Mowing knotweed a bad idea!!

[Floggingtrout]

I read a lot of posts about mowing knotweed. Maybe this info has changed and I apologize and stand corrected. However, along streams mowings were flinging process of plant that would float downstream and cause regrowth. I have seen this occur on schuylkill below many parks. On a stream mowing knotweed is creating a disaster!!

 

[FrankTroutAngler]

Japanese Knotweed is not all bad. I know of a narrow stream that receives a lot of important shade from it. I doubt any native flora would provide as much shade.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Yes those native trees we got are transparent. In fact, they can amplify sunlight causing a concentration of the sun and fires burn all the riparian vegetation.

Like i said in another thread, the Lackawanna sure doesnt mind it.
Then again, it likes mine water/sewage water, shopping carts, dead deer and tire oil. Not sure its a good barometer.

 

[Mike]

It doesn’t really matter if knotweed is mowed along streams. The numerous seeds produced will drop later in the year and drift downstream anyway.

 

[Biggie]

I know it is probably not the cause, but the year after all the knotweed was eliminated along the run at Boiling Springs is the year the high numbers of fish started going down dramatically. Eliminating it gave the herons open range to stand along the bank and pick off fish. Just my opinion.

 

[sandfly]

I did some work with Dcnr on knotweed. They tried everything to get rid of it. It spreads through the ground using rizones

 

[troutbert]

Biggie wrote:
I know it is probably not the cause, but the year after all the knotweed was eliminated along the run at Boiling Springs is the year the high numbers of fish started going down dramatically. Eliminating it gave the herons open range to stand along the bank and pick off fish. Just my opinion.

It very well could be the cause. If the knotweed is being suppressed, but no other vegetation is being established to replace it, that could result in less cover for trout than had been there before.

The natural understory vegetation in a place like that was probably some sort of shrub, such as dogwoods.

 

[afishinado]

FUDR project to battle Knotweed on the Upper Delaware River >

http://web-extract.constantcontact.com/v1/social_annotation_v2?permalink_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fmyemail.constantcontact.com%2FFUDR-and-Partners-Battle-Knotweed-in-the-UDR-Watershed.html%3Fsoid%3D1110504437966%26aid%3D_BE3AkSkwAU&image_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmlsvc01-prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fec8f83f8201%2F58d38117-7236-4bbb-9301-4e45db5ddd5c.jpg%3Fver%3D1601036922000&fbclid=IwAR3DE8UB0KLCe5ccBwsUfplHt5Lxh-mgGsCU5LL52pDzG6Ni0OebdLq4B_Y

 

[Dave_W]

afishinado wrote:
FUDR project to battle Knotweed on the Upper Delaware River >

Good to hear - they've got their work cut out for them.

Knotweed is so prevalent along the banks up there that when I was working on some paintings of the river I had come to use large strokes of green along the edges of the river just to portray the massive walls of the stuff that grows right down to the water's edge.