Tackling Himalayan balsam

Haven't they seen Jurassic park ?

Very interesting Chris, thanks for that. Japanese Knotweed next? We can only hope

I was battering my way through a load of this stuff a few weeks ago and stumbled upon a Giant Hogweed and purely by chance I happened to realise what it was before it was too late...

I chose another swim!

I can (at a push) live with... dropped trousers over native nettles, blisters from hog weed, insect bites, battle my way through balsam, fall in and hope to be rescued by a passing lady dog walker, potential blindness from watching dragon fly porn, (risk one eye) but NOT blindness from Giant hog weed in the eye... thats real nasty stuff Steve!

Apparently Hogweed's been around since the 19th century, Knotweed a good while longer... Doctor Knotweed - The UK japanese knotweed removal experts

Interesting to read the extract from the Guardian, lets hope the solution will work. Balsam's an attractive plant in moderate amounts, nowadays it chokes river banks and footpaths where I fish.

If it came to a choice between HB and nettles (both are monocultures) I would prefer to fish among HB every time.

This is an excellent example how anglers and the general public help our waterways by bankside workparties or through financial donations.

New Forest Non-Native Plants Project | Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust


Please note that this project was pioneered by a County Wildlife Trust, not an angling group, and has been running for over three years.

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Only the other day whilst walking alongside an unfishable brook did i think that there's surely something that could be introduced or even engineered to tackle this plant. Playing god is dangerous and the outcomes could be unpredictable i know but HB is far worse than nettles for the long term habitat and structure of the river.

theartist said:

Only the other day whilst walking alongside an unfishable brook did i think that there's surely something that could be introduced or even engineered to tackle this plant. Playing god is dangerous and the outcomes could be unpredictable i know but HB is far worse than nettles for the long term habitat and structure of the river.

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My previous comment was a bit tongue in cheek, the reason nettles are preferable to Balsam is because of the root structure. Balsam is very shallow rooted and where it is prevalent the banks will erode during floods. Whereas nettles have a strong matted root structure which tends to support the banks.
There is allot of ignorance about this species, I know of a stretch of the Teme which is controlled by a small syndicate where the resident guide, who lived in a caravan on the fishery through the summer and who was a regular guest speaker at the barbel societies evening meetings, was proud of the fact that he was responsible for spreading Balsam throughout the length of his fishery and made it a feature of his talks.
I was a regional organiser for the BS at the time and even though I was aware of the ecological problems associated with a foreign monoculture I never picked him up on it through fear of ridicule. Funny how we can sometimes get swept up with other peoples misconceptions.

None too soon, this Rust stuff. I have about 10 acres of it to deal with, all I manage is to keep a few pathways through it. Last year we had a six-man work party hit it with strummers. At the end of a full days work, you couldn't see any difference

Any of the glyphosate weed killers ,eg roundup or tumbleweed etc work very well on Himalayan balsam .I spray quite a lot of this as part of my work for the council.it is supposed to be safe near water..

I hope Rust works and specifically targets the HB only and ensures biosafety, weed killers and everything else are a short term fix.

seth49 said:

Any of the glyphosate weed killers ,eg roundup or tumbleweed etc work very well on Himalayan balsam .I spray quite a lot of this as part of my work for the council.it is supposed to be safe near water..

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And you need a licence from the EA if you want to treat it within the riparian zone. Failure to obtain such a licence and you get caught by the EA, not to difficult for them to catch you at it, as all the plants are dead or dying. You can be fined up to £5000 and/or 6 months jail time. The EA can by testing the water trace it down to 1 part in 50,000.

Chris I'm yet to be convinced that Rust is safe to be let out into the wider Environment. After all the guys pushing it are running a organsation with business arm in invasive weed control. They need to release all the data on the tests they did on all the native herbage they tested it against.

That's the very problem Phil, I don't believe there's such a thing as a truly independent non-bias research establishment that can give us those assurances... I fear money and big business will always influence and fool decision makers as they have done historically.

Deceptive public relations tactics... Chemical companies Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto are a prime example (using tobacco-style PR tricks) of how to fool politicians to delay action on neonicotinoid pesticides.

As a side note, I read that honey bees are thriving on, and prefer HB due to it having significantly more nectar than most other natives.
Such a shame its so prolific along watercourses.

The eradication of HB is not a problem, just a challenge to all anglers, Conservation Organisations and other water users.

It often grows in very sensitive areas such as the Hampshire Avon where the Wildlife Trusts Non-Native Species Project is operating.
This river is an SAC* and an SSSI* where the use of chemicals is very limited indeed, hence the use of man (and woman) hand power.

HB usually colonises disturbed soil or silt laid down by recent floods and is very shallow rooted making pulling by hand an easy proposition (unless you have already pulled two thousand plants already).

Once pulled it dies, and doesn't regrow

Do your bit.
If you see it growing anywhere along an English waterway......pull it up and dump it as far back from the waters edge as possible.......simples!


*SAC = Special Area of Conservation, the highest European designation providing protection under EU and British Laws.
*SSSI = Site of Special Scientific Interest, a British designation providing protection under UK Law.

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Anyone wanting to experience the fun and wonder of spending a day pulling the stuff can contact me. I'll supply the tea and buns

Its actually quite easy to strim and where it's been strimmed, the grass grows back very quickly.

Agree Chris on the power of the multi-nationals and the con trick and the thick politicians. Bees do thrive on HB and the honey they produce is excellent. But the principle reason they are thriving on it is because it’s one of the few plants that grows in the sterile environment of arable deserts of the floodplains.
The riparian zone of a river is of no use to the arable farmers, ergo it thrives there because they don’t spray it. However, it crowds out all other native herbage other than nettles and as has been pointed out when it dies, leave bare earth for the rivers to erode during the winter floods and the associated problems that causes.

A slightly side issue but relevant to this, we, the park group and the City Council have put under wildflower meadow about 6 acres of what was mowed grassland. The bee population has gone up a 1000 fold in the park. Another 25 acres is being put under the same regime this winter.

As someone who holds a spraying licence and has worked for the last 3 years on riding our club river lengths of Gt Hogweed, HB and Knotweed, we use the manual method of HB removal and rarely spray it. Relying instead on pulling, strimming and cutting. We have made reasonable progress in riding it, but the problem is we don’t own or control the whole river and those that do hold lengths above ours are not doing their bit. So wash down seed and recolonisation is always going to be a problem. But whilst we have a happy and oversubscribed band of press-ganged volunteers we’ll keep at.

Thankfully the River Trust has a priority on Gt Hogweed on the upper river and tribs and made serious inroads on it. So we either cut or spray in on our lengths when it pops up. Knotweed isn’t a problem on the river and what there is, is under a spraying management regime.