Harmful Weeds Make the List

There are many different weeds that can cause harm to our landscapes, forests, and agricultural land. Weeds that are of high concern for their dangerous impacts often land on the Noxious Weed List. Learn from two noxious weed experts what noxious weeds are, how weeds get placed on the Noxious Weed List, and tips for protecting your properties from these harmful plants. 

Smarty Plants is a podcast of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Visit www.mda.state.mn.us/plants-insects/smarty-plants for more episodes. Look for a new episode of Smarty Plants every month.

Transcript

Jennifer Burington: 0:20

Welcome to Smarty Plants, a Minnesota Department of Agriculture podcast, informing citizens about invasive species that affect our environment and agricultural resources. My name is Jennifer Barrington, and I will be your host. Being in the great state of Minnesota often means we are surrounded by fantastic forests and beautiful landscapes. However, noxious weeds can sometimes be lurking in our environment. These harmful plants can be found in our wooded areas, backyards, along roadsides, on farmland, and in many more places. There are 57 weeds recognized in Minnesota and all of them could hurt our environment. Today, we are joined by Emily Justin and Laura Van Riper to discuss Minnesota's noxious weed list and important information you should know to protect our environment. Thanks for joining us. Thanks. Emily grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and always preferred the outside chores to the inside chores. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison with a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture. She worked in the retail and wholesale nursery trade before receiving her master's in horticulture from Iowa State University, and since then, she's worked for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture for over 10 years on invasive species and noxious weeds. She enjoys helping people identify plants and figure out how to manage problematic plants. Emily, we're so happy to have you with us today. Thanks, Jennifer. And Laura Van Riper has been the Terrestrial Invasive Species Program Coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Invasive Species Program since 2010. Laura works with invasive species policy, management, prevention, and outreach. Key responsibilities include improving invasive species prevention. Management and mapping, as well as coordinating and developing invasive species projects and policies with outside organizations. Before working for the DNR, Laura earned a PhD in ecology from the university of Minnesota. Thanks for joining us, Laura.

Laura Van Riper: 2:17

Thanks for having me.

Jennifer Burington: 2:19

All right. To start with what. What exactly are noxious weeds and why should we worry about them?

Emilie Justen: 2:27

So, I'm a plant person and when I first started at the MDA, I had no idea what a noxious weed was. Uh, and so I had to learn pretty quickly because my job was all about noxious weeds and noxious weed management. And basically, the definition of a noxious weed, uh, in the state of Minnesota is a plant weed. a terrestrial plant species that's regulated by law. And what that means is that they're, these species of plants might have certain restrictions for buying or selling them in the state. Uh, they might have other kinds of restrictions about or if you can even grow them on your property. And so they, those kinds of regulations, uh, help the state of Minnesota manage these species that can be problems or can be harmful to. to any kind of aspect of the, of either humans, livestock, um, the environment, ecosystems, uh, roadsides, almost anywhere where a plant can grow, um, something that's designated as a noxious weed could be a problem. Uh, Laura, is there anything that you'd

Laura Van Riper: 3:51

want to add to that? Yeah, there's a lot of different terms you hear for plants. that are problematic or plants that are growing where people don't want them to go. So I think it's worth talking about some of those terms. So you just talked about noxious weeds. That's a legal designation. People might also hear the term invasive plant. Uh, so that means a plant that's not native to Minnesota. A non native species was brought here by people, either purposefully or, um, unintentionally. So we've got invasive plants. So something could be an invasive plant, but not be a noxious weed. Uh, so I just want to make sure that we kind of talk about that because it's a little confusing. And then there's the term weed, right? A weed is just any plant growing someplace where you don't want it to be. So, there might be a plant that's, you know, native to Minnesota, like say poison ivy. That you don't want it growing next to your kids slide, uh, but if it's growing in the forest, in a state forest, that's a perfectly reasonable place for it to be. So just, I think it's important to know that people might hear a lot of different words and we'll, we'll try to be specific in what we're talking about.

Jennifer Burington: 5:00

Perfect. That was a great explanation. There's plenty of weeds around whether they're on the noxious weed list or not. So, what is the noxious weed list, and where can we find it?

