Lemhi County Cooperative Weed Management Area
Year Ending December 31, 2008
Annual Report
This report does not include pictures due to size constraints.
Table of Contents
Topic Page
Lemhi Cooperative Weed Management Area Exhibit 12 – End-of-Year Report
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Introduction3
Lemhi Cooperative Weed Management Area Exhibit 12 – End-of-Year Report
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Summary of Year 20073-7
Lemhi Cooperative Weed Management Area Exhibit 12 – End-of-Year Report
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Contributions and Expenditures8
Project SummariesAppendix I
MapsAppendix II
Introduction
The Lemhi County Cooperative Weed Management Area (LCWMA) was developed in 2001 to address noxious weed issues affecting Federal, State and private land while erasing property boundaries.
The goal of the Lemhi CWMA is to bring together individuals, agencies and organizations responsible for and interested in invasive plant species to coordinate management activities throughout Lemhi County. The primary purpose of the Lemhi CWMA is to promote efficient and effective integrated weed management. The Lemhi CWMA emphasizes all aspects of integrated weed management, including education, prevention, early detection, inventory, various treatment methods and monitoring.
The Lemhi CWMA lies within the boundaries of LemhiCounty with the exception of those portions of LemhiCounty within the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the Birch Creek and Little Lost River drainages. Refer to the map of Lemhi CWMA boundaries in Appendix B.
Major weeds of concern within the CWMA are broken into two categories consisting of new invader (currently managed as eradication); Purple loosestrife, Puncturevine, Salt Cedar, Scotch thistle, Perennial pepperweed and established invader (currently managed as control all identified known sites); Rush Skeletonweed and Houndstongue. These weed species have the ability to invade large portions of the CWMA and cause severe economic downfalls in regard to agriculture and the tourism industry, in addition to a degraded ecosystem for the abundant wildlife distribution located within the CWMA. Maps of all projects can be found in an electronic format submitted with this report.
Summary of Year 2008 Projects
Graze Weeds ($12,000.00 ISDA Funding)
This was the eighth year that the integrated approaches of grazing, biological control and herbicide have been used in order to combat Leafy spurge in the special management area of the Carmen Creek Drainage. Results from this project have been dramatic with the overall density of spurge greatly reduced. Because of the reduced forage base for the goat the Lemhi CWMA will be formulating a maintenance strategy for the area this winter.An integrated approach will still be used and goat grazing will continue to be used on an annual basis in order to prevent the reestablishment of Leafy spurge. A total of 6,700 acres were inventoried and grazed during the 2008 field season with a total project cost of $33,000. Figure 1 below depicts a portion of the project facing South West during the 2008 field season, figure 2 is of the same location however facing North East. All green shown in figure 2 is leafy spurge during the 2001 field season
Fall Spray Project ($4,000.00 ISDA Funding)
The fall spray project began during the 2006 field season and has had very good success. Partners for this project are the Forest Service, Lemhi County, Idaho Fish and Game, Private Citizens and Whitebark Inc. The primary noxious weed concerns on this project are Rush Skeletonweed and Spotted Knapweed. A total of 43chemical acres and 661 inventoried acres occurred during this project. In addition 65 acres of seeding was completed at three different sites where cheat grass control was taken during the 2007 field season. In conjunction with herbicide application, 40releases of Cyphocleonus totaling3,300 where used within the project area that spraying was not economically feasible. This project takes place during the Fall Steelhead fishing season resulting in a very visible display of noxious weed control. Due to this type of publicity we are constantly receiving positive feed back from the community and tourists encouraging continued noxious weed control.
Rush Skeletonweed Treatment ($4,000.00 ISDA Funding)
Due to the continual invasion of Rush Skeletonweed into the Lemhi CWMA we are no longer able to treat all infestations with the current resources available, because of this a contract was let in order for a commercial applicator to treat infestations that would otherwise go untreated. The contract was awarded to Whitebark Inc. and the work took place in the Lower Salmon River Corridor.The locations of Rush for this contract are very hard to reach and require long travel distances either on stock or by foot. A total of 5.7 chemical acres and916inventory acres occurred.The total cost of this project was $30,000 primarily comprised of federal funding.
Spray Days ($5,000.00 ISDA Funding)
A spray day is an event sponsored by the CWMA and hosted by private citizens to encourage members from all agencies to come together and work with the private landowners for the good of the community. These events are designed to target a specific noxious weed that is of concern to the CWMA; however private landowners are permitted to treat any noxious weed with the herbicide. The CWMA was involved in 10 communities spray day events with 176 public contacts in 2008. These spray days generated $18,340.50of private in-kind value to our weed control efforts for a total of 431.7 chemical acres treated and2,000acres inventoried.
Herbicide for additional projects ($5,000.00 ISDA Funding)
This project is used to compliment the spray day events that occur during the spray season. In order to ensure that the specific noxious weed was controlled members from the CWMA continued herbicide applications to treat all remaining infestations. This resulted in a total of 255.8chemical acres, 4994 inventoried acres and $22,896.50in-kind. This picture depicts a large monoculture of houndstongue treated due to the funding provided by this project.
Cost Share Program ($5,000.00 ISDA Funding)
This is the seventh year for the cost share program that reimburses private landowners for a portion of the herbicide costs they incur while treating noxious weeds on their property. The herbicide reimbursement project is very cost effective in that for every $1.00 of CWMA money spent, the landowners contribute $3.30 of their own money. In addition $29680.56 of in-kind value was generated bringing the total in-kind value of the cost share program to $42,100.17In 2008 private landowners inventoried 5,637acres for noxious weeds, and treated 1,429chemicalacres of noxious weeds.
Bio-Control ($500.00 ISDA Funding)
In an attempt to increase involvement with youth in natural resources the Lemhi CWMA held a Bio-Control workshop with the assistance of Paul Brusven from the Nez Perce Bio Control Center. A total of 29 people attended the workshop which included a half day classroom presentation on Cyphocleonus achates and an afternoon of collections at a local insectary. At the conclusion of the day any youth under the age of 16 was paid $0.25 per Cyphocleonus which was then released in portions of the CWMA that currently does not support this species. A total of $3,680 in-kind was generated from this project, including 10 releases of 200 Cyphocleonus at each site.
Rush Skeletonweed Inventory ($10,000.00 ISDA Funding)
The Lemhi CWMA has a large amount of land susceptible to Rush Skeletonweed invasion that has been un-inventoried. Funding received for this project was used to inventory a total of 42,522 acres, of which 40,000 was completed by low level helicopter flights and 2,522 was completed through on the ground observations. The method of using the helicopter was found to be very effective for funding patches of 1/10 acre or larger, however single plants were found. Once a plant or patch was found ground crews were dispatched to inventory the surrounding areas. While this method of inventory may not be ideal, the steering committee feels that aerial surveys are currently the best tool in order to obtain a landscape level of inventory for Rush Skeletonweed. All rush Skeletonweed found during inventory was subsequently treated by CWMA members.
Salt Cedar ($500.00 ISDA Funding)
The Lemhi CWMA made the decision to aggressively manage Salt Cedar once the species was placed on the Noxious Weed List. In order to encourage landowners to participate with the project the Lemhi CWMA offered to remove the species free of charge and provide a $50.00 certificate for a replacement species. At the start of the year an estimated 10 plants were located on private property. Currently there are 19 know sites on private property with 14 of those treated, the remaining 5 will be removed during the spring of 2009. An additional 20 sites were found on National Forest Land during the 2008 season and have all been treated. The total cost of this project $4161.50
Contributions and Expenditures for the LCWMA (Appendix I)
The following graph shows the cash contributions that the Lemhi CWMA received in 2008 with a total value of $158,017.61 received. Private cash contributions were calculated through the cost share program and money that they either paid for herbicide or contractor wages.
The following pie chart shows all cash and in-kind values that the Lemhi CWMA brought in during the 2008 fiscal year for a total of $269,216.17 This results in $4.85 for every dollar that the ISDA granted to the Lemhi CWMA.
Appendix I
Project Summaries:
Category / Weed species / Acres TreatedRe-vegetation / NA / 65
Mechanical Control / Carmen Spurge (grazing) / 6,700 acres
Knapweed / Pattee Cr. (grazing) / 100 acres
Biological Releases / Spotted knapweed / 16,880 Cyphocleonus released
Dalmatian toadflax / 400 Mecinus j. released
Canada Thistle / 3,400 Hadroplontus lituras
Leafy Spurge / 150 Oberea Erythrocephala
Leafy Spurge / 420 Spurgia Esulae
Canada Thistle / 500 Urophora Cardui
Treated affected acres / All species - cost share / 5,637 acres
All species - spray days / 2000 acres
Puncturevine / 53 acres
Whitetop / 583 acres
Rush skeleton weed / 1,155 acres
Spotted Knapweed / 1,043 acres
Houndstongue / 1,483 acres
Leafy spurge / 110 acres
Total / 12,064 acres
Treated chemical acres / All species total / 2,165 acres
Public Contacts / 2907
GPS/GIS Mapping / 50,000 acres
Appendix II
Maps:
All maps have been submitted electronically on the enclosed CD.
Lemhi Cooperative Weed Management Area Exhibit 12 – End-of-Year Report
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