER, PRELIMINARY TESTING WITH MELALEUCA SAPLINGS, SHOWS THE FUNGUS CAN BE VERY EFFECTIVE IN CONTROLLING STUMP RE-GROWTH.
>>>ELLIOT: Melaleuca has this bad habit that when it is stressed, it drops all of its seeds, and a majority, or a good proportion of those seeds will then germinate and start new melaleuca saplings. So that's the other problem that we have, we're realizing probably more and more that controlling seed production is probably the most important way, or one--or one way of trying to control the melaleuca.
>>>FURTHER TESTING WITH THIS PATHOGEN WILL BE DONE TO SEE HOW IT AFFECTS FLOWERING AND SEED PRODUCTION AND IF AERIAL SPRAYING OF THE FUNGUS COULD BE USED TO HELP CONTROL ADULT MELALEUCAS .
>>>ELLIOT: The main thing is we have to start somewhere, it's going to be a long process. You know, it took 50 years for this problem to sort of develop to a crisis level. It's probably going to take, you know, 10 to 15 years before we ever get it under control, no matter what method we use.
>>>DR. ELLIOT SAYS THIS FUNGUS ALONE IS NOT THE CURE ALL, BUT COULD BE AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT IN A MULTI-PRONGED APPROACH. MELALEUCA IS SUCH A DIFFICULT PLANT TO CONTROL BECAUSE WHEN IT WAS BROUGHT OVER FROM AUSTRALIA MORE THAN A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, NONE OF IT'S NATIVE ENEMIES CAME WITH IT. IN 1989, WORK BEGAN TO LOCATE INSECT SPECIES ON MELALEUCA IN IT'S NATIVE HOMELAND, SO THEY COULD BE BROUGHT BACK TO THE UNITED STATES FOR USE AS POTENTIAL BIOLOGICAL CONTROLS.
>>> SUSAN WINEWRITER - UF SENIOR BIOLOGIST/RESEARCH ASSISTANT: Up to that time nothing that had been done to control melaleuca had really worked. They had tried flooding to prevent seeds from germinating, hand removal of seedlings which is a very tedious way to do it, and herbicides.
>>>A FEW INSECTS THAT HAVE BEEN SCREENED ARE BEING TESTED UNDER QUARANTINE AT THE DPI LABS IN GAINESVILLE. UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA'S SUSAN WINERITER AND USDA'S DR. GARY BUCKINGHAM ARE ESPECIALLY EXCITED ABOUT ONE IN PARTICULAR, A TYPE OF WEEVIL CALLED THE MELALEUCA SNOUT BEETLE.
>>>DR. GARY BUCKINGHAM -USDA RESEARCH ENTOMOLOGIST: The melaleuca snout beetle is from Australia. It's called a snout beetle because it has a long snout on its nose, and it feeds only on melaleuca. And we brought it in to make sure it doesn't feed on any of the native plants in Florida that aren't present in Australia.
>>>WINEWRITER: The results are very good. There are very few plants that the insects will actually feed on. Usually when they feed on a non-melaleuca it's very minor damage and they will either move on to a melaleuca if they have the opportunity, or they will die, because the other plants aren't suitable food for them.
>>>THE PLAN FOR THIS WEEVIL IS TO RELEASE IT THROUGHOUT SOUTH FLORIDA, AS PART OF AN INTEGRATED CONTROL PROGRAM FOR MELALEUCA.
>>>WINEWRITER: It feeds on the young growth of plants, which, in Florida is produces year-round, so there's always going to be a food source for them. They feed on the leaves leaving holes in the leaves like Swiss cheese. They also lay their eggs on the leaves, and their larvae are also leaf eaters, and they actually feed, eat more melaleuca leaf than the adults do, and cause the tips of the plants to die, and that reduces the growth of that tree and possibly the growth of seeds for the tree.
>>>RIGHT NOW, THEY HAVE REACHED THE END OF THEIR TESTING WITH THE WEEVIL AND ARE SUBMITTING THEIR RESULTS TO THE FEDERAL TECHNICAL ADVISORY GROUP. ONCE IT IS APPROVED, THE MELALEUCA SNOUT BEETLE COULD BE RELEASED IN AS EARLY AS SIX MONTHS TO A YEAR.
>>>BUCKINGHAM: This is important to the current control methods, because the plant is controlled chemically and physically by cutting, but then the seeds sprout all around in that area, and someone has to go back and pull those seedlings up. Hopefully the weevil will attack the seedlings after the larger trees are killed, will fit into the management scheme right now.
>>>DR. BUCKINGHAM ALSO EMPHASIZES THAT THE MELALEUCA THEY ARE STUDYING BIO-CONTROLS FOR, IS NOT THE VARIETY THAT PROVIDES COMMERCIAL MELALEUCA OIL POPULAR IN VARIOUS BEAUTY AIDS AND OTHER PRODUCTS.
>>>BUCKINGHAM: We are not trying to eradicate melaleuca, we are just trying to control it and make it less aggressive so that it doesn't out compete our native plants. We will always have melaleuca, it's just that hopefully it will be at a lower level so that we can enjoy it as another one of our exotic trees, rather than something that is a threat to our natural environment.
>>>WHILE MELALUECA IS ONE OF FLORIDA'S MOST PROBLEM PLANTS, THERE ARE CLOSE TO TWO HUNDRED OTHER SPECIES OF EXOTIC THAT HAVE BEEN LISTED AS INVASIVE AND POSSIBLY HARMFUL TO OUR STATE'S NATURAL ENVIRONMENT. A FEW EXAMPLES ARE SKUNK VINE TAKING OVER EVERYTHING IN PATH, FOUND IN DADE COUNTY AND WEST CENTRAL FLORIDA CHINESE TALLOW, AN ORNAMENTAL TREE SPREADING MOSTLY IN AREAS FROM CENTRAL FLORIDA UP THROUGH SOUTH CAROLINA, LYGODIUM MICROPHYLLUM, COMMONLY KNOWN AS OLD WORLD CLIMBING FERN, INVADING NATIVE AREAS IN SOUTH FLORIDA, CARROTWOOD, FOUND IN WEST PALM BEACH, SARASOTA, AND OTHER AREAS OF SOUTH FLORIDA, AND AIR POTATO, A NOXIOUS VINE FOUND THROUGHOUT THE STATE.
