by John Pirrung [jap448]
Hello Readers,
I’m back working with the Climate Change and Weed Management internship for a second year, continuing the work I did last year by creating more articles and tables and websites like before. For those who aren’t caught up with the work I did last summer, let me briefly explain. This project, which is now formally referred to as “Weed Management in a Changing Climate” is a multi-year cross-discipline project aiming to gather research and data about how the management of agricultural weeds will have to adapt as the climate in New York changes. This is the third and final year of the project, and with most of the data collected and analyzed, we’re focusing on organizing our findings and presenting them in a variety of ways to make them accessible and easy to understand. I’ve spent the past few days working on fact sheets (similar to the ones from last year) that can be printed and handed out at events. I’m particularly trying to make tweaks to maximize readability and clarity, and I’m making sure that these publications are well suited for their intended audiences. Once these sheets are finalized we’re planning on hosting them somewhere on our website, as well as uploading the important tables and management recommendations as their own pages on the site. The rest of this week will be focusing on fine tuning those fact sheets and experimenting with the website.
One other noteworthy event this week was the WNY PRISM Invasive Species ID & iMapInvasives Event at Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve. I attended it to learn about invasive species (many of which are weeds that we have on our radar) and to make connections with PRISM, the Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management. They also taught us how to use the app “iMapInvasives” to help contribute to regional databases on the presence and spread of invasive species. When combined with Seek by iNaturalist, these apps let people identify invasive species and report them so that organizations like PRISM and the NY Department of Environmental Conservation can prioritize their management actions. We hope that everybody but especially farmers and gardeners can use these tools to keep an eye on invasive species, making it easier to control and manage them and prevent them from causing further damage to ecosystems and farms. I’ve included a screenshot from the app and pictures of two invasive species, Multiflora Rose and Bush Honeysuckle.
