Hi Buffelgrass Haters,
As
you probably know, a number of hiking buddies and I hate
buffelgrass and are on a mission to destroy it.
We
have spent many days out in the Ironwood National Monument with
BLM, John Scheuring and the Friends of Ironwood Forest, the
Tucson Mountains with the Sonoran Desert Weedwackers and Pima
County, and more recently in The Highlands at Dove Mountain
searching out and destroying buffelgrass.
For
those of you who know me, know that my primary love, second to
my wife Carol is hiking. The Wild Burro Trail System,
which is part of our back yard is the focal point for my love of
hiking. For the past ten years, many of my Dove Mountain hiking
buddies and I, have helped Tom Ellis and Marana lay out the
trails, build the easier trails and maintain the Wild Burro
Trail System.
Whenever I spotted buffelgrass in our Trail System, I took a GPS
waypoint and logged it onto my W.B. Trail Map. A couple of
times a year, volunteers would go back out there and either dig
it out or spray the buffelgrass with Round-Up. In my
opinion, the best way to eliminate it is to spray it.
However, the buffelgrass must be at least 2/3rds green in order
for the Round-Up to work. Tom Ellis will supply us with
backpack sprayers.
I've had my eye on two patches of buffelgrass in the Wild Burro
Trail System since last winter. One patch was fairly large
and the other was small. I wanted to spray the patches
rather than dig them out, but it's too hot to work out there in
the Summer and the buffelgrass was not yet green. It
needed monsoon rain to green up.
Last
Tuesday, five of us hiked up the Ritz Spur Trail to the Upper
Javelina and then up to the Wild Mustang Trail. A large
patch of buffelgrass is located on the Wild Mustang Trail, .15
miles above the Wild Mustang / Upper Javelina Trail Junction.
As you hike the Wild Mustang, the buffelgrass was clearly
visible from the Trail up the slope on the northeast side of the
Trail.
Last fall on my Cochie Canyon and Wild Burro Canyon
Loop "Hike with the Mayor", I noticed a few small
patches of buffelgrass along the Cochie Spring Trail, .35 miles
down from the Wild Mustang / Cochie Spring Trail Junction.
Matt
Christman, a Marana Parks and Recs employee brought us three
backpack sprayers, each filled with 5 gallons of Round-Up and
each weighting 45+ pounds. I kidded Matt that he filled
the sprayers with too much Round-Up. They were awfully
heavy lugging them around, especially since last Tuesday's
temperature was in the high 90's. As it turned out we used
14+ gallons between us, because the small patch of buffelgrass
along the Cochie Spring Trail was much larger than I remembered.
We
lugged the sprayers up and then down the trails for 3.5 miles
with a 600+' elevation gain.
Matt
Christman, Jim Avramis and I carried the Backpack Sprayers.
Richard Muzzy and Jeff Blacburn hiked along with us. With
the Backpack Sprayers on our backs, we were unable to carry our
own water, so Richard and Jeff carried up lots of extra water
for us. They also bushwhacked up the slopes pointing out
clumps of buffelgrass for us to spray.
I've
attached my map of the section of the Wild Burro Trail System
that we worked last Tuesday. In addition, the following
Picasa link has some pictures of the area that we worked:
https://picasaweb.google.com/115885587566357224840/2013_09_17TortolitaBuffleGrass#
Gary
PS:
If any of you Wild Burro Trail System Hikers, spot any
buffelgrass in our Trail System, please email me the location.
Either a GPS coordinate or a description of where the grass is
will suffice.
