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grant Noho CPA final reporta 2023.pdf 1 Final CPC Grant Report from Lathrop July 24, 2023 Report submitted by Barbara Walvoord for the Land Conservation Committee, Lathrop Community, Inc. 100 Bassett Brook Dr., Easthampton, MA 01027 walvoord@nd.edu 574-361-3857 Title of Grant: “Removing Invasive Plants and Educating the Public on Lathrop’s CR Land” Goals of the Grant Project (1) To support pollinators, birds, and other wildlife in our Conservation Restriction land by controlling invasive plants (scientific research indicates that land dominated by invasive plants can lose up to 75% of its wildlife) (2) To educate the public about our work and to help other landowners do the same Successful Accomplishment of Goals All goals of the grant have been successfully met. • Removing invasive plants in the Conservation Restrictions on both our north campus (15 acres CR) and east campus (11 acres CR), all of which are wooded areas with upland, wetland, and streams. North campus on Bridge Rd.: As we proposed, we concentrated on Japanese stiltgrass and Japanese knotweed in the 15-acre CR. The adjacent land has a huge thicket of it, but as a result of our work under this grant project, our side has only small resprouts (it’s almost impossible to completely get rid of knotweed, as even tiny portions of the plant can resprout). The result is that native plants can thrive in this streambed and forest, where, due to our past work, there are very few other invasives (Photos, Appendix A). East Campus on Florence Rd.: On the east campus CR, as proposed, we completed state one invasives removal on the final small portion of the CR (Appendix B). Most of our work, however, concentrated on the Bassett Brook floodplain within the CR. The floodplain had been a beaver settlement, with a number of dams. The beavers left the area in 2022, and the land is returning to a drier floodplain bisected by Bassett Brook (Appendix C). In this floodplain and along the adjacent land, many invasives are coming in, or resprouting from the extensive root systems of invasives we cut in earlier years. Thus we concentrated on the brook floodplain and the adjacent wooded areas on both the east and west sides of the brook. We were able to remove large invasive shrubs from the areas. Invoices from LSI (Appendix D) detail the work that was done. This entire CR still has a lot of work to do, as areas where we did stage-one removal of large invasives are now a mixture of native plants and invasives that have re-sprouted or that are carried in by birds, animals, and water. Japanese stiltgrass is an ongoing problem, and despite our efforts, it is increasing its range, moving up the hill toward the upland forest, where it can take over virtually everything. We are committed to ongoing efforts to keep this beautiful “As a professional ecologist with decades and decades of experience I was amazed with the restoration done by the residents of Lathrop Community in Easthampton, MA. Not only have they eradicated acres of invasive exotic plants but they have put in place an ecological management plan that will yield excellent results for generations. In all my years of experience this is the best example of citizen science put into action.” –Bill Lattrell, MS, PWS, Restoration Ecologist and Professional Wetland Scientist, Lattrell Ecological Consulting, LLC. And faculty member in the Conway School program for sustainable landscape design. Included in a 2020 landscape master plan for Lathrop conducted by the Conway School. 2 and ecologically valuable piece of land as free of invasives as we can, so that it can support a wide variety of wildlife. • Educating the Public: The grant proposal called for us to mount an informational sign on the north campus, which we did, and resident volunteers continue to update and, as needed, replace or repair the many signs that identify native plants along the trail (Appendix E). The grant also called for us to conduct a walk/talk for the public about our invasives work. As we wrote in our interim report to you of November 10, 2022, “We did not hold the walk-talk public program this fall. Because there was a strong surge of Covid among our residents as well as in the area, we were concerned about people walking and talking close to one another, even though it would be outdoors, and also concerned about the need to offer bathroom access in our common building to members of the public. We look forward to a time when we can again safely host public programs.” Instead, we developed a guide for identifying common invasives. Most such guides are organized plant by plant, so you have to know the name of the plant in order to look it up. The guides are often long., so hard to carry in the field This was not very helpful to our resident volunteers in the field, so we developed a single-sheet field guide that can be carried in a pocket. The guide adopts a decision-tree approach with steps to guide the person in the field in identifying whether a plant they are looking at is an invasive or not. We have mounted the guide on our website (https://wordpress.com/page/lathropland.wordpress.com/989 ). Our website is open to the general public. We would be pleased if Northampton city would help us make this resource known and available to the general public through your website and/or contact lists. Results: More Native Plants, More Pollinators, Birds, and other Wildlife Research demonstrates that native plants support significantly more pollinators, birds, and other wildlife than invasive alien plants. In the earlier-treated parts of our land, we have seen an increase in native plants such as high- bush and low-bush blueberry, spiceberry, winterberry, dogwood, meadowsweet, jack-in-the-pulpit, star flower, Canada mayflower, club moss, ferns, and others. We are starting to see these results also in the more recently treated portions. (Before/after photos at https://lathropland.wordpress.com/accomplishments/removing-invasives- before-after-photos/). Invasives re-sprout from underground roots and from seeds that can be viable in the soil for up to 7 years, so follow-up is absolutely crucial, though the effort that is required diminishes over time. The areas we treated 4-5 years ago are now nearly self-sustaining, with follow-up by volunteers who remove new infestations. We at Lathrop are committed to this ongoing follow-up, as demonstrated by the 36 members of our resident committee, the hundreds of hours of volunteer labor to remove invasives, the contributions of Lathrop management, and the thousands of dollars the Land Conservation Committee raises each year from resident donations. Contractors Land Stewardship Inc. which has done excellent work for us since 2014, did the weed-whacking of stilt grass and monitoring for additional stilt grass invasion on the east campus and all the contractor work on the north campus. Jeff Allen, who has done excellent work for us since 2016, did invasives removal in the upland forests. 3 Budget Contractor In voice Date Dates of Work Performed Invoice # Work Done: Removing invasives in the following areas: Amount Land Stewardship Inc. 1/18/23 11/22/22, 11/29/22, 12/13/22 033-2022 Northampton portion of east campus. Along Bassett Brook and adjacent areas 3,586.89 Land Stewardship Inc. 6/21/22 6/24/21 103-2021 Japanese Knotweed and Japanese Stiltgrass on north campus 323.47 Land Stewardship Inc. 12/20/22 8/11/22 085-2022 Japanese Knotweed and Japanese Stiltgrass on North campus 333.13 Land Stewardship Inc 6/21/22 9/17/21, 9/27/21 105-2021 Japanese stilt grass and woody invasives along Bassett Brook, all on Northampton portion of east campus. Work was done before grant was approved, so as to catch the time before the stilt grass went to seed. 928.26 Jeff Allen 12/7/22 6 days, 4/22- 11/22 28 Northampton portion of east campus, woody invasives 1,206.75 TOTAL 6,378.50 4 Appendix A: North Campus Work on Japanese Knotweed Pine Brook near Hatfield St. A beautiful brook, nearly free of invasives on Lathrop property, except for Japanese knotweed. 5 Japanese knotweed thicket on adjacent property 6 On Lathrop property, near Hatfield Street, invasive Japanese knotweed has been removed by treatment, though it re-sprouts every year and must be treated again. It is nearly impossible to get rid of it, since even a small piece of the plant can regenerate. Our goal is to keep it small so that other native plants can thrive, along with the wildlife they support. If the Japanese knotweed were allowed to grow into a thicket, the native Jack-in-the-pulpit to the left would be smothered. 7 Appendix B: East Campus, Northampton Conservation Restriction As planned, we removed invasives from the final portion of the Northampton CR on the east campus. The area was so heavily invaded that, after removal of invasives, very little remains (same area, at right). What we have learned from other areas where Stage 1 removal was done in prior years, native plants will reappear, along with re-sprouts of the invasives, and new invasives, which will have to be treated repeatedly so that the natives can thrive. Eventually, as our work elsewhere has shown, the effort needed for follow-up diminishes, as the roots of the initial invasives are eventually finally killed, as dormant seeds of the invasives, which can live in the soil for many years, are exhausted, and as the new native plants increase in density. 8 Appendix C: East campus Bassett Brook Floodplain The Bassett Brook floodplain within the Northampton CR on the east campus had beaver until last year, when they left. Now the floodplain is becoming a grassy, shrubby marsh area, potentially highly valuable to wildlife. There are many native plants but also many invasives. Most of our work concentrated here. 9 Appendix D: Invoices 10 11 12 13 14 Jeff Allen 125 Mill Valley Rd. Belchertown, MA 01007 Phone 413-213-0845 Cell 617-413-1927 INVOICE INVOICE #28 DATE: December 7, 2022 DESCRIPTION HOURS RATE AMOUNT Invasive plants removal on Easthampton Campus (Northampton Portion) 4/22/22 5/25/22 6/14/22 8/31/22 11/8/22 11/9/22 2.75 2.75 5 7.25 6.75 3.5 $42/hour $42/hour $42/hour $42/hour $45/hour $45/hour $115.50 $115.50 $210.00 $304.50 $303.75 $157.50 TOTAL $1206.75 15 Appendix E: Informational Signs on North Campus Trail 16 Resident volunteer mounts one of the small signs that identify native plants throughout the north campus CR. .