Weed control thoughts?

[Tdub]

Thoughts on our situation please? We are a small club in Northern Ohio that have been together for about 18 years. Our pond is about 7 feet deep, the owner is great, about 20 acres, and we love it. The first few years we've had a professional only treat the course and a channel to it. Fairly expensive but not too bad. The last few years they have treated the entire lake with Sonar. It has worked great but VERY expensive. The land owner will not permit white amurs or dyeing the water. I have no complaints with the company we are using (Aqua Doc) out of Cleveland, they have been great but are there any other companies in our area? Or, any ideas at all?

 

Cheers.

Tom

Flatwater Ski Club

[6balls]

What type of weeds are the issue?

[igkya]

@Tdub Lake owner will allow Sonar but not dye? Just curious as to why, the dye is much safer and cheaper. Copper Sulfate (more for algae control) may help but I've never used it without adding adding dye also.

[lpskier]

There are food color products that are cheaper than copper sulphate and work as well. That’s what we use at LSP. That might be an easier sale for your owner.

 

Weed eating carp.

 

Your state DNR or equivalent may contribute even if the lake is privately owned.

 

Good luck. Weeds suck.

[Tdub]

Eurasian Milfoil. Weeds do suck.

 

[BCM]

Take a look at this site from Texas A&M Ag Extension. I would imagine Ohio State has something similar, I am a huge advocate for utilizing your ag extension service.

 

If I were in your shoes with my background (heavy in botany and biology) I would get an applicator license and apply the herbicide myself. You could at least avoid labor costs. In our area, ag labor prices are skyrocketing.

[DynaSkiPete]

Seems like it is a "cost" of using the site. I'd leave it to the professionals although shopping around is not a bad idea usually.

[forsee_chris]

We use carp and they are super helpful!

 

[Fatroll]

I am in NE Ohio and we are considering lake-savers.com out of Michigan. John Tucci has developed a system that greatly reduces Eurasion Milfoil without chemical treatments. He uses aeration with bacteria introduction to reduce the muck, phosphorus, etc that EM needs to thrive.

 

lake-savers.com

 

 

 

 

[Zman]

Agree with comment to have a local university ag extension recommend a herbicide for initial clean up, along with grass carp. I have used diquat very effectively, and plenty safe. A great way to apply it is mixing the liquid into oil dry. About 2-1/2 gallons to 80 pounds of oil dry. Mix it in a plastic tote. After it sets for a few days, put tote on your swim deck, and us a cup to broadcast it where the weeds are. The oil dry releases it slowly, and close to the weed for contact.

I had a serious weed mess, and this fixed it very well.

[Tdub]

@Fatroll That is VERY interesting. How do they power the aerators? Our lake has no power. We are going to look into this.

[Fatroll]

he will set up compressor stations around the lake. A small slalom lake would probably only require one station for a few aerators. We have a 300 acre lake so John estimated 75 aerators with 3-5 pump stations around lake. We have two homeowners associations that would need to foot the bill.

The part I find interesting is how the bacteria the base of the food chain and fishery which adds to the overall recreational use of the lake.

 

i know some have considered solar power but may be inconsistently powered

[The_MS]

Karmex

[Rob]

We have Eurasian Millfoil on our lake (Puslinch Lake) for about 30 years now. For those who don't know the plant, it is a very strong, thick weed that has the wonderful attribute of being cut by the prop, floating away only to plant itself somewhere else and continue to grow. Once a lake is infected with it, I believe you can mitigate the problem but will not be able to eliminate it entirely (sorry).

 

We have done several things over the years to try and control it. Weevils are one potential solution, although it didn't work for us. A weevil is a type of water based beetle that will eat a weed or two (completely - the weed dies) as it goes through it's lifecycle. So we put over 30000 bugs into our lake over 3 years (if memory serves) at which point they were supposed to be self-sustaining. Unfortunately survival rates in our lake were very low, for reasons unknown, so this option didn't work for us. The beetle's aren't cheap either - but if this works for you it is an ecologically friendly solution. What we are doing now is a combination of dredging and a chemical spray that kills the plants each year. This chemical is supposed to be "pretty safe" however I do worry that I'll be growing a third arm or something in 20 years or so. I don't recall the name of the chemical but it is very effective.

 

One other thing to note on this is that you want to get on top of this asap. Don't let it get out of control, especially since you say your lake is only 7' deep. As this plant dies, it creates more sediment on the lake bottom, out of which next years crop grows and the cycle continues. Before you know it you won't have a lake, you will have a swampy mud puddle. These weeds are very strong. Only a few wrapped around the prop will affect boat speed.

 

I recommend you reach out to the PLCA (Puslinch Lake Conversation Association) at placa.ca. Describe your situation and see if they have any experience with lake-savers.com. I suspect they will at least know about them, as they have been battling this problem for many years. If you can't reach them, PM me and I will put you in touch with someone directly. Best of luck with this - it is a nasty problem to have!

[Rob]

oh and one more thing...a quick reminder that you should always empty your engine's water filter basket when moving your boat from lake to lake. Failing to do this helps to spread these types of nasty plants and other wildlife around...

[fu_man]

@Fatroll Our lake is a similar size to yours. I am curious to know the relative cost of your project for set-up, maintenance, and utilities.

[bojans]

We have been dealing with milfoil for the last 10 years treating key areas of the lake with Navigate (granular 2,4-d). This year we decided to treat the perimeter of the whole lake ourselves using liquid 2,4-d ammine. Very cost effective and seems to be working very well.

[Fatroll]

@fu_man we do not have this system in place yet. we are still doing baseline testing of our water quality and sediment. One of the issues with our lake is that it is so turbid that not even EM can grow. we have a few areas of lillies but that is about it once wave action from boats starts around this time of year. We are considering this as an option as this could eat up the muck on the bottom without having to dredge. John gave us a very loose quote of $500,000 for a 300 acre lake. We estimate a dredge would be over $2 million. The middle of our lake has 10-15 feet of sediment if not more.

Once we have our series of tests done this summer, we will formulate a more formal plan and start raising funds.

[LoopSki]

That milfoil plant is evil. This was a site a skied at years ago. Eventually gave up on it.

 

 

[eleeski]

@Fatroll Turbidity that prevents weed growth is a good thing! Unless the silt is making it too shallow, enjoy the muddy weed free water.

 

Anybody use a mechanical harvester?

 

Eric

[Rob]

yes I've seen some mechanical weed harvesters. I saw one which was basically a chain link fence on some kind of conveyor belt / pulley system where the weeds would be picked up with the end in the water and dumped into the boat. It looked like it worked, however milfoil is a horrible weed - if small pieces of it float away they can replant themselves elsewhere and start growing again, and this weed harvester looked like it was doing a great job at cutting everything up but not so great a job of capturing all of the weed pieces. So this may work short term but can ultimately help to spread the crap around, unfortunately.

[DynaSkiPete]

I live on a large lake where they cut the weeds. The have for many years. Lake owners pay a tax to support it. My son works summers on the shoreline cleanup crew. They pick up the weeds that drift away and on to shore. Haul them away on a weed cutter which offloads into a dump truck. They dump them on several fields. The cutters are expensive ($250 K or so each new) and even have GPS for positioning. They usually have 3 cutters working 40 hrs a week but they sold an older one and the new one won't be in for awhile. They say there are fewer weeds now than before they started cutting.