Volunteers blitz buckthorn

Luther College, with help from student volunteers, is leading a charge against two invasive plants in its woodlands: European buckthorn and honeysuckle. On Oct. 24, 25 student and faculty volunteers came out for the second annual Buckthorn Blitz and worked to remove buckthorn plants from Hickory Ridge Woods.

Earlier this fall, the first-year class participated in an invasives eradication effort in Hickory Ridge Woods and Phelps Park for their first year service project.

When volunteers arrive for the Buckthorn Blitz, they are given a crash course in identifying buckthorn and honeysuckle.

“A lot of people haven’t spent much time staring at shrubs, trying to ask what they are,” Professor and Blitz Planner Eric Baack said. “So, depending on which students I’m working with, I may spend a lot of time saying, ‘Okay, this is [an invasive] and here’s how you can tell,’ so they know what they can cut down.”

Volunteers are given the tools of the buckthorn blitzing trade: limb saws, loppers, and little bottles of the herbicide Roundup—and let loose on a specific area of forest. They seek out adult buckthorn and honeysuckle plants, cut them down and treat the stumps with Roundup to prevent regrowth.

“I think it’s fun, to be honest,” Cory Pilling (‘11) a volunteer in the first blitz and first-year service project said. “It’s fun being out in the woods and doing something that can help the environment at the same time.”

The opportunity to improve natural areas was valuable for some volunteers.

“I’ve been taught from a young age about [the] ecological reasons of why land management is, in some cases, vital to the biodiversity of a natural area,” Audrey Tran Lam (‘13) said. “Doing this work is personally important to me because of that.”

Created in fall 2009 by Biology Professor Eric Baack, the Buckthorn Blitz is partly inspired by the concept of Bio Blitzes: one-time events with large numbers of volunteers aimed at surveying biodiversity.

“We have so many areas that are invaded with buckthorn that it wasn’t at all clear how we could even begin to tackle it,” said Baack. “I decided that getting as many people to work at one time was a good way to start our work on the buckthorn.”

Baack, along with Professors Kirk Larsen and Beth Lynch, planned the first blitz last October. Molly McNicoll was recently appointed as Luther’s Natural Areas Land Manager, with much of her work being focused on the fight against invasives. McNicoll helped to coordinate the recent blitz and also assisted with the first-year project. A team of three work study students works under McNicoll’s supervision to help remove buckthorn and other invasives from Luther property.

Buckthorn and honeysuckle aren’t the only invasive species that are an issue on campus, but they are the ones Baack, McNicoll, Larson and Lynch have chosen to focus on. The professors have hope that they will be able to remove the buckthorn presence on Luther’s campus. According to Baack, they’re making progress.

“[In one year], we’ve made a very visible dent in buckthorn,” Baack said. “In Hickory Ridge, there is still a long way to go, but where a year ago I had no idea if this would be possible as a 20-year project, now I’m looking and thinking that we might be able to get rid of the adult [plants] in five years.”

Baack and McNicoll agree that the blitzes have a dual purpose.

“[I] realized that buckthorn was both a challenge and an opportunity,” Baack said.

The challenge: to eliminate Buckthorn. The opportunity: to get students in touch with natural areas.

Part of the problem is that, although several more years of blitzes may rid Luther’s natural lands of adult buckthorn and honeysuckle, seeds already in the ground will be viable for years to come.

Still, with each plant removed there is progress.

“I’m much more optomistic than I had any idea I could be a year ago,” Baack said. “We got far more work done and had a far more enthusiastic response than I thought was going to be possible.”