Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Identifying plants What is this stuff?

When there is no wind my whole pond is covered.When it is windy it blows to one side.

Looks and sounds like you might have some watermeal or duckweed going on. It also looks like you might have some FA there in those pics.

Bowjo - hard to tell for certain at that range. As Todd mentioned, it's either duckweed or watermeal. A close-up image would be helpful. My hunch is watermeal; since the plants are scattered in patches rather than bunched up (duckweed roots tend to entangle).
But, I could easily be wrong.

It is usually a thin layer covering the whole pond.It was windy that day and the first time I saw it clumped up.I did a google search on watermeal.It appeared to be larger.This stuff is very fine granules.I cannot even get any in or on my hand to take a picture.

I would also bet on Watermeal, interesting fact, may have been covered before but Watermeal is the smallest flowering plant in the world. Cool huh?

With winter approaching,do I need to do anything to get rid of it?If so what do I use and will it affect my other plants? Thanks Joe

I was checking out some green stuff on a trail of the Grand Canyon years ago. I made the comment it was interesting that some form of algae was growing on the trail. My friend replied, "I hate to break it to you but that's Donkey ****.

Diquat is the best bet, won't kill any plants unless it is in direct contact with them, it's fairly strong stuff so be careful if you have desirable plants nearby. It will go dormant in winter but don't expect it to not come back, Fluridone is another option in Spring, again if you have desirables be sure this won't effect them.

Joe, it will die off in the cold weather coming up, so you may want to just wait it out for this season. However, like my situation, you should probably get ready to blast it next spring when it starts to emerge.

I used Whitecap (fluoridone based product) this year and it is finally working pretty well. It took about 30 - 40 days, but I've seen a huge change in the amount of WM on my one pond that has it. I didn't apply it at the best time - waited too late - but it is doing what I hoped it would do. Between that and us now getting nights in the upper 40s and lower 50s, I think it is going to be short lived.

Talk to Greg Grimes about picking up some Whitecap - he has great pricing for PB members. It is a chemical that works by being in the water column, not via contact like some other herbicides, so you just add it to your water and it will disperse throughout. I spread mine from a canoe and just poured it in areas all around the pond and we mixed it as well as we could by aggressive paddling for awhile afterward. It will kill everything, though, so you may need to plan on having a season of limited growth, but to get rid of the WM is worth going vegetation-less for a little while in my book.

Edit - BTW, WM is incredibly small and fine. Duckweed is bigger, but this stuff looks like green cornmeal (which is why I think it's called watermeal - same size and consistency, just wet!).

Is it a plant or algea?Does this mean that I can never have waterplants,because iI will have to kill them everytime I get this watermeal?There are wild ducks that land in the spring,so it will probably come back each year.Is this stuff just a one time deal or is it like cattails that just come back every year?

It is far worse than cattails. Do a search here for info.

Here is one on DW/WM.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=115483&page=1

Eric gave you some good info, so definitely read up on it. However, if you get ahead of the WM for a season or two, I think you can eliminate it from what I've read - it just takes some time. So, yes, you will be able to have other plants, but you need to be aggressive on killing this stuff.

As for what it is, no, it is not an algae. Rather, it is a self-sustaining tiny plant - the smallest rooted plant on earth, I believe. When it "dies" at the end of its season, it sinks into your bottom muck and lies dormant till the next year. It then germinates, sprouts, and floats to the surface. That's the best time to kill because it is young and vulnerable to the chemical's effects. Once it's established, it's much harder to kill, as I've learned this year.

I guess I will have to deal with it next year.It is kind of dissapointing as I just got good weed growth on the pond edges and a good patch of water lillies.

There may be other options that actual experts can suggest, so don't give up all hope. But WM is nasty stuff and it is worth the effort and side effects to get rid of it in my personal opinion.

Fluridone will kill your lilies, if you don't want to do that you can treat it effectively with Diquat, It's just going to take a commitment on your part to stay vigilant with consistent small scale treatments. This approach can give the desired results and allow the growth of your desirable species.

I had extremely minimal success using a Diquat based produce - Weedtrine D. I realize it contains a lower concentration of Diquat than some other products, but to compensate, I used a higher ratio of Weedtrine to water. I thought I was getting initial good results, but realized quickly that was not the case, so I am definitely in the camp that says Diquat does not seem to be particularly effective on WM, at least in its mature stage.

GAC Lake Managem, are you recommending a Diquat product for early emergent WM? I can appreciate that it might be more effective at that stage, but no way, no how do I see it working on mature plants that have covered the surface based on my own experiences. If there is good anecdotal evidence that Diquat, at the proper concentration, will kill WM during its early emergent phase, count me among the interested and willing to try. I definitely want to hit it early next spring and if there's a way to do that with a product that won't kill everything else, I'd be thrilled. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.

everything is easier to kill early in the season but even in the later season when plants are mature you can effectively treat WM with Diquat, I use Reward at about a 2% solution(that is the maximum labeled rate) mixed with Cide Kick II and I've had really good results at any time of year.
Reward is 37.3% Diquat while Weedtrine D is 8.5% so unless you are using 450% more Weedtrine you are not using the same amount of active ingredient. Compared to % active ingredient it's cheaper to use the "good stuff" and as they say "get er done"
Just my 2 cents

Makes a lot of sense and I certainly appreciate the concentration issues of the products. I couldn't readily find Reward when I was looking and decided to give the Weedtrine a shot. Didn't work, obviously. From some reading I've done here on the forum, it sounds like a lot