I have a roughly 6 acre pond with a max depth of around 12-13' and a average of around 7-8' that gets chocked out with the stuff. I have had people come out and treat it and they always used reward to do it. It is just so expensive to have it done. I can buy the reward myself but even that is expensive as it is $100 would need around 4-5 gallons so roughly $4-500. IS there a cheaper solution as all I really need to kill is the curly leaf. I also dont want to completely kill 100% of the weeds and like to keep some in places for fishing.

Thanks

Asterik, you could use dye to reduce sunlight penetration. That wouldn't kill all the pondweed, just cut back on it. I don't know how expensive that would be, but likely less than using Reward.


Grass carp are another option to consider.

If my curly leaf pondweed gets out of control, I'll go for a couple grass carp. They are supposed to take a while to work, but this seems like it works.

Well we have a bunch of carp in the pond. I think the pond is probably to big for them to eat it all and I also think I remember hearing once they reach a certain age they no longer eat the stuff like they used to. I know all the carp in here are at least 10 years old.

I regards to the dye do you know long that takes to kill the curly leaf? Is it also a one time thing or do I have to keep dying the lake to kill it all off.

One more quick question now that I think about it. So for the algae how much copper sulfate would be enough to stop it? I know you don't want to use a lot of the stuff and the less you can use the better or so I heard heard.

A couple thoughts. One of the disadvantages of having a larger pond that is greater than 1 acre is amount of money it takes to manage a bigger pond. Big ponds are nice to have but big ponds are not cheap when it comes to chemicals. You are going to have to dig into your wallet. Diquat (Reward is one brand) is one of the better herbicides to use for curlyleaf. Important apply the diquat before the curlyleaf gets 2-3 ft tall and before water is 65F.

As the grass carp(GC) get 6-8 yrs old you need to add about 1/2 half the original number every 5-6yrs to get good plant control. I did not have good luck using GC to eat the curlyleaf. Curlyleaf when get gets close to the surface develops hard buds (turions) that the carp do not like. So once the GC get a few mouthfuls of the hard buds they can shy away from the curlyleaf.

I know the bigger it is the more expensive it is to take care of. We have always used reward and I was kind of looking for a alternative as we would like to spend some of the money the HOA has on other things. Really I just wanted to know if there is a cheaper alternative to reward maybe. Something that works equally or almost as good as it. I do already have 1 gallon of reward from last year but that is not enough to do anything really.

Bill - Have you seen an adequately stocked number of triploid grass carp fail to control curly leaf pondweed after a couple years? I ask because several publications list this plant as a preferred food for grass carp.

Unfortunately, there is no inexpensive, easy solution. If you want to have *some* of the underwater weeds, then you will have to spot spray the areas where you don't want them.

If you don't want any weeds, treating the whole pond with Sonar AS (Fluridone) or it's equivalent should work, but you will also have to treat it next Spring to really whack back any plants that germinate from the seed bed.

Then you will be fighting FA because of the excess nutrients that weren't used by the plants.

Treating the curly leaf as early as possible would be the key - if you can knock them down before they start multiplying you could get a slight advantage. I believe its a downhill battle either way though.

As far the the Diquat goes is there a specific one I should be looking at? I see a bunch of different Diquat when I look for it. And if there is a good place to buy the stuff online that would also be helpful.

Easier to cut/paste from TAMU than to type....... The copper compound I would use is Cutrine Plus liquid.

"Reward is a liquid diquat formulation that has been effective on curly-leaf pondweed and is more effective if mixed with a copper compound. It is a contact herbicide. Contact herbicides act quickly and kill all plants cells that they contact."

Grass carp if stocked in high enough numbers will control curly leaf pondweed, however at higher stocked numbers the GC will likely denude your pond and could make it more turbid as they search the sediments for other food items. Curly leaf is definitely a nuisance.

I may have this wrong since I have no experience with grass carp, but it seems the trick for success is patience. If one starts with a smaller number than you think you need, you can always add more in a couple years, but if you add too many right off, you may end up with no plants and an unbalanced situation. One paper that I read said about 18% of folks end up with intermediate plant control. The rest get insufficient control or denuded ponds. I have curly leaf pondweed that may get out of control at some point, but I am waiting to see how the papershell crayfish do in the pond over the next several years.