Emilie Justen: 5:14

The noxious weed list, uh, like I mentioned earlier, is, um, a list of regulated terrestrial plant species. Uh, and it's complicated in a lot of ways because it is, these are, Plant species that are, have some sort of legal definition for either controlling them or managing them, um. Or prohibition from sale or moving them around throughout the state. So, it's a list of plant species, um, that are regulated. And we maintain the list online at the Minnesota Department of Ag web page. Um, yeah,

Jennifer Burington: 6:07

the list is on our website. Uh, our website is www. mda. gov. And you can search for noxious weed list, or you can go through, um, some of the headers on there and you can find the noxious weed list if you do some searching there as well. So we know what the noxious weed list is now, and there's 57 species on it, but that's a lot of species just to be all lumped together. Are there categories of weeds on this noxious weed list? And can you explain what those categories are?

Emilie Justen: 6:45

Yeah, there, we have four categories that we put noxious weeds into, um, depending on how their risk assessment comes out. Uh, the top priority category is the category called prohibited eradicate. And these are species that cannot be sold or propagated in Minnesota. And they're also species that need to be, uh, above and below ground parts of the park. plant must be killed. Um, and then we have prohibited control that comes after the prohibited eradicate. And like the, the prohibited eradicate, also these species cannot be propagated or sold in Minnesota. Um, the designation for managing these are that they would have to be controlled in a way that prevents the spread of these species by seed or vegetative means. And prohibited control species are found, or are already established throughout the state. Um, prohibited eradicate, there are generally pretty small populations in the state, so they're easier to, um, do what we call eradication of them. Uh, the restricted is the fourth cate or third, sorry, the third category. Uh, these are species that Cannot be, that are widely distributed, uh, in the state, but cannot be eradicated or controlled. And in general, these are prohibited from being brought into the state, sold, or transported within the state. And then our last category is the specially category, especially regulated category. And there are several species on this list that have Uh, some type of labeling requirement at point of sale that says that they should have some sort of specific management for them, um, as well. And so, this is to help minimize some of the potential for harm that might be caused by these plants as well.

Jennifer Burington: 9:03

Thanks. That's, uh, in a lot of categories. So Is there a category of noxious weed that is considered the most harmful? I think

Emilie Justen: 9:13

in terms of harming, harmful, uh, the category that we would probably consider the most harmful would be the prohibited eradicate category. And there are species in there that are toxic. Um, there's also species that in that category that can, if they were, you know, Left unmanaged, they could cause quite a bit of damage to agriculture, to row crops. Um, and so there's, there's, in terms of tangible harms to, uh, living beings and, uh, and row crops or economics, there, there are quite a few species in that category, the prohibited eradicate category.

Laura Van Riper: 10:08

Yeah, so there are, you know, different categories of noxious weeds and there's reasons why they're in their different categories. Um, I think Prohibited Eradicate is a really good group to highlight, uh, because they're species that we know cause a lot of harm and in a lot of cases they're either not very widespread in Minnesota or not here at all. So with, with invasive species and noxious weeds, the, the old adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Like, that is really true for invasive species. Doing the work up front to prevent things from getting introduced or preventing them from spreading farther around the state, it's gonna save you time and money and energy in the long run for not having to manage them once they're out there. Perfect. Hopefully

Jennifer Burington: 10:52

I don't have any of, uh, the prohibited eradicate species in my yard. I know I have seen some buckthorn, but that's on a different list. That's on the different category. Yeah, and

Laura Van Riper: 11:01

that's a good point. Something like buckthorn is still harmful. It's just widespread enough in the state that it doesn't make sense to put it in that prohibited eradicate, uh, category. So, so just because something's not prohibited eradicate doesn't mean it's not harmful, doesn't mean it's not worth your effort to, to manage. But it's just not, you know, the appropriate category for that species.

Jennifer Burington: 11:22

Nice. Well, I'll still continue to use my buckthorn puller and my buckthorn dauber as I cut all those down that I find in my yard. Hopefully after a couple more years here, they'll all be gone. Who knows? Um, so continuing to do talk about like these different categories, um, what kinds of damage could a noxious weed do to someone's yard, woods, or farm field to get added to the list?

Laura Van Riper: 11:50

Yeah, I think it's good to start with a few examples. Um, so when we talk about invasive species, right, the definition is something that's non native and can cause harm to the environment, the ecology, um, the economy, or human health. Uh, so yards, woods, farm, you know, those are very related to those, those categories. So, there's noxious weeds that can affect a lot of those different things. So a good example for economic impact is, uh, Palmer amaranth. Uh, so it's an, uh, an noxious weed that is, It's, um, really good at developing herbicide resistance. And so if it gets into cornfields or soybean fields, it becomes much more harder to manage and it can cause a lot of economic loss of those crop species. So that's a good example of an, you know, economic impact of a noxious weed. Um, for the ecology, an interesting one is a vine called black swallowwort. It's actually a milkweed that grows as a vine. We don't have any native Minnesota. milkweeds that grow as vines. Uh, so, um, black swallowwort's interesting that way, and it pops out that way. So they're milkweeds, so they attract monarchs to them, but when the monarchs lay their eggs on them, the little caterpillars hatch and can't survive on the black swallowwort, so they actually die. So, these plants are really bad for our monarchs, and we're, we love our monarchs in Minnesota. We want to keep those little caterpillars growing. So that's, that's a good example of a, um, ecological impact that you might see. Another good one we talked about is buckthorn, right? Once you get a few buckthorn plants that keep producing seeds, you get more and more and you get this thick buckthorn thicket and you lose the native species that you had before. And I'll throw out a human health example as well. Uh, so wild parsnip is a plant that if you get the sap on your skin and then your skin's exposed to sunlight, uh, you can get a chemical burn from it. Um, I will also throw out that, um, that both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Natural Resources have webpages on these individual species. So they're a great place to look around to see pictures of the species and explanations of why they're on these lists and what kind of impacts they cause.

Jennifer Burington: 14:07

Yeah, there's some great pictures, uh, on our website and on the websites that have, that help you identify exactly what you're looking, you're looking for. Um, especially some of those, like you're saying, the vining milkweeds and stuff. That's something a little bit different to look out for. And it's always kind of a. Not that you want to find it, but it is kind of cool that you can, if you do find it, you're like, yeah, that's one of the bad ones. That's one's on the list.

Laura Van Riper: 14:32

Yeah, I, once, once you start learning about plants and wanting to identify plants everywhere you go, what's that plant there? And different ones stick out. You know, I haven't seen that one before and it's fun to figure out what it is.

Emilie Justen: 14:44

Yeah, we don't have any prizes though for people who find species. So unfortunately Department of Ag Will send you a hat an email that says great. Thank you for telling us about this But unfortunately, we don't have any prizes for finding a new weed

Jennifer Burington: 15:01

You know, I wish I had gold stars for every time somebody sent a picture of one of the noxious weeds, like,

Laura Van Riper: 15:06

yes, you found it. Good job. Right. Sometimes the prize can be if you figure it out early and you just need to pull one or two plants, your prize is you've saved yourself a lot of work and you've kept your garden looking how you want it.

Jennifer Burington: 15:19

Excellent. Nice. Going along with, um, all these different species that you've named and stuff, how do, how do these plants get onto the noxious weed list? Like, what, what is all that involved with that?

Laura Van Riper: 15:36

Yeah, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner, uh, has the authority to, to add species to the noxious weed list, to remove them from the noxious weed list, or to change their, their categories. Uh, and to help the commissioner, the Department of Agriculture has a noxious weed advisory committee. Uh, so that committee has a lot of different, uh, organizations represented on it. It's got, um, organizations, um, that represent like the nursery industry, the forestry industry and agriculture. It's got non profit organizations. It's got representatives from cities and counties and soil and water conservation districts. Uh, I'm on it as a representative for the Department of Natural Resources. Uh, the Department of Transportation is on there and the Board of Water and Soil Resources. So it's a really broad group and our task is to look at these different species that might be a problem and we write risk assessments for them. So we really try to write out what do we know about these species, what kind of impacts are they having or might they have, can they survive in Minnesota, uh, do they have economic value. Do we have any management tools for them? Are there even things we can do to try to reduce them? So we get all this information into the risk assessment and try to determine if it's appropriate to regulate the plant or not. Uh, if it is appropriate to regulate it, we try to recommend what category would make the most sense. Is it a prohibited eradicate, prohibited control, restricted, or specially regulated? So that's, um, so that committee, we pull that together, we make our, our recommendation. And then the, the commissioner can decide, uh, to accept our recommendation or not. Emily, anything else you want to add about how species are added to the noxious weed list?

