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​​ River Esk Giant Hogweed Year End Report 2023

We have reached the end of Year 2 of the upper Esk Giant Hogweed Eradication Project and Year 3 of the lower Esk Project.

I am very grateful to all the spotters who have send GPS sightings to Dave Quarendon to put on his unique GPS online map. I am immensely grateful for all that work.

With extra spotter support we have been able to survey some of the most upstream parts of the Esk this year and were pleased to find much of it Giant Hogweed free.

​​ We have achieved more success than last year over the entire catchment area with more landowners beginning to get more involved, realising that this is a community effort. Ownership of some areas has proved difficult to establish as owners often prove elusive when it suits.

The Musselburgh area has achieved a greater success this year. ​​ I am especially grateful for all the work done by East Lothian Council and Musselburgh Golf course in that Musselburgh central area.

There are however many other landowners who have dealt with their areas perfectly well and removed all their Giant Hogweed plants. I am very grateful for that.

Despite this there were some noticeable gaps in thoroughness. Railtrack were a classic example of being a bad neighbour and given that the rail network runs right through the centre of our area that has been a great disappointment to us all.

We may need to look at other ways of enforcement of treatment for this invasive plant which is harmful to human contact and is illegal to deliberately allow the spread of seeds.

Some landowners using contractors have allowed them to begin spraying far too late when plants were well advanced in growth and heading to flower.

Remember where anyone is unsure where to find the Giant Hogweed on their land please visit the on-line link to the dynamic map to see where plants have been spotted and marked on the map. You can enlarge the map and see great detail and if you click on a sighting it gives you the number of plants and date spotted.

​​ Link here  ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​​​ www.elcv.org.uk/HogweedMapEsk

Every Giant Hogweed plant that flowers and produces seeds takes our project back again to year one as these seeds go back into the soil to germinate over the next 10 years starting the process all over again.

This is why our maxim is

​​ “No plant must Flower”

This photo shows the consequence of leaving one plant to flower. Each of these little germinated seedling plants is a Giant Hogweed plant.

The map below shows the location of Giant Hogweed plants on the River Esk recorded ​​ during 2023.

This year we decided to bring forward our “green Tick” inspection to late May rather than early June as we had done in the earlier years. This made final removal of any missed and budded plants easier; so next year it would be helpful, for all landowners to try to get their final spraying all complete by 2nd week in May. This will ensure that any spayed plants are dying by end of May before we carry out our “green tick” inspection.

Any missed plants, or plants sprayed far too late after flowering has commenced, are still potentially able to produce a viable seedhead so the heads need to be removed and disposed of safely. Roundup can be sprayed down the cut stem to kill the plant, or alternatively by digging out the root.

Because of this, plants left to flower create a huge amount of work compared to timely spraying at the leaf stage.

While the main target of our project is Giant Hogweed, I know that many have been successfully treating Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam, I would encourage you to continue to spray these other plants as you pass by as my guess is that in 5 years time you will wish you had done it from the start of this project.

The following map shows the position of eradication of Giant Hogweed on the River Esk at the end of August 2023.

You will see that many areas that have been cleared properly and are given a “green tick”.

Plants that have seed heads on have a radiation symbol.

Any area where Giant Hogweed seed heads have been cut off but left on the ground are marked with a light green axe. The best you can say about this is that the seeds have been returned to their own land and less likely to spread and affect neighbouring landowners but on that land they are taking themselves back to year 1 of the project.

All of the landowners are taking part voluntarily and understand that this is a community wide project in which each landowner needs to play their part whether a farmer, householder, banks, builders, supermarket or a developer.

We would like all farming, industrial and development landowners anywhere in East Lothian, Mid Lothian and West Lothian to start to remove any isolated pockets of Giant Hogweed to reduce the risks to clean areas and to avoid being accused of being a bad neighbour.

Developers need also be aware that transportation of the top 100 mm of soil containing Giant Hogweed seeds from one site to another site except for specialist disposal is an offence. and makes any future soil removal very expensive.

I would like to say thanks for the support from all the landowners, spotters and especially Julia and Dave for organising and training the spotters and to Bayer UK for their continuing support with donation of some Roundup.

This year I have sadly missed my ​​ joint co-ordinator Kathryn Shanks who has not been well enough to support the project that she launched on the River Esk 2 years ago. We wish her well for a speedy recovery.

