Working on invasive weeds in Alaska has been really enjoyable as there is still hope in preventing the introduction of many threatning weeds to the state. Last week, I helped organize a public weed smackdown volunteer event. Community members and agency workers came together on a Saturday to pull a large patch of Melilotus alba (White Sweetclover) that is growing at a roadside construction site in Glennallen, Alaska. The entire road is being re-paved and a biking path is also going to be paved there. The purpose of the weed pull is to prevent further spread of the plant by the construction company doing the road work. This event was the first ever collabrative project between the Park service, the Copper Basin Cooperative Weed Management Area, and Wrangell Institute for Science and the Environment. We pulled over 200 lbs of weeds in a little over 5 hours. We are hoping to have this be an annual event in order to reduce the seed bank.

Wrangell-St.Elias National Park is also trying to take a proactive approach to invasive weed management in Alaska. Last week I lead the first ever “Need for Seed” native public seed collection event in Kennicott, Alaska. The old copper mining site currently has many buildings under stabilization construction and many ground cover areas have been disturbed by machinery. The overall goal of this program is to create a native seed bank that the Park can use in re-vegetation projects after construction and also a seed bank avaliable for local residents. When re-planting within a National Park, it is required that the seed is collected within a 20 mile radius of where the seed will be planted, so we got to hike the trails in Kennicott and collect seed from the wild. A youth conservation corps group of volunteers came out for the week and I taugh them about plant propogation and general plant ecology. Some of the species of plants we collected seeds from were Lupinus arcticus, Geranium erianthum, Aster sibiricus, Delphinum, Polemonium acutiflorum, and Oxytropis campestris. Overall, I really enjoyed collecting seed and learning the several different stratification techiniques associated with different seeds in order for them to germinate and propogate properly. I am looking forward to more work like this in the future!

Lupinus arcticus seed at natural dispursal

Need for Seed collection volunteers

Morgan Gantz, Exotic Plant Management TeamWrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska