Tracking Over Time is the Key to Project Success
Parents. Teachers. Business managers. They all know the importance of monitoring—that critical step to ensuring success. And so it is for the Desert Preservation Initiative, where monitoring activities measure where each tamarisk removal site stands in the battle to prohibit regrowth of this pernicious invasive tree.
The monitoring process requires care, consistency and continuity. It demands walking up and down ravines, taking careful notes and photographs of areas treated, and having a good eye. “Seedlings are tiny and easy to miss, but grow quickly,” says DPI botanist Terrence Walters.
Tamarisk is a tough adversary. It has a combination of biological adaptations and environmental advantages that make it highly resilient—besides having deep tap roots and extensive horizontal root systems, it is a prolific producer of wind-dispersed, quickly germinating seeds.
Timing is also vital. The cut tamarisk trunks, which have been sprayed with herbicide, require monitoring for regrowths multiple times per year, “often for several years,” Walters adds, “to detect regrowths before they can mature, flower, and release their seeds.” In fact, some of the larger tamarisk stumps can take up to two to three years to kill.
“One of the main challenges of the monitoring process is allowing for the variation in seasonal growth patterns,” notes monitoring team member Karen Baker. “Tamarisk grows most aggressively when water is accessible, so an area may appear clear after monitoring in summer, fall and winter only to show regrowth after rains in the springtime.”
With monitoring visits required every three months, one of the challenges DPI faces is not having enough volunteer support for this process, including data collection and data analysis. Each site visit requires locating and treating any tamarisk regrowths, flagging treated areas for future follow-ups, removing other invasive species that have taken root such as Russian olive, recording site changes in water or drainage, and recording the growth of native plants and signs of local fauna. With so many sites needing follow-up, the monitoring team is out every month, rotating through its list of locations needing visits.
“Monitoring is one of the most critical aspects of our work,” says Baker. “We are unusual in our attention to it. Other tamarisk removal organizations have seen tamarisk infestation return at even greater levels because there has not been the necessary follow up treatment.” DPI President Chuck Warren agrees. “Closing out a project site is a point of celebration, and all of DPI’s efforts would be wasted if monitoring had not become fixed and defined in our practice.”
Clearly, it takes a little time, and some simple training, to be a part of this team, but the volunteers with DPI see this as vital to the neighborhood effort to remove invasive and highly flammable tamarisk from our communities. If you would like to help us monitor our success, please contact Dan Beck at [email protected]
