Stewardship Network to Distribute GM DVD Videos

Greetings. We have wonderful news. The Stewardship Network has offered to take over the distribution of Stemming the Tide, our Garlic Mustard Educational Video. It has been my profound pleasure to do this job myself and to find myself thus connected to so many wonderful people and organizations. You are such an inspiration.

We are looking to the future for further educational video efforts and will stay in touch as we move forward.

Please mail your requests for DVDs to:

staff@stewardshipnetwork.org

Stewardship Network

To date, 6,335 hits on the GM video have been recorded!

To look at an example of how the video can be used, please see Madison Weed Warriors site: http://www.myspace.com/madisonareaweedwarriors

Garlic Mustard Educational Video is Ready to Ship!

Stemming the Tide: Garlic Mustard ID and Control has been released and is ready to ship! Click on the DVD image at the right to preview the video.

You may order DVDs, which include the phragmites video, by emailing cynthiagaskill(at)yahoo.com, at which time I will acknowledge your order and give you a mailing address where you can send payment.

We seek wide distribution of these videos. You may link to them on your websites. However, they are copyrighted by In-Site Video Productions, so if you wish to use this material in any other way than produced, please contact Barbara Lucas at In-Site Video through her website (see column to the right of this blog).

All orders must be PRE-PAID

The videos cost $1.60 each, and are packaged with a paper sleeve and cardboard mailer.

Shipping charges (US Post Office, First Class or Priority mail) are:

1 video = $ .80
2 videos = 1.50
3 videos = 1.70
4 videos = 2.05
5 videos = 2.35
6 videos = 2.55
7 videos = 2.90
8-10 videos = 4.95
11-100 videos = 10.35

In time, we will probably be changing our distribution system and the prices are likely to go up. One of the avenues we are considering is through Amazon.com, if there aren't more appropriate organizations who are set up for distribution on a national level.

Any revenue above cost will go to the Washington Township Alliance of Wisconsin Family Forests, to be used for additional educational video projects.

We thank you all for what you do for our environment and hope that these materials help in your educational outreach in all areas, by bringing the problems of invasive species to the attention of road crews, schools, libraries and the many, many places we have opportunities to connect citizens to the land.

And please feel free to add your comments to this blog. Share what has worked and not worked in your educational efforts on the ground. Thanks!

When to stop pulling?

I was out pulling yesterday with some landowners, and noticed that gm already has seed pods (a bit early due to a lot of rain?). In the past I have stopped pulling as I saw the pods develop, but learned last year from my partner, that we could have gone on longer, until the pods were brown and dry. I just wonder when to stop. The pods are green, turning brown, but not dry so not breaking open to drop seeds yet.

However, there are some folks up here who would like to earn some money pulling and at this point, I am concerned about letting them start as I believe it might be too close to seed drop.

We would like to give this matter careful treatment in the film. Can anyone give a fairly definitive answer to when it is time to get out of the infestation so as not to inadvertently spread it?

Avoidance and slow the spread

Hi Cindy and All:

A great project - very glad to see you following this idea to a fruition. Also, thanks for the chance to make my first ever blog post.

You have some good content here on ID and control. My one suggestion is I think it will be important to point out that when evaluating a particular infestation someone needs to make a distinction between an early stage infestation for which there is reasonable chance of eradication through control, and a mature and growing infestation that is unlikely to be eradicated despite all the resources you throw at it. In those cases it will save lots of frustration to set a goal of containing the infestation and limiting the spread to new areas. To do this you'll need to teach folks about scouting and treating satellite populations, and keeping people out of infested areas. We've got some materials on this I could share if its helpful.

Thanks and best of luck

Fred Clark

Predicting The Perfect Predator To Control Invasive Species

Predicting The Perfect Predator To Control Invasive Species is an article which appeared on The Science Daily website. I wrote to Dr. Adam Davis, Ecologist,
USDA-ARS Invasive Weed Management Unit to ask if he would like to comment on the outline.

Dr. Davis graciously replied with these comments:

• Longevity of the viable seeds in the ground is ten years rather than five.
• Seedlings in Central Illinois germinate in the spring before anything else
• I question the sustainability of large-scale pulling operations.The soil disturbance created by all the pulling may do more damage than the garlic mustard itself
• There is a control agent in quarantine that has been shown to be completely specific to garlic mustard. It is not able to complete its life cycle on any other species

Inexperienced Landowner/Student Target Audience

Please keep in mind, that this video is being created for use by non-professional, inexperienced (or under/miss-educated) landowners and students. As you think about this project, keep in mind this population and what recommendations you might make to the "least of us".

For instance, without training and support personnel, would you recommend use of herbicides, garden torches, etc. in this particular video?

Hopefully, with future funding we will be able to add two vital components to this project. I will explain.

When Barbara Lucas' video on phragmities came to the attention of some of us in our community (thank you, Bill Olson), we saw it as a wonderful opportunity to educate our neighbors, and saw it a better opportunity if the video did not stand alone. So, we had a community gathering, invited our county invasive team leader up (Bob Bultman), showed the video, he answered questions and the next day we went on site with Bob for first hand experience and dialog. Those of us trained through that solid group of activities then distributed DVDs, put one in the library, went to people's living rooms to show the DVD and offered our help in controlling phragmities on their land. Folks could also look at the video online, but not many up here have high speed internet connections.

The hands on experience in the presence of an experienced expert, really propelled and validated the extent of the problem.

This is in contrast to the six or seven years we have spent trying to get our community (including Town Board, realtors, etc.) to take this problem seriously and to become active in controlling this invasive.

My experience with Wisconsin Family Forests and community forestry tells me that new landowners don't readily cope with big landscape projects such as big timber harvests using large equipment. We need small, smart initiatives which engage a whole spectrum of people.