Quinnipiac River Watershed Association Using Insects To Battle Invasive Plant
By ROBERTO GONZALEZ Courant Staff Writer
November 17, 2003, Southington
Calling all bug lovers. If you enjoy raising little crawling critters that
will help the environment, then the Quinnipiac River Watershed Association
has a job for you. "We need bug farmers," said Mary Mushinsky, the association's
executive director. The bug in question is the Galerucella pusilla beetle.
The beetle helps control the dreaded purple loosestrife, a pretty but harmful
plant from Eurasia, which is displacing native plants on the Quinnipiac River.
The leaf-eating beetles are also from Eurasia and love to dine on purple loosestrife.
"Leaving the purple loosestrife unchecked will make the river more sterile,"
Mushinsky said. "The purple loosestrife doesn't allow cattails and other native
plants to grow. Bugs and other animals don't know what to do with this new
plant. They can't eat it, so they leave." The effect of displacing native
plant species is a degradation of food, shelter and nesting sites for wildlife.
Europeans brought purple loosestrife to this continent about 200 years ago.
The ornamental plants became popular and began spreading quickly, causing
problems in wetlands throughout the country. For five years, the association's
staff and volunteers helped the University of Connecticut monitor three test
sites in the Quinnipiac Watershed: Panthorn Park in Southington, Hanover Pond
in Meriden and a headwaters wetland on the Meriden-Cheshire town line. Students
at Strong Elementary School raised the beetles for the Panthorn Park site
in Southington, Mushinsky said. "The bugs have successfully munched away a
lot of the plants," Mushinsky said. "They don't seem to have a taste for our
own natural plants. You could see the cattails and other plants coming back."
About 20,000 beetles - 10,000 in Panthorn Park alone - were released in the
three Quinnipiac Watershed sites about five years ago, said Donna Ellis, an
extension educator at UConn's Department of Plant Science. More than 300,000
beetles were also released in 40 wetlands statewide, Ellis said. "It's a great
sustainable way to control the purple loosestrife," Ellis said. "It can take
awhile, depending on the size of the wetlands and how large the infestation
is. It can take from five to 10 years, but in some places it's taken as little
as three years." The association is recruiting town commissions, public works
departments, schools and outdoor-loving residents to raise more of the hungry
little beetles to be dispersed in the Quinnipiac Watershed area. Raising the
bugs, which are about a quarter of an inch long, is easy and begins in the
spring. The association will provide instructions on where to find parent
beetles and how to place them in a mesh cage with a potted purple loosestrife
plant. Participants can leave the potted plant in their backyards, Mushinsky
said. The beetles will produce about 1,000 young a month inside the mesh bag.
Volunteers then take the pot and bag to a local loosestrife infestation area
and release them, Mushinsky said. To volunteer or learn more information,
call the watershed association at 203-237-2237. Copyright 2003, Hartford Courant
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