Friday, December 23, 2011

Weed Injector for Invasive Vines


Left to Right: Nga Maireroa of the Cook Islands Ministry of Agriculture, Jacqui Evans of TIS and Liz Munroe of the National Environment Service
Jacqui Evans hand-carried a weed injector from New Zealand for the National Environment Service and Ministry of Agriculture to trial the control of invasive vines in the mountains of Rarotonga. Jacqui received the weed injector and training from Allan Tye, the Invasive Species Advisor at SPREP. Jacqui has passed this training and weed injector on to the two government agencies. Vines such as Ballon Vine (Cardiospermum grandiflorum) and Mile A Minute (Mikania micrantha) are growing over all trees in some valleys, killing the vegetation underneath.It is hoped that the weed injector will be a rapid and effective method of removing invasive vines from Cook Islands forests.

No comments: