Part One
View Part One Here
“Phragmites, being so consumptive of water, has become an easy target for folks who are looking for something concrete to do to help the Great Salt Lake.”
– Marisa Weinberg, Coordinator for the Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape
Decades of phragmites research and collaboration are stacking the odds in favor of a win for water and wetlands around the Great Salt Lake.
When Karin Kettenring first arrived at Utah State University in 2008, she fell into the midst of a management crisis similar to one she had just spent years working on in the Chesapeake Bay: the invasive grass phragmites.
Duck hunters, biologists, and other frequenters of wetlands had begun to realize just how dramatically phragmites was changing wetlands around the Great Salt Lake. As a result, a burgeoning effort to control the invasive and restore wetlands was already underway. Kettenring, a professor of Wetland Ecology and Restoration at Utah State University and the region’s foremost expert on phragmites, dove right in.
This Eurasian grass (also called common reed) originally came to North America as packing material for shipped goods. It spread throughout the East Coast and, eventually, made its way west. Kettenring said that the grass was likely around the Great Salt Lake in small amounts prior to the floods of the mid-1980s. Receding waters revealed wetlands left bare of native vegetation—the perfect foundation for phragmites to establish a foothold. From there, it spread rapidly around the area.
One of the reasons that phragmites is such a problem is because of the sheer amount biomass it produces. The grass forms mats that choke out native species, creating a monoculture.
A “marsh master” (right) is one tool managers use to mow down phragmites to reduce the amount of stalks and leaves on the landscape.
“This species thrives on high nutrient levels and poor water quality. It can grow rapidly, create a lot of biomass, and shade everything else out.”
– Dr. Karin Kettenring, Professor of Wetland Ecology and Restoration, Utah State University
Keith Hambrecht, the State Lands Restoration Program Manager for Utah Forestry, Fire, and State Lands, has been coordinating collaborative work on phragmites since 2016. From the outset, he worked to foster clear lines of communication about phragmites management efforts among researchers like Kettenring, state agencies, private land managers, and conservation organizations. Now, he said, it’s finally starting to pay off.
“It took many years, but our work started getting recognized. We were able to say, here are these best practices and this is how they’re being applied and they’re actually working. It just takes some time.”
– Keith Hambrecht, State Lands Restoration Program Manager, Utah Forestry, Fire, and State Lands
One of the key hurdles wetland managers have had to overcome—and are still overcoming because of variable environmental conditions—is consistent management of phragmites. Increased coordination and resource sharing through Hambrecht’s position has helped in this regard, as has an increased awareness about the best practices for controlling the plant.
Mowing, using marsh masters (above), or even grazing phragmites with cattle, is key to reducing the amount of stalks and stems crowding the ground and shading out other plants.
Burning, mowing, or grazing phragmites in the fall or the spring is a proven follow-up to herbicide application. Kettenring said burning is often the most efficient way to get rid of dead phragmites; although it does not kill phragmites, it can be great biomass management along with mowing or grazing. However, many people struggle to obtain permits to burn because of their proximity to urban areas and development.
Kettenring said her research over the past 10+ years underscores the importance of reseeding cleared sites with native species like saltgrass, hardstem bulrush, or alkali bulrush.
On Herbicide Use
Kettenring said for years, her research included trials on methods to get around using herbicides to manage phragmites. But ultimately, the studies showed just how effective herbicide applications can be in beating back perennial plants like phragmites.
“My goal with herbicides is to ensure people are using it as effectively as possible, especially if that’s going to be the tool that is logistically feasible for managers,” she said. “The other alternative is to just leave the phragmites, and I don’t consider that.”
Herbicides are most effectively applied after phragmites stands are mowed and burned, usually in the late summer and early fall when plants are starting to send nutrients down to their roots.
Managing for water and for wildlife
At the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, biologist Jennifer Wright said the management goal is to get phragmites coverage in individual wetland units down to 10 percent or less. To do that takes three to five years of repeated mowing/grazing, burning, and spraying. At that point, there should be reduced amounts of phragmites seeds in the soil. That’s a relatively short amount of time, which Wright said will improve results and promote achieving the refuge’s management goals.
“[Based on recent USU research] phragmites seed stays viable in the soil for 3-5 years, which is fortunate for us. Thank goodness it’s not 10 or 20 years.” — Jennifer Wright
Wright said that the refuge is also working on restoring natural hydrology and topography to places that tend to attract phragmites growth, like borrow areas and ditch edges.
White-faced ibis on a Great Salt Lake-adjacent wetland; the great blue heron rookery at Farmington Bay; and black-necked stilts on a Farmington Bay wetland.
“It’s a grass, it’s like mowing your lawn. Any time you treat it, anytime you cut it or burn it, particularly if you burn it, you have to follow up those treatments otherwise it will just go out of control.”
– Jennifer Wright, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge
A swath mowed through a phragmites stand (left) and a stand after a burning treatment.
Part two
A Recipe for successful phragmites management
Hambrecht said that making phragmites management successful comes down to a few key ingredients. These include:
- Ongoing funding to support multi-year projects;
- A dedicated coordinator;
- Collaboration, “because we are working across boundaries and sharing resources,” and;
- Support from research so that management practices are efficient and effective.
“We want to know we’re taking the best approach to combat phragmites.” – Keith Hambrecht
Capacity Where It Counts
“It takes a lot of legwork on the ground.” –Keith Hambrecht
Several dry years in a row means that the problems facing the Great Salt Lake are now getting national attention. With that attention comes funding, such as the $100 million Ducks Unlimited committed to raising for conservation the landscape and the famous $1 billion requested by the President of the United States. Marisa Weinberg, the coordinator for the Great Salt Lake Sentinel Landscape (a partnership among federal, state, and local agencies and organizations to advance sustainable land use around military installations), said what is really needed to fight phragmites is capacity—the boots on the ground making the work happen. Increased coordination is a key part of that capacity.
“It’s less of a money problem with phragmites,” she said. “It’s more of a capacity problem. We have funding support to address this issue; the challenge is finding the people who can do the work in the right areas for multiple consecutive years.”
Taylor Turner (left) is the Ogden Wet Meadow and Sagebrush Specialist working as a partner position between the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Intermountain West Joint Venture. Turner is working on obtaining funding for phragmites projects on private land in Davis and Weber Counties. Part of making funding stretch further, he said, is coordinating with different agencies and organizations to ensure phragmites treatments are continuous and based on best practices.
“If you’re just getting all this stuff started and then the third year you’re not able to get effective treatments, you’re basically back to step one and you have to start the timeline all over again. If we can work on things that have already started, we might as well get those across the finish line and then work more on other areas.”
-Taylor Turner (pictured left)
“It really takes boots on the ground to figure out the logistics of the treatment and the timing of the treatment based on conditions that vary from year to year. You need someone knowledgeable on the ground, not just about phragmites but about the project sites and the different people you need to communicate with.”
– Keith Hambrecht
Many hands, lighter work
“It really is one gigantic partnership. It’s not just the refuge and neighboring lands, it’s everyone that has to do something if we want to see a difference.”
– Destiny Allgood, Private Lands Wildlife Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program
From SEed to source
“The seeds are a little bit like a dandelion seed with a little plume on it so it catches in the wind so it can get to places you wouldn’t expect it to get to because those seeds are very small and wind dispersed.” – Karin Kettenring
The next hurdle partners are starting to focus on are the places where phragmites seeds come from, usually smaller stands of phragmites along the streams and rivers that feed the Great Salt Lake.
Destiny Allgood is the Private Lands Wildlife Biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. She said that phragmites management around the Great Salt Lake is less effective if those upstream stands keep sending seeds down to accumulate in the wetlands surrounding the lake.
“Even if you treat on the refuge, if your upstream source isn’t doing anything, you’re just going to get more seeds coming downstream.” – Destiny Allgood
Learning about water loss
Hambrecht said the Utah Geological Survey is in the early stages of a study looking at the amount of water lost through evapotranspiration in phragmites versus native species like inland saltgrass. Although the study is ongoing, Hambrecht said a season’s worth of preliminary data is showing that phragmites is highly consumptive of water.
“It still remains to be seen exactly how much water, but at this point, we’re fairly confident that it will be some significant number in the tens of thousands of acre-feet per season.”
– Keith Hambrecht
Getting rid of phragmites and replacing the stands with native species is therefore a no-brainer, Hambrecht said. “You’re restoring habitat, saving water, and helping out the lake.”
White-faced ibis feed in a wetland on the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