I look forward to your continuing support and look forward to seeing the map once again populated by green ticks at the end of July 2024 ​​ You can contact me by email james.wyllie@ruchlawproduce.co.uk  ​​ ​​ ​​​​ or telephone 07836 246 858.

See further plant information below.

Yours

James

James Wyllie

Co-ordinator

River Esk Giant Hogweed Eradication Project

Giant Hogweed Eradication Project for the River Esk ​​ 

There are 3 main species of plants which are considered to be non native on our riverside banks and each can be very invasive and push out other diverse plant life.

Japanese Knotweed

This plant is easy to recognise in mature clumps in the photo above but as a new or small plant is quite difficult to spot among other vegetation. It can spread by seed but mainly from the rhizomes that make up its roots structure. These bits break off in river floods and travel downstream and re-establish a new infestation.

This can be killed by spraying with Roundup in Spring and then again in Autumn to allow the chemical to be drawn down into the root structure. This kind of treatment needs to be carried out possibly for several years to completely eliminate the clump. Other times we have seen a single season treatment work effectively.

Himalyan Balsam

​​ Himalayan Balsam is a seemingly innocent kind of riverside plant with rather pretty pink flowers but there is no doubt that it can and will spread easily being able to project it’s ​​ seeds up to 4 metres and will given the chance quickly become very invasive in the riverside bank.This plant can be killed by spraying with Roundup in Spring on an annual basis to cover new plants which will emerge from seed.

Giant Hogweed

This is the principal target plant for this project and most people will have seen these very large “Triffid” like plants. Each stem is capable of producing around 10000 seeds so you can see that allowing it to flower is fatal to the success of the programme. Assuming that we allow no plants to flower then the new plants we see are growing from seeds already in the soil seed bank.

​​ It will take around 5 to 6 years for the majority of these seeds to germinate .

For this reason, it is vital that no plant is allowed to flower.

Where stock have access to riverside grazing they will often eat the plants and assist in the prevention of flowering but for most East Lothian arable farmers the effective way to kill this plant is to target spray, using a knapsack, the leaf surface with Roundup in Spring around late March or May before the plant reaches a height of 600mm.

Where you suspect you may have a lot of plants it is worth walking over the area as soon as plants reach the size of a large dinner plate around March and then having a second walk through in May to pick up any missed plants or any late germinators.

Take a walk around again in late June and spray any last plants with Roundup. In future years you will begin to know where to look for the majority of plants.

If the plant has a flowering shoot and bud, please decapitate the flowering head from the stem using a spade, separating it from the stem as there is enough sap in the stem to allow the head to finish flowering again. DO NOT USE A POWER TOOL as the sap can inflict a nasty burn. Bag the flowering heads, remove and burn or dispose of safely.

Please be careful to wear gloves and do not touch the plants with direct skin as the sap is very capable of giving a very serious skin burn

For individual plants it is quite practical to just cut the plant below soil level with a spade, lift the plant and leave to die but for speed where there are more plants it is easier to use a knapsack sprayer with Roundup.

On this 70 miles of The North and South Esk and Tributaries all the way to the sea at Musselburgh, while you have all agreed to eradicate Giant Hogweed, it is important ​​ to know that all other Riparian owners in our river sections are doing this at the same time.

​​ My role as Project Coordinator is to monitor whether we are all doing this properly and point out any areas that have been missed. I will be assisted by East Lothian Countryside Volunteers and Inveresk Village Society Volunteers in this task.

As you go round next year, in spring of 2024, you will continue to spray all the Giant Hogweed plants but I have pointed out two other invasive species so that as it suits you may wish to spray them on the way past. In some areas there is no Japanese Knotweed and others no Himalayan Balsam so decide for yourself which of these other species you wish to deal with rather than wait 5 years and say well maybe I could have given them a quick spray on the way round from the beginning.

The key element for our success will be the co-operation of everyone along the length of the entire river doing their bit at the same time.

In the meantime, if you have any questions please call me on 07836 246858 ​​ or by email to  ​​ ​​ ​​​​ james.wyllie@ruchlawproduce.co.uk

​​ James Wyllie

Co-ordinator

River Esk Giant Hogweed Eradication Project