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| The finishing touches of felling a poplar |
The removal of the grey willows from the gully in our
restoration area has been a long process. The project was started because of
the arrival of the Australian willow aphid in the Waikato a couple of years
back. The aphid’s excretion (dew) causes a black mould that completely covers
the understorey plants. Coinciding with the aphid’s arrival we experienced a
massive population explosion of the German wasps that summer. These wasps feed
off the dew from the aphids so the abundance of food may well have been responsible
for this population increase.
We have had a willow poisoning programme running for a
couple of years now and this is ongoing.
We were getting concerned that the dead willows along the tracks were
falling down and were becoming a safety concern so we applied for, and
obtaining funding from Hamilton City Council Community Funding Grant to employ
a contractor to fell the trees of concern. This funding has not finished the
job so we have obtained further funding from Len Reynolds Trust to finish it
off.
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