My pond is nearing 9 years old and is now loaded with bunches of the attached plant(s). This started last year and this year it is now an issue. It has grown along the shoreline and now mats on top. The primary plant is long, with very slim 'leaves' if you can even call them that. It has a very distinctive berry cluster that is smaller than a tic-tac and looks like a small bunch of grapes. The second weed is found with the first, but is much less of an issue. It has truer 'leaves'.
I appreciate your help identifying the plants and a mechanism to kill them. I stock trout during the winter (staring in 3 weeks, so that is a consideration in the method used).
The pictures attached are: - The pond surface with the plant matting - The troublesome plant with the berry noticeable - The troublesome plant jar photo (berry visible if you look) - The second plant - The second plant jar photo
IMO, weed #1 is Sago Pondweed (Stuckeniapectinata, aka Potamogetonpectinatus), based upon the characteristic seed-cluster (red arrow) and the ever so slightly visible "bayonet" that protrudes from the stem at the based of the leaf (blue arrow).
I can't tell you much about weed #2. Clearer close-up photos, and a photo showing its natural growth-state would prove helpful.
Thank you! I'm embarrassed that I spent lots of time looking at the site linked in this forum and this is clearly sago pondweed.
So, it looks like Reward is one of the top recommended herbicides. I assume this has no copper, so do you believe it is OK for me to use this with my trout coming in a few weeks? I have been lazy with removal by hand/rake - I think this gives me motivation to get out there and whack what I can. (I'm aware of the potential for a d.o. issue if I kill too much and it is decomposing)
Reward (diquat) breaksdown or decomposes rapidly in a pond not much active material left after 10days to 2wks, sometimes even more rapidly. It has not copper. Copper products are primarily for algae problems you have a vascular plant problem - (macrophyte - leaves stems roots). If you treat promptly water will be okay for trout in 2 weeks unless there is lots and lots of dead plant biomass consuming oxygen as it decays.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
I raked a bunch of the pondweed out and treated with Reward. I was essentially 'spot treating' if that is possible. I used about 16oz of Reward and diluted to about 1 gallon then applied with a hand sprayer (this is under the recommended amount to treat the whole pond, but I did not want to treat the whole pond). The pond is .62 acres. So far I cannot tell if it is working or not.
I also treated about 1/4 of my cattail problem with Catt Plex and a surfactant. So far I cannot see the results of that. However, I did spray about 5 feet of the cattails with the remaining Reward mixture and they appear to be completely dead already.
I'm open to suggestions if anyone with experience with these products knows that I've done something incorrectly. Otherwise, I'll report back on the results.
When I treated the pondweed I raked out as much as I could but I left two mats where I could not reach and for a sample. Yesterday those mats were 100% gone and raking where they were produced minimal vegetation. This stuff nuked the pondweed.
The cattails where I used the CattPlex do not look appreciably different. I sprayed some remaining Reward on some cattails in the corner of the pond and they are 100% brown!
Two pictures are attached - One is a closeup of the corner where I sprayed the Reward. The cattails are brown. The other shows the entire dam area. The burnt cattails from the Reward are on the far left. I treated the right half (to the drain) with CattPlex and so far I see no appreciable difference.
So, does it just take longer for the CattPlex to reach the roots? Is the Reward providing better control - or did it just burn the tops and will not really control the cattails?
