Canada Thistle - is it in your free range area

Here's a letter that Anne sent this week to and was published in our local paper. Please feel free to paraphrase it and send to your local paper, especially if you're in Indiana. Indiana law requires your township trustee to eradicate it, but NOT ONE in the state is doing it; all they want to do is maintain the graveyards and have their secretaries write welfare checks. We have fought Johnson County political puppets for a year now. They disbanded the weed board because the political-campaign-funding real estate developers complained about having to eradicate it from their land.
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A letter to the Daily Journal of Johnson County, Indiana. June 26, 2008

Printed July 1 with the title “Everyone should help remove Canada thistle”.

Canada thistle is gaining ground in Johnson County


My husband and I are asking for your help in finding and destroying the Canada thistle in Johnson County and the surrounding counties. This is not the large thistle that goldfinches like to eat. It has the same kind of purple flowers, but they are much smaller, and there are many blooms on each plant. It grows to about two or three feet tall, usually in patches because it spreads by the roots as well as by seed. If you look around, you will definitely see it, because it is prevalent, and it is blooming right now and beginning to make seed.

Canada thistle is on the list of noxious weeds for the state of Indiana. We are especially concerned about this weed because a few years ago we spent a great deal of time, effort and money, to plant an acre of our property in native grasses and wildflowers to restore the land to a more natural condition and to benefit wildlife. Canada thistle took it over.

When the first small patch of thistle appeared, we did not know how aggressive it was, and we just cut it down. The following year it spread to a much larger area, with little patches coming up everywhere. The only solution was to cut, burn and spray the entire meadow.

It was then that we started to notice all the Canada thistle along the roadways. We investigated and found out that, according to Indiana law, our township trustee is in charge of weed control. The highway department also has the obligation to control the weeds on the county rights-of-way. The Johnson County Commissioners had formerly established a weed board to find and control Canada thistle and the other noxious weeds on the Indiana list, but a few years ago they decided not to fund it. Now NO ONE IS LOOKING FOR THE NOXIOUS WEEDS and, therefore, many are growing unchecked.

Canada thistle is especially bad because the roots go down at 16 feet or more, then spread out ten feet in one growing season, seventeen feet by the third year. Mowing is ineffective. It takes spraying to kill the roots. Roundup or its generic, glyphosate, will work. Mowing before the thistle begins to bloom can at least stop the formation of the seed heads and stop them from blowing around. But the plant will still come back the next year, bigger than before. If you mow after the thistle begins to bloom, it can continue to form seeds. The average number of seeds per plant is 1530. Last year, before cutting and spraying the meadow, we cut every bloom head we could find, filling several garbage bags. We sprayed the field again earlier this spring, and there are still plants reappearing.

This plant is very, very hard to get rid of, and the longer we wait, the more it will spread, the worse the problem will become, and the more effort, time and money it will take to get the job done. This is the time to get it, before it goes to seed. It is fairly easy to spot the patches of almost-waist-high plants with many small purple flowers or, as time passes, fluffy white seed heads.

As any Canadian farmer will tell you, plowing it up just spreads it more, as some of the roots are cut into little pieces that create more plants, leaving most of the root deep in the ground to continue spreading rapidly. Even a tiny segment of root can start a new plant. One researcher planted a six-inch root that produced 644 feet of roots and 336 feet of above-ground shoots in 15 months.

Canada thistle is actually from Asia and Europe, but we associate it with Canada because it is estimated to have caused greater crop losses than any other perennial broadleaf weed for Canadian farmers.

Here’s what’s at stake: 1) economic loss to farm crops, 2) economic loss to home and business owners who want to naturalize their properties, and 3) increasing expense to taxpayers and property owners to fight Canada thistle and other noxious weeds as we allow them to get even more out of control. We would like to replant our wildflower meadow when we are sure we have eradicated Canada thistle from our property, but we are hesitant to do so when we see so many sources of reinfestation all around us.

If you have Canada thistle or other noxious weeds on your own land, please destroy them by spraying with Roundup or one of its many generic forms containing glyphosate. If you see them somewhere else, please notify your township trustee, who is required by law to keep them under control. You will be helping yourself and your neighbors.

You can reach your township trustee at the following number:
· Blue River 812-526-5113
· Clark 317-862-2883
· Franklin 317-736-7511
· Hensley 812-597-4568
· Needham 317-738-3778
· Nineveh 317-933-2097
· Pleasant 317-535-7571
· Union 317-422-9444
· White River 317-422-1143

If you would like to know more about the Indiana Code on the destruction of detrimental plants, Google “IC 15-3-4”. To learn about the Weed Board, Google “IC 15-3-4.6”. The Indiana Code on cutting weeds along roadsides is “IC 36-2-18”.

Anne Bryant
4491 Stones Crossing Road
Greenwood, Indiana
317-535-5855