BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Ideally, you want a spade and maybe a pickaxe. Dig out as much of the rhizome crown as you can so it won't just grow back. Myself, I cannot be there. There are plenty of other stands of knotweed I will attend to closer to home. I will think of @cowchip as I do.

I'd just like to point out that a biological control program for knotweed is in the works, and has been for some years. Fritzi Grevstad at Oregon State is running it. She's been studying the use of the knotweed psyllid, a natural predator of the knotweed in Japan, including studying the impact of the psyllid on other crops. She is waiting for approval to proceed with field studies from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I don't know if there's anyone here who has any influence with them, or if advocacy would work on a scientific issue like this, but it would really be good to get this moving. Otherwise we'll just be chopping at knotweed and spraying it with herbicide indefinitely. See for example https://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/technology/pdfs/BCIP_2016_Grevstad_Proposal.pdf.

I spoke too soon. Rachel King, with Friends of the Riverfront, just cut the knotweed near the eagles today! So it seems the knotweed assault I announced there is no longer necessary. I plan to do some pruning (not knotweed) near Sandcastle tomorrow at 4, instead. Meet me there if you'd like to help.

Is there any Japanese knotweed that I can cut and eat? if there is, how can you cook it?

Find some new shoots (less than a foot tall, thin stalks). Cook like asparagus. You can google for: japanese knotweed recipe. It's easiest to find new shoots in April, but there are still some around.