Glamour's Women of the Year
UD vs. Northern Kentucky
Magic visits with area students
Invasive plant meets its match
Honeysuckle no longer has toehold in parks thanks to new machine.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
JEFFERSON TWP., Montgomery County — Honeysuckle, meet thy doom.
Your killer is a 6-ton Bullhog forestry mulching machine its friends at Five Rivers MetroParks fondly call a "Bobcat on steroids."
Bryan Dorsey, a Conservation Biologist Apprentice, with FiveRivers MetroParks, rolls up his sleeves prior to cutting away honeysuckle. He cut away the small tree like plants using the FECON, the forestry mulching machine behind him.The machine was recently bought by the MetroParks.The last thing you will see, honeysuckle, on your way to being ground into mulch, are six rows of steel teeth whirling around at 2,400 rpm on the front of a machine that travels on steel tracks.
This well-deserved fate has been long in coming for honeysuckle, the green Godzilla of the southwestern Ohio woods.
It's a nonnative invasive plant that overwhelms and destroys native plant life, from valuable oak trees to expensive exported herbs such as ginseng. Conservationists, for good reason, despise honeysuckle, which has taken over park lands and private woodlots. Some would like to ban its sale in Ohio.
Honeysuckle has been difficult to destroy — until now.
At Possum Creek MetroParks this week, conservation biologist apprentice Bryan Dorsey made quick work of several acres along Frytown Road, easily grinding plants up to 20 inches in diameter. This stuff has been growing since the 1960s and it is well established.
The new machine, purchased for $93,000 by MetroParks from FECON Inc. in Lebanon, arrived for service March 28.
It is the only one in possession of a parks organization in these parts.
The Bullhog takes out an acre of honeysuckle in six hours — three times faster than a human crew using chain saws. It's cost-effective and sparing of other plant life, MetroParks officials said.
The Bullhog also works on buckthorn, autumn olive and ailanthus. MetroParks plans to use the machine on honeysuckle from November through April, stopping for bird nesting season. Between honeysuckle session, the machine will be used for other purposes.
After the honeysuckle is shredded, stumps are sprayed with a herbicide, Dorsey said, in a routine that will have to be repeated because honeysuckle requires regular suppression and FiveRivers has hundreds of acres that need attention.
FECON sells many of its locally assembled machines for maintenance along highways and land clearing, product manager Anthony Nikodym said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7407 or sbennish@DaytonDaily
News.com.
