Statistics

River Esk

• 85 km of river & tributaries
  • 23 km have GH
  • 49 km clear of GH (22 new)
  • 13 km tbd (but GH unlikely)
• Plants
  • 1,500 locations, each with…
    • x1 small upto x100 flowering
  • 20,000? plants

River Tyne

• ?? km of river & tributaries
• ?? km have GH
• ?? km clear of GH
• 5 km tbd (but GH v unlikely)

• Plants
  • 195 locations
  • 490 plants

News

Below is Dave’s spotter-focussed report.

See James’ landowner-focussed reports here TBD Esk & Tyne

• This is our 6th year on the Tyne and its tributaries, the 5th on the Esk in Musselburgh, and the 3rd covering the whole Esk catchment. We now cover the Tyne from Tyninghame up to Pathhead, the Bellyford Burn from Pencaitland up to the A68, the Esk in Musselbugh up through Inveresk, Dalkeith Country Park, the North Esk up to Penicuik, the South Esk up to Gorebridge, the Dean/Park Burn up to its source in Straiton, and many smaller tributaries.
• Spotters again surveyed all of the watercourses and recorded the GPS locations of any plants. Added to the Google maps makes it quicker for the landowners to know where to spray, easier for our “green tick” surveys (where late season we double check that all plants have gone), and enables accurate progress monitoring.
• Ian has this year surveyed many more of the Esk tributaries in Midlothian. The good news is we now know for sure that many more miles are clear of hogweed. The bad news is he found 6 new isolated infested areas. But good news: we have now dealt with all of them!
• Next year we hope next year to complete our coverage of every mile of waterway. Because you can never be sure – a car crossing a bridge, or a bird perched on an overhead cable, can once in a blue moon drop a seed which reaches triver, and then another unrelated infestation begins.
• Training: In the spring three new spotters have joined our team, were trained, and have surveyed their allocated non-river regions in East Lothian. Thanks to Debs-J, Martin-L and David-G. Two existing spotters also joined in the training as a refresher. Major thanks to Julia, both for organising the spotters, and doing a lot of spotting!

• For the 6th year in a row we can say the River Tyne is free of any plant that could flower – and virtually every other plant too. Congratulations!
• On the Tyne our detailed statistics show a steady reduction in both locations and plants. The bar chart excludes Tyninghame, but even there …??
• This year on the 5km stretch between Pencaitland and Hailes -which has been clear of any flowering plants for years,  we found half a dozen individual plants scattered along the river, one of which was even flowering. It just goes to show that we have to stay vigilant and thorough – seeds can lie dormant for years waiting for the right conditions to germinate. And thorough: a flowering one means we missed it last year, either we never found it, or we didnt treat it properly. – if we miss ione
• On the Bellyford Burn, where three years ago there were a hundred flowering plants, there only a few small plants. Unfortunately the seeds had spread downstream onto a neighbouring properties, where despite everone’s efforts, there were still a dozen flowering, which needed to be laboriously mopped up.