

"Spurgefest"
Will Offer Flea Beetles a FeastBy Kathryn Barry
Stelljes June 23, 1999MEDORA, N.D., June 23--Millions
will gather here for lunch at the end of June--millions of beetles, that is.
The featured menu item, courtesy of scientists with
USDA's Agricultural Research Service, is an exotic
noxious weed called leafy spurge. The weed causes millions of dollars in
production losses each year. Researchers plan to give away up to 10 million flea beetles (Aphthonaspecies) to ranchers and land managers at Spurgefest '99. Held June 29 to July
1 in Medora, N.D., Spurgefest will be the first field day for The Ecological
Areawide Management of Leafy Spurge, or TEAM Leafy Spurge. Biological control using the one-eighth-inch beetles represents the
cornerstone of an integrated approach to curbing the spread of leafy spurge.
The weed, known to scientists as Euphorbia esula, covers at least 5
million acres in 29 states and increases about 10 percent annually. The Agricultural Research Service established TEAM Leafy Spurge in 1997 as
its first Areawide Integrated Pest Management program to address rangeland
weeds. The program is managed in cooperation with the USDA's
Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service, and includes numerous state and federal agencies as well as four
land-grant universities. Spurgefest begins June 29 with a scientific meeting to present research
progress against the weed. On June 30, field tours will demonstrate biological
control, grazing, herbicides and other control tactics. On July 1, speakers
from the Departments of Agriculture and Interior will discuss broad issues regarding
invasive weeds, including a recently signed executive order on invasive
species. July 1 is also the date of the Aphthona beetle give-away. Production losses and control costs attributed to leafy spurge amount to
more than $144 million annually in just four of the 29 spurge-infested states:
Montana, North and South Dakota and Wyoming. "Herbicides have long been the foundation of weed control," said
ARS ecologist
Gerry
L. Anderson. "But we know now that using various combinations of
control tools, such as grazing, biological control and herbicides, provides
better control than any single tool. We're showing land managers how to
integrate the available tools to get the best control for the lowest
cost." Anderson is ARS' principal investigator on the project. He works at the
agency's Northern Plains
Agricultural Research Laboratory in Sidney, Mont. Leafy spurge is native to Europe and Asia. ARS researchers returned to the
weed's homeland in the 1960s to search for natural enemies that might help
prevent it from running rampant. Several species of flea beetles were among the
most useful insects they found. After years of safety testing, ARS began importing and releasing the beetles
in the 1980s. Since then, the insects have become established and are eating
leafy spurge at thousands of locations in more than 19 states and Canadian
provinces. The millions to be distributed this summer will be collected from
sites where the beetles have reproduced on leafy spurge. "The use of biologically based, integrated management strategies is the
best option for ranchers and land managers to effectively and affordably
control leafy spurge," said Anderson. "This approach will help keep
rangelands productive and preserve native plants and biodiversity." Leafy spurge infests about 4,200 acres of the 70,448-acre
Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the
North Dakota Badlands. But since 1987, the
National Park Service has released
more than 4 million flea beetles as part of a program to rein in the weed. The
park will host the Medora event. The growing environmental and economic threat of invasive species like leafy
spurge has spawned the creation of an Invasive Species Council. Agriculture
Secretary Dan
Glickman will co-chair the Council with his counterparts at Interior and
Commerce. The Council will coordinate the federal strategy to combat invasive
species and identify ways to prevent their introduction and spread in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the President's budget proposal for fiscal year 2000 includes an
increase of more than $28.8 million for the war on invasive species. Scientific contact: Gerry L. Anderson or Chad Prosser, ARS
Northern Plains
Agricultural Research Laboratory, 1500 N. Central Ave., Sidney, MT 59270,
phone (406) 482-2020, fax (409) 482-5038,
[email protected]or [email protected]. U.S. Department of Agriculture | |