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Ditch-banks Go Native

What's the world's most noxious weed? According to Larry Burkam of the nonprofit Bio-Integral Resource Center (BIRC), it's called yellow nut sedge and it's been driving Central Valley farmers crazy.

Burkam is coordinating a new project with local water and soil management agencies in Dixon, CA which will give farmers an alternative to using herbicides to wipe out yellow nut sedge and other weeds from their drainage ditches. Many of these exotic species produce a lot of seeds and can all too easily overwhelm ditches and spread into surrounding farmland; clearing them with herbicides or dredging creates disturbed soils - ideal conditions for new weeds to colonize. It also enhances habitat for ground squirrels, who may munch on crops and weaken banks and levees with their burrows. In addition, herbicides can run off into waterways and promote soil erosion.

In the Dixon project, BIRC is testing alternative weed control methods. It's encouraging salt grass and creeping wild rye, two native grasses, to colonize ditch-banks and outcompete yellow nut sedge, wild oats and other unwanted species. They also plan to test the ability of dwarf spikerush and meadow barley to suppress the swamp smartweed and pepperwood that favor ditch bottoms. Use of the natives will not only stabilize the ditch-banks, but also enhance water absorption into farmers' fields. And because native perennial grasses grow through rhizomes rather than seeds, they won't migrate via wind and irrigation water into farm fields.

BIRC's Sheila Daar says the approach is nothing new. "Using one kind of vegetation to outcompete another is what nature does," she says. Daar believes native species restoration can also increase wildlife diversity. Similar projects in Solano and Yolo counties could link revegetated drainage ditches as wildlife corridors. "With the simplification of systems, or monoculture, they're losing both the game birds and raptors that are part of the rural lifestyle," says Daar. "There's a growing interest on the part of growers in getting some of that diversity back."

Contact: BIRC fax (510)524-1758

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