Integrated Pest Management

Integrated pest management uses a combination of cultural, mechanical or physical, biological, and chemical pest control methods selected to optimize control efficacy while minimizing associated risks to human health, property, and the environment. Statewide, saltcedar can be considered in the early phase of invasion in Montana. Management strategies most appropriate for early phase invasions are prevention, early detection and rapid response, and containment, and should be applied according to local saltcedar population characteristics.

Detection and Monitoring. In riparian areas not infested with saltcedar, regular surveys (every three years) for new saltcedar populations should be planned. Intensive surveys should be conducted within 25 miles of known individuals and populations. An early inspection should be made before or at flowering, to identify mature plants and initiate control before seeds set and have an opportunity to disperse. Additional inspections made later in the growing season will identify seedlings that have developed from seed set in the current year. Individual seedlings should be considered high-priority targets for fall eradication programs, while areas with concentrated seedling populations should be conscientiously monitored to ensure that a significant long-term infestation does not develop. Records of plant densities by age stage and GPS location should be maintained and updated at each inspection. In addition, horticultural saltcedar plantings should be tested for potential invasiveness.

Prioritizing Control Efforts. Individual plants and populations detected along irrigation ditch banks should be prioritized for eradication using basal bark or cut stem treatments (follow label instructions regarding restrictions for herbicide application on active irrigation ditches). Cut stem treatments integrate mechanical and chemical control, and have been proven to be highly effective under many common saltcedar infestation scenarios. Saltcedar populations growing on stock pond banks should also be prioritized for control. Basal bark or cut stem treatment should be used on older, reproductive plants. Prolonged flooding followed by re-vegetation with flood-tolerant species is most effective on the seedling demographic in the drawdown zone. On free- flowing waterways with natural flood cycles, control should target reproductive individuals and populations using basal bark or cut stem treatments. The seedling demographic within the flood zone should be monitored for potential natural control by the scouring action of floods (see Figure 8). Large-scale populations should be contained by early detection of satellite infestations within a 25 mile radius of the parent population and rapid response using herbicidal control. As they become more widely available, Diorhabda beetles should be released within large-scale saltcedar infestations because the beetles function as a chronic drain on the weed’s fitness and invasiveness. Large-scale infestations populated by plants with large diameter stems could be managed using the cut-stem treatment; stems should be chipped and used as a fuel source for heating or otherwise safely disposed of.

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Last Modified: 07/12/2007