Vampire vine helps to destroy alien European weeds in Australia

[AbleKay]

 

Let the plant wars begin. A parasitic vine that sucks the life out of feral weeds is being billed as a promising new agent for biocontrol...

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2085389-vampire-vine-helps-to-destroy-alien-european-weeds-in-australia/

 

thought this was pretty interesting, you don't hear much about actual plants fighting other plants, there's normally some sort of insect involved... Only time will tell I suppose 

 

I'm generally all for eradicating introduced plants that have no human benefit, not sure where others stand on this... Perhaps we should all grow some and set it free! Hehee

[ThunderIdeal]

Many tens of animal.species are introduced each year to fight this or that weed, usually with little impact.  I think there is usually no attempt to control the biocontrol but this article admits they will have to limit its range (doesnt mention how).

 

Its certainly an interesting twist with a nice possibility of reducing the incidence of gorse but if it can do that its a fair guess it can interfere substantially with commercial plants too so we'll have one more significant weed species.

 

edit: i should have said many tens of animal, bacteria and fungus species are introduced here each year

Edited April 24, 2016 by ThunderIdeal

[waterboy 2.0]

Quote

 

According to Cirocco, the biggest advantage of C. pubescens as a potential biocontrol agent is that it already occurs naturally across large tracts of eastern Australia

 

As a result, there is little danger that the vine will itself become a menace, as with the cane toads introduced to Australia in 1935 to control beetles that devastated sugar-cane crops.

Quote

“Cassytha is not the smartest thing – it will pretty much go for anything it can get its suckers on, including barbed wire,” says Cirocco.

 

yeah that makes me feel comfortable....lol....