News release from The Eden Rivers Trust

Click here to view the full article

A pretty stupid thing to be doing at this time of the year. I wonder how many nests etc they've managed to destroy in their futile attemps at ridding the balsam ? Conservationists....they don't know their arse's from their elbows.

An ongoing discussion within our local club is the removal of HB and there are far ranging views. My own view is that if you remove HB something will replace it and finding my way to a swim through stingers or brambles does not appeal. Bees love the stuff and we need bees desperately. It is a very attractive looking plant which is easy to hide away in due to it's height and in turn offers a reason for Kingfishers to settle on my rods. It hangs over the water and offers shelter to the fish and if a chub does pull your line into it you still have a good chance of recovering the situation. It has been a feature of my river bank memories for over 50 years. So why are we so desperate to be rid of it? Well I gather it helps to erode the soil but then so does flash flooding and other inclement weather assisted by poor weir management. Does it harbour disease or other destructive influences? Not that I am aware of so why interfere now after all these years?

The idea of doing it now is to remove the plant before it seeds. It also flowers in July so it's easy to identify and therefore less likely to pull the wrong plant. The activity is unlikely to disturb any nests.

If it isn't done, the bank will become a monoculture of balsam. Unlike native plants, very few native insects utilise it. Fewer insects = less food for fish.

This still does not answer the question of what replaces HB when it is ripped up. The "monoculture of balsam" surely becomes a deserted area and that does not encourage any insects at all. The HB in my area is always alive with bees and there must also be some other useful stuff in there as wherever I sit I get invaded with shrews and the like

The perfect opportunity to drop down some green hay as the HB is pulled up. This would provide cover for inverts and small mammals as well as dropping spring flowering grass and herb seeds in the area to re-colonise the banks. The hay acts as a mulch for the seeds and therefore assists germination of those seeds. I'd have no problem if my rod licence fee went towards that.

We had well established plants growing on the bank before HB came along, but HB pushed them out. HB is an annual that self seed's for fun (I'm sure you know that). One or two clubs have been having a go at it on the ribble this year, but unless they chop every bit down from every bank, sidestream.........and keep cutting it down before it seeds (how long can the seed last in the ground for?), they will never get shut. Personally i don't think it's even possible to get access to every bit on my river system, so why waste time and money trying?

Is every plant from the Himalayas an invasive weed? We have a Himalayan honeysuckle in out garden, and the bloody thing is coming up everywhere.

Grub out the roots that'll see to it. Safer and better in the long term than using chemicals. It's not really invasive on a broad scale, it just spreads via roots.

However, if you do use herbicide, apply roundup to the leaves of the shoots. When they die back, oprune them back to ground level. Keep repeating until it stops. ONLY apply to the leaves and shoots though - don't apply it to the ground.

The seeds are only viable for a couple of years so persistent cutting of the plants before flowering/seed production should get rid of them quite quickly.

It will be replaced by whatever grew there before balsam came around. Probably very quickly at this time of year. It may initially be plants like hawkweed, but over the long term it gets increasingly richer with more diversity. The thing with diversity is that what may appear to be a a home for lots of insects may be just a refuge. What they need to keep themselves going and reproduce may be something else entirely different. Most insects require native plants, that is their adaptation. Therefore, the greater the variety of plants the greater the diversity of insects. However, if there is tall robust vegetation it supports (generally) a higher biomass than short maintained vegetation, and this is why the balsam may appear good - there are lots of insects sheltering there, but it has not assisted their reproduction.

If the pullers had a bag of seed it would help - plants like Purple loosestrife and Valerian - but for the most part their seeds are still there, lying dormant in the soil waiting for an opportunity to establish. Coarse grasses will also fill in the gaps. I'm sure one of the more botanically minded members of this forum will elucidate further.

As regards bees, I'm sure that bees do visit Balsam, but they also visit lots of other flowering plants. Nectar rich plants abound in the wild. But other insects such as butterflies e.g.large skipper and comma rely more on the nectar from native species than non-natives, and also need coarse grasses and nettles for their larvae.

There is a lot more to the river bank than you might think!

We haven't attempted to kill the main stand of it - I quite like it - but it's coming up on the patio, 55 feet away!

Cut the roots back to where you want it kept to (but not too close). You could also try containing them.

Surely it doesn't have a 55 foot root system, does it?

I assumed it had self-seeded?

This is the beast, then there is an area of lawn, a seating area and a patio about 2 feet higher than the lawn. It's coming up through the patio...