>>>DR. KEN LANGLAND - UF AQUATIC PLANT SPECIALIST -EXOTIC PEST PLANT TASK FORCE: I think there are certain species that have been around for a long time, and they just, they've gone unnoticed, and they're just on a upper portion of a logarithmic population increase. They're now becoming very evident, and I hate to say it, but in some cases, by the time you see them being a problem, at that level, then it's really too late to manage them, where you would have liked to manage them when they were at smaller populations.
>>>UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA' INSTITUTE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE HAS FORMED A TASK FORCE OF RESEARCHERS TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE OF EXOTICS IN THIS STATE. THEY WOULD LIKE TO STUDY A NUMBER OF THESE SPECIES TO DETERMINE THEIR POTENTIAL FOR TAKING OVER NATIVE VEGETATION. DR. ALLISON FOX IS WORKING WITH ONE POSSIBLE INVADER. IT'S CALLED AQUATIC SODA APPLE AND IT'S A VERY CLOSE RELATIVE OF TROPICAL SODA APPLE WHICH HAS SPREAD INTO A MILLION ACRES OF PASTURE LAND, CAUSING ECONOMIC PROBLEMS ACROSS FLORIDA.
>>>DR. ALLISON FOX - UF RESEARCH ASSISTANT: This one tends to live along the banks of rivers, and cypress swamps those are the types of places that we've found them so far. It doesn't appear to survive very well away from water. So in that respect, it's a good thing, its habitat is somewhat limited the problem is, in some of the areas where it does grow, it can overtake the vegetation in that sort of area.
>>>WHAT'S EVEN WORSE ABOUT DISCOVERING AN AQUATIC VARIETY OF TROPICAL SODA APPLE IS THAT IT'S JUST AS UNPLEASANT AS IT'S RANGE LAND RELATIVE.
>>>FOX: It's got prickles all up and down the stems and all on both sides of the leaves, and they're mostly hooked prickles, that then as the branches cross each other, they can hook into each other and connect and that allows it to support itself. So it's very much like an aquatic bramble in fact, so even though, the actual density of plants in a given area may not be that high, because they can just interlock and grow, as I say, up to 4 or 5 feet tall, it can create a very impenetrable stand and it's extremely unpleasant to try to walk through without snake chaps, and gloves and long sleeved shirt on.
>>>AT THIS TIME, AQUATIC SODA APPLE IS MOSTLY AN ANNOYANCE TO PRIVATE LAND OWNERS, BUT DR. FOX HAS FOUND SOME ALONG THE PEACE RIVER, WHICH MAY BEGIN TO IMPACT RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES.
>>>FOX: They're going find that they can't get off the river. They're going to be impeded by this barrier, this impenetrable barrier, in some places. So those are some direct impacts on human uses, and as I say, you know, potentially there's the ability for this plant to compete with other native species and to impact the wildlife.
>>>THERE IS VERY LITTLE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PLANT'S ORIGIN, EXCEPT THAT IT MAY HAVE COME FROM CENTRAL AMERICA, SO THIS RESEARCH PROJECT IS ASKING QUESTIONS NO ONE HAS THE ANSWERS TO.
>>>FOX: You can't just walk out there and look at a plant and predict whether it's going to become an invasive species that's going to cost you millions and millions of dollars of lost revenues and economic impacts in the future and millions of dollars to control, or whether it's going to just sit there and not do very much. We have a feeling this has the potential to be a problem, it's close relationship the Tropical Soda Apple gives us a strong clue to that.
>>>INITIAL TESTING OF HERBICIDES ON THIS PRICKLY PLANT SHOW PROMISING RESULTS AND AS DR. ALLISON FOX LEARNS MORE ABOUT THIS WETLAND INHABITANT, SHE HOPES TO PREVENT IT FROM SPREADING OUT OF CONTROL IN YEARS TO COME. AS MORE PLANTS LIKE AQUATIC SODA APPLE ARE DISCOVERED, THE NUMBER OF PLANTS AND TREES BEING LISTED AS INVASIVE EXOTICS WILL CONTINUE TO GROW. BUT LUCKILY, THE RESEARCH EFFORT IS GROWING WITH THEM. UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA EXPERTS FEEL PUBLIC EDUCATION IS ONE OF THEIR MOST POWERFUL WEAPONS AND IF ENOUGH PEOPLE GET INVOLVED, FLORIDA'S ENVIRONMENT WILL THRIVE AGAIN.
>>>FOR MORE INFORMATION ON SUBJECTS SEEN TODAY ON IMPACT, AND A FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO IMPACT MAGAZINE, WRITE TO IMPACT, P.O. BOX 110190, GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA, 32611-0190. OR CALL 352-392-0437. TRANSCRIPTS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FOR SIX DOLLARS. VIDEO COPIES ARE TWELVE DOLLARS. VISA AND MASTERCARD ARE ACCEPTED. AND REMEMBER TO VISIT OUR WEB PAGE FOR MORE ON UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RESEARCH AND EDUCATION.
>>>IMPACT... A WEEKLY LOOK AT ISSUES AND ANSWERS THAT IMPACT OUR LIVES AND THE WORLD AROUND US. IT'S PRODUCED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA'S INSTITUTE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES.