Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Will these pond plants cause problems down the roa

I have the opportunity to get some of the following aquatic plants for my pond. My question is will they get out of hand without extensive management? I can deal with cutting/trimming/dividing if necessary, but not on a grand scale.

the plants are:
Common Pondweed Potamogeton natans, Sago Pondweed potamogeton pectinatus, Arrow Alum Peltandra virginica, Wild Rice Zizania aquatica, American Bur Reed Sparganium americanum, and Common Arrowhead Sagittaria latifolia

Oh masters, what say ye?

IMO none of those plants are considered invasive or rampant. They will spread naturally by seeds or roots but with a little annual management (weeding) they should NOT be a medium nor big problem. Of those listed I least like the Bur Reed. I love my wild rice-Zisania and so do the geese, so if you regularly get geese in the spring, they will clean out your young wild rice plants.

Thanks Bill. Yeah, there is a pair that nests on the island every year. This year they haven't built a nest (yet) maybe because there isn't much vegetation around the pond. JFNew is having a sale May 8th and since they are only 6 miles away, I figure that getting plants from there is safer than getting plants from a lake that has Eurasian Water Milfoil growing rampantly.

It wouldn't be too hard to make a mono barrier to keep the geese from the rice tho....

esshup - be aware the geese will eat the rice plants even before the first leaves reach the surface. The newest young and tender shoots must be tasty to those geese.

I'll make sure to have a barrier in place before I plant, thanks. No geese today at all. I'll string some line so they can't access it from water OR land. If that doesn't work, I'll let Cal, my Springer go swimming.

If you need help I got a lab I can't keep out of the water, she'd gladly chase geese for you! HAHA

He's the same way. I almost lost him and his sister a year ago January when they ran out on the ice and started swimming after the canadian geese that were in the open aeration hole. The problem was that it was -8* with a wind chill in the high -20's. I couldn't get out to them because of the thin ice, so I grabbed an extension ladder and broke the ice enough so they could break the rest of it and get to where I could grab them. It took 20 minutes in a warm shower to get both of them to stop shivering. When they got close to shore the female somehow put one of her paws on the head of the male and pushed him under. I swear it took a good 20 seconds for him to come back up. I was ready to go in after him, the water was about 4' deep there. I let them out to go to the bathroom and all it took was them hearing the geese. I wondered where they went when they weren't at the door 10 minutes later. Talk about a bad scare! A week earlier, the Female swam down, caught and brought to the house an Egyptian (Grey) domestic goose that was in the pond. When I let it go it made a beeline right back to the water.

That's why I really want to be able to keep the aerator off for the winter. We'll see!

My lab isn't even a year old yet and she is nuts. She was breaking ice this winter to go swimming. Cold water doesn't seem to faze her. Just the hunting gene our dogs have I guess!

The drive that they have is amazing. Even with them being that cold (ice was forming on their heads) I had to call them off of the geese, they didn't want to give up until they caught them. If I was much later in getting them out I'm sure I would have lost both of them.

That was the first time they couldn't climb up on the ice by themselves, they were that cold.

what chemical will control unwanted common wild rice plants

I do a lot of aquatic plant movement. Some in, some out. Many invasive. I like pondweeds, except curly leaf. But even they can get way out of hand. A very general answer from me, first, and most importantly, depends on your ponds fertility and nutrient levels. Next, balance, just like a fish population, a good balance of plants will compete for the ponds nutrients. A lot of times when someone takes out a weed from a pond, something else takes it place, sometimes worse. Or when you treat an entire pond that has three or four weeds including some watermeal or duckweed, and then that is all you have covering the entire surface. Or a real nasty algae invasion.

I am always planting marginals, and lilies, but now I am leaning more towards bog filtering also. Pond inlets I'm putting in spike rush, cattails, smartweed, pondweed.

Short answer, agree with Cody, none of those are really known to be invasive. And introducing multiple species is a great strategy for diversity and balance. A pond with a single species of plants in normally a bad thing either happening or about to happen.

sspig and others about control of wild rice - this is a copy of my post in another thread:

Why do you want to limit the growth of the rice? Generally it will not grow very deep in the water and rarely should cause a nuisance. The stems grow fairly far apart and would make VERY good habitat for small fish. In large stands the mature rice is harvestable and sellable at a good price. Farmers markets, internet, etc. Newly sprouted rice is easily visible and vulnerable to cuting or mechanical removal, pulling / damage. That should eliminate a majority of it in the most important or high traffic areas. The other areas I would allow it to grow. Geese can eat an whole lot of rice plants when it is just sprouted and while its leaves are still flat on the surface. Cutting off the flower heads before it forms seeds will eliminate plants in that area the next year because the plant is an annual that regrows from seeds. To grow it has to reseed every year. To chemically kill it, which I do not suggest, I would use an aquatic approved grass vulnerable herbicide.

There are probably those here that would buy young plants from you to try to get it started in their ponds. I got mine started from harvested plants that were about 2 ft-30" tall and trimmed to 12"-16" for shipping and transplanting.

Yup, I'd buy it or plant it rather than eradicate it. Wild rice is way on the beneficial aquatic plant side in my ledger. If you really, really wanted to get rid of it, don't use a herbicide. The collateral damage and cost outweighs manual or mechanical removal.

Sometimes in the pond business I take out of one customers pond what they don't want and put it right back in another customers pond that does want it. Better than buying it.