Old man's beard is a pest plant that grows quickly and smothers trees to death.
It's bad in Upper Hutt - but fortunately Chris Cosslett and the Upper Hutt Busters of Old Man's Beard are on the case.
Cosslett tells Jesse Mulligan it’s not a pleasant job for the most part, but they manage to retain some of their volunteers by keeping them enthusiastic.
Members of the Upper Hutt Busters of Old Man's Beard Photo: supplied
“One of the crucial parts of our programme has been making sure everyone gets morning tea from our local bakery every time, and that’s become one of the real focal points.”
The weed grows fast, spreads fast, reproduces fast, and fortunately dies quick too, he says.
“The most satisfying thing you can do is to kill an enormous old man’s beard plant that’s smothering a big tree and before you leave work that day, you can see it already starting to die, and in two weeks, it’s completely brown and in a month it’s gone, it just dissolves out of the tree canopy.”
They’ve treated about 100 hectares to a really high standard, he says.
“It’s a 20-year process, Jesse, because the seed can last 20 years so if you’ve had vines there seeding and big old vine will have produced probably literally millions of seeds, there’ll just be a huge seed bank in the soil.
“It’s a case of keep on going. If a tree falls over in the forest, then there’s seed in the ground and up it will come.”
Also, cutting requires a special technique so that it doesn’t magnify the problem, he says.
“The piece you cut off you hang up the tree, it can’t touch the ground because otherwise it grows like a willow will and then you’ve got to poison the root.”
Cosslett has been contracted by the Upper Hutt branch of Forest and Bird for five years to do his work, including managing the volunteer programme.
“There’s massive results, because I’m being continuous through that process, plus I’ve got the volunteers’ help, it means we can treat a bigger area and for longer than I think would otherwise happen if it was just a volunteer group.”
Forests with shading canopy are less vulnerable to the weed, as well as those without rivers or roads running through, he says.
“In a young forest that’s quite open to the light, it will be invaded.
“But once the forest is grown up and has formed that shading canopy, what you will get is some old old man’s beard plants that have been there for a long time and gone up with the canopy, providing the canopy itself hasn’t died, you cut those off, they disappear and a year later there’s no plants there.”
People can contact them via uhbusters@gmail.com for information on the plant or if they want to join.
You can also find more information about old man’s beard and how to spot it here.