Emilie Justen: 17:25

Yeah, I think that was a really good summary of how we add things to the list. Um, the things, we don't just add species because we want to add them. Like Laura said, it's a pretty rigorous process to go through a risk assessment. We do accept recommendations for petitions for species from the general public as well, uh, so if there is a plant of concern that someone has, you can go to our website that has the link to the petition form and fill that out as well, and then anything that comes through the petition form gets added to our list of species to, uh, decide if we want to write a risk assessment for, um, so it can take a few years before we get to, through the list, uh, it's kind of a rolling list that keeps It's getting added to year by year, um, but the, but there is also a way for people, the general public to, to recommend a species to be evaluated as well.

Jennifer Burington: 18:31

Perfect. Lots of opportunities for people to suggest, uh, new weeds that are potentially harmful for Minnesota. Um, so are weeds on this noxious weed list spreading throughout the state or are they, You talked a little bit about some that are. On the prohibited eradicate list that are kind of more targeted eradication efforts. Are there some that are being eradicated? Some that are spreading? What, what are you guys seeing over the last year?

Emilie Justen: 19:01

Yeah, this is a That's a really great question and I think this is also pretty interesting as we've looked year by year over how things, how different species have been spreading, um, how our control efforts have been working, uh, and so, um, for the past couple of years, we have only had a handful of what we call new county finds. And what a new county find means is it's a species that's been documented in a county for the first time. Uh, and so we record and keep track of those species that are on the eradicate list for new county finds. In 2023, we only had Palmer Amaranth show up in one new county. Uh, and then another species on the eradicate list called Red Hailstone in a new county. Last year, in 2024, we had Palmer Amaranth show up in two new counties. And hooked hair hops, which was formerly known as Japanese hops, uh, which is an annual vine, showed, showed up in one new county. So, this is interesting because prior to 2023, we had, we'd have 5, 6, 7, maybe a dozen new county vines. Um, but what happened, one of the things that happened, In 2023 is that we had a few species that were on the eradicate list move to either the prohibited control list or the restricted list. And so those species, for example, were, um, brown leaf bittersweet, poison hemlock, um, are two examples of species that moved from the prohibited eradicate to the prohibited control. So. What happened was that those species were found and being documented and as spreading in more counties and to the point where eradication of these species wasn't going to be feasible, even with a lot of funding, if we would have been able to secure funding. Um, they were just spreading and being documented and recorded a lot more than, um, could be kept at the eradicate level.

Laura Van Riper: 21:24

Yeah, this could be a good time to dive in a little deeper on the difference between prohibited eradicate and prohibited control. So prohibited eradicate, if you have the plant on your property, uh, you're required to kill that plant. Whereas prohibited control, you're required to prevent the spread of its seeds off your site. Uh, so something like mowing, you know, for example, if you cut the plant before it produces seeds, you're following the noxious weed law by, you know, not letting that plant spread off your off your site. So some of the categories, you know, relate to that idea of spread and what can we do to reduce the spread.

Jennifer Burington: 22:02

Um, how, how can we use the list to ensure our yards and woods are safe, uh, along with, like, the farm fields that you were talking about with Palmer?

