Beetle release to combat purple loosestrife

For years, plant scientists have searched for a natural enemy of purple loosestrife, a prime threat to wetlands systems. Three European beetles, including Gallerucella spp, were found to feed and breed exclusively on purple loosestrife. In 1992, beetle releases were approved in the United States for biocontrol purposes. In September, a shipment of beetles arrived at BNRC from a federal lab in New Jersey.

On September 19, Stewardship Manager Bryan Emmett waded into the wetland with a bucket of 5000 adult beetles. The release is part of a carefully planned invasive plant control project at the Jackson property. Working under a Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program grant from the Natural Resource Conservation Service, over the next six years BNRC will not only attempt to reduce the loosestrife population by up to 90 percent through the beetle release, but will use manual techniques and limited herbicide applications to control the spread of phragmites and Japanese barberry on the property.

We share the commonly voiced anxiety about introducing one exotic species to control another. Gallerucella release has been extensively tested in the Northeast, and we have confidence that we are proceeding safely. That said, BNRC has established a careful protocol for monitoring and assessing impacts of the release. The project has been reviewed and approved by the state's Office of Coastal Zone Management, Wetland Restoration Program, as well as the Stockbridge Conservation Commission. Our hope is to manage the Jackson wetland so that native residents such as this painted turtle can continue to thrive.

Tying a property owner and his potential conservation land, whether farm, forest or wetland, to the planning acumen and political leanings of his host community poses dangers to the land we are trying to protect. Good town planning is worthwhile, but by the state's testing standards, rural communities without paid planning staff or public utilities infrastructure simply cannot score as well as cities and more developed or affluent towns.

Cheshire's scores on the state's tests, for instance, are low enough that it is unlikely an APR application from Casey Toporowski would even be accepted today, let alone funded. In this case, that means the state would have turned away a great deal on a fine farm in part because Cheshire doesn't have a subway station or a sewer system.