Laura Van Riper: 22:13

Yeah. I, I like to think, you the first things to do is learn about these, these species. So, the list, You know, there's hundreds and hundreds of plants in the state. Uh, the noxious weed list helps sort of narrow down. If you want to learn top concerns, those are some good plants to learn. So I encourage people to take a look. At the list at the MDA and DNR, uh, webpages, uh, the Department of Transportation made a beautiful noxious weed identification booklet, uh, that we link to, um, it's got great pictures, it's got lookalikes on there, so I think a good first step is, you know, using the list to learn the species of concern, then, yeah, take a look on your property, or if you have a natural area you like to recreate in, you know, keep an eye out for things there if you find something say something to the the staff there. Uh, there is a website called eddmaps. org and we at the DNR and other partners, MDA, um, and the public, we can share information about where we've found these species. So that can be a great, great resource too. If you're wondering, you know, is this plant known to be in my county? Uh, it's a great resource to look, look for that. I think you can also use the list and the species to think about how they move. Different plants can move in different ways. Some have been moved around a lot because they were purposefully planted. Some are moved because they have berries that the birds eat. Some have seeds that move on wind. So learning about those, those pathways and what you can do, you know, on your property and in your actions to prevent their spread is, is really helpful. There's an outreach campaign called Play, Clean, Go. Stop invasive species in your tracks. Uh, that really pulls together that, that advice. So things like the idea of come clean, leave clean. If you're, if you're recreating, before you leave the house, make sure your hiking boots are clean or your, your ATV or your bike. So you're not moving those weed seeds that might be in the mud. Uh, once you're done at that site, clean off before you go to the next place. So you're not moving, uh, those, those weed seeds with you from place to place. So that's a really, uh, important thing that people can do on their own. These plants aren't going from the southern end of the state to the northern part of the state in one day. Whereas humans, we can make that move really, really fast. Uh, so good, good, um, habits to get into. Another thing, uh, people can do is to stay on the trail. A lot of these noxious weeds really like disturbed soil. So the more you can stay on the trail and not go off trail and disturb more soil or potentially introduce, uh, more plants, that's a great, you know, easy thing you can do to help reduce the spread of noxious seeds. And maybe I'll also make a plug for, um, you know, planting native or non invasive plants on your property. Uh, they're, they can be lower maintenance, they can help support our, you know, insects and other birds, other wildlife that we have. So that's a great thing that people can do too.

Emilie Justen: 25:19

Yeah, and I'll add to that, um, that after you've identified, or if you're, if, if you are struggling to identify what species you might have on your property, there are a number of people that can help out either at the DNR or at the MDA, um, University of Minnesota Extension also has. people that can help identify plants. Um, counties or the soil and water conservation districts often have people who are very knowledgeable in plant identification as well. Uh, and then just to add to what Laura said, learning how to manage species as well. Um, there are lots of different management options. We don't just have hand pulling or, um, using herbicide. Lots of other techniques like smothering, um, tillage sometimes can work, uh. So, there's, there's different ways to manage species as well, um, that you can learn about either at, at the MDA website or at the DNR websites.

Laura Van Riper: 26:31

Yeah, a lot of us love looking at pictures of plants, uh, and trying to help people. You can help the person who's helping you by taking good photos. Um, it's really hard to identify, you know, a picture of a tree from 50 feet away. So if you're taking photos for identification, get close ups of the leaves, both the top of the leaf and the underside of the leaf. Get pictures of how the leaves attach to the stem. Are they coming up opposite each other or one at a time? If there's any fruits or flowers or thorns, get pictures of those too. Um, those are all things that can, can help someone help you identify the species.

Emilie Justen: 27:10

I think those are great points too. Um, and it, Laura's It's very accurate in saying that we love getting pictures from people because that's part of the fun of our summer season is getting emails and texts from people on how to identify a plant or what plant that we should be identifying. Um, and to add to that too, uh, Laura had mentioned part of management can be sometimes planting native plants and, uh, that's another good way after you've gotten rid of Something like buckthorn on your property to do some restoration with native plants, um, or a mix of plant species that can help, um, benefit insects and animals and all sorts of wildlife and other plants as well. And that's a good part of a plan to help. Uh, protect your property and any, or any property that you're working on with trying to do, um, trying to get rid of some noxious weeds is to, to plan on doing some kind of restoration project as well.

Laura Van Riper: 28:21

Yeah, I think that's the fun part that gets overlooked. Sometimes in our, our jobs we talk about how to manage these, these plants and we're very focused on, you know, what herbicide should you use or what time of year should you pull or mow? But yeah, if it's your property, think about what you want that property. to look like. Um, depending on its, its history, you know, there might not be many native plants left in the seed bank. So just taking stuff out, you're just going to keep getting weedy species coming back in. So think about what, what you'd like. There's a lot of, um, local resources like soil and water conservation districts that can have You know, great support, um, for giving you ideas of what restoration in your particular area might look like.

Emilie Justen: 29:02

Yeah, and just anecdotally, on, I live in the city and I have a small lot, but I have a really challenging lot because it's, uh, it's a slope, a steep slope, a short, steep slope, um, but I have a lot of shade too because I have some mature trees and so I've got, Dry shade. I've got hot, sunny, south facing slope with weird soil types. And so it's taken me ten years to kind of figure out what can grow there in those, a lot of trial and error. I've got a pretty decent mix now of a lot of nice Native prairie mixes on the slope that have been handling the drought years really well. And then in dry shade, just a mix of natives and hostas and sedges even have been doing really well. And so it's been fun for me over many years, a decade of experimenting what can, what can work in this, what I would call kind of a rest, a tiny pocket restoration area. But that's. Certainly feasible. Nobody has to have acres and acres of land to try to do restoration either. You can, you can do these little pocket restorations on your own property as well and The amount of insects I see and birds has increased. I've been trying for years to get hummingbirds to come to my yard and they come through now. And, uh, I even have monarchs, lots of swallowtails. So it's, it's really fun for me personally to have that kind of experience just sitting in my patio as well.

Laura Van Riper: 30:48

That bring the nature to you. Exactly.

Jennifer Burington: 30:51

And right now is also a good time, the Soil and Water Conservation Districts, a lot of them have their tree sales in the winter here, they've opened up, and then you get the trees in the spring. Um, they also, a lot of times will work with you to offer like some native planting suggestions based on I mean, it's within the, usually within the county, uh, Lawns to Legumes program is also another good program that I'll, uh, grant out some, uh, funds to help you do some restoration on small size. And that's through the Board of Water and Soil Resources, so BOWSER, um, for short. And on their website, they do have information on there as well. So if you just do a Google search and look for Lawns to Legumes, um, it'll help you find that information. Um, but I noticed, um, With some of the, the Noxious Weeds, I was looking, Laura, you mentioned the MnDOT book. So we do a lot, the, all of the different, uh, state agencies work together a lot. We have Minnesota Department of Agriculture, we have the Department of Natural Resources, we have the Department of Transportation, I just mentioned the Board of Water and Soil Resources. All of us work together, and you've The Department of Transportation made this beautiful book, has all these beautiful pictures of all these horrible weeds. So I see that a lot of them are very, very pretty. A lot of them are probably brought here specifically for that reason because they look so pretty. But if I see something that looks kind of out of place that I didn't plant and I notice it in my yard or if I'm out walking around and there seems to be something just taking over the entire forest, like, what should I do if I find what I think is a noxious weed? And you talked a little bit about taking pictures already and pictures are definitely helpful and definitely sending them in, um, to report a pest. at the Department of Agriculture is a great way to at least let somebody know that you've seen something. But what should, what else should you do if you think you've found one?

Emilie Justen: 32:56

Uh, yeah, a good place to start is by taking pictures and having somebody identify it if you're unable to identify it. Um, there are a number of apps now that can help you get close to an identification. Um, The, the Seek app by iNaturalist can help identify plants or insects using, using pictures. Uh, sometimes it doesn't get you to the actual species, but it can get you pretty close. And if you can get close enough, sometimes you can figure it out on your own. Um, the, Jennifer had mentioned the, The report a pest form that we have online at the Department of Agriculture. Um, you can send pictures and information to that form as well. Uh, and then. And then somebody responds with an identification on it. Yeah,

Laura Van Riper: 33:56

so for noxious weeds specifically, the county agricultural inspector is the lead on the noxious weed bar. Uh, so they are, you know, experts in identifying these species. They know their counties. They know what kind of resources are in their counties. Uh, so I think they're a really good first point of contact. You know, if you've taken a picture, your, your app. or you've looked at the book and it's pointing towards where you think it's one of these weeds and you'd like it confirmed or you'd like some advice, uh, the County Ag Inspector is a good first stop.

Emilie Justen: 34:29

Yeah, that's a great point. Um, County Ag Inspectors are, uh, they, they help the Department of Ag out quite a bit with a number of different programs. Um, and they, the County Ag Inspectors are, the people who do the enforcement of the noxious weed law. Uh, so they're trained in identification, they're trained in management of different species of plants too. So they, they are a good, like Laura mentioned, a good first point of contact for, uh, if you've identified a noxious weed on your property.

Jennifer Burington: 35:05

And that report a pest, uh, information. Uh, we have an email, a phone line, and, uh, a website. So it's, uh, www dot mda dot state. Do mn do us slash all one word here, report a pest. And then for the email, it's again, all one word report, aest at Staten us. And then we also have a phone number. If you look it up on our website, um, it'll be on there as well. Um, so yeah, that's another great way you can just link, uh, you can just load all your pictures onto the form and it'll probably come directly into Emily if you're sending it into a report of pass. Um, otherwise a couple of our other staff too. Um, and if you send in an email, it'll come in and I'll probably triage it and send it over to Emily for identification. But we'll all enjoy all of your wonderful pictures that you send in of these beautiful flowers. Um, so is there anything else you would like to add? Otherwise, I think we've covered a lot about the noxious weed list. There's 57 species on there, a bunch of categories. Some beautiful hand outreach materials from the, from each of the agencies and lots of management options, uh, available if you do happen to have noxious weeds on your property.

Laura Van Riper: 36:23

I think some good things for, for people to kind of think of as, as take home messages, uh, is to know that there's a lot of work going on in this area. There's a lot of individuals and organizations that are managing noxious weeds, that are, that are doing restoration. Uh, there's a lot of people that are recreating responsibly and, you know, following the ideas of play, clean, go and cleaning off their equipment and not moving species from, from place to place. There are so many resources for learning about species, learning how to manage them, learning about native species you might want to add to your, your property. So I think, uh, it's, it's nice to see all the good momentum that there is. I think it's important when you're doing land management to think long term. There, there aren't easy, quick fixes for these things. Uh, plants produce seeds. Those seeds can often survive in the soil, uh, multiple years. So, you know, give yourself some grace. Know you're making a long term plan. And, you know, things will keep improving over time. And you can, you can work towards your goal and, and understand. And give yourself some grace, right, that it might take a bit.

Emilie Justen: 37:31

Perfect. And I'll add to that, too, that there are 57 species, uh, but it's unlikely that you have all 57 of those, any of those species on your own personal property. Uh, they are spread out throughout the state, um, and so you maybe on your lot have a couple of these noxious weed species. So, uh, I always tell people to, to, to try not to get overwhelmed if you're learning about these species and you see there's almost 60 of them, uh, that is a lot. Um, but it's, again, not, not likely that you have, have all of those on your property. If you do, please call me and I'd like to go, uh, check out your site to see what's going on. Um, You must have a big

Laura Van Riper: 38:26

property with forests and rivers and dry soil and wet soil,

Jennifer Burington: 38:32

yes. They cover the entire state, from southeast Minnesota all the way to northwest and northeast. They're all different kind of environments. All different kinds of weeds that like certain areas.

Emilie Justen: 38:45

Yeah, we're really lucky in Minnesota to have, to have a lot of different types of ecosystems. Um, residents and citizens in Minnesota are really proud of our state and our natural resources too. And so, like Laura was saying, uh, there are a lot of people out there doing a lot of good work on managing these noxious weed species. And so, um, I'm proud to be a part of that myself and at Department of Ag too. That we have a lot of people who care about the environment in Minnesota.

Jennifer Burington: 39:21

This has been Smarty Plants, a podcast from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Our producer is Brittany Ravel. Our editor is Larry Schumacher and I have been your host. You can learn more about pests and other invasive species that affect our environment at www. mdastatemn. us. And while you head to our website, we'll be working on the next episode of. Smarty plans. See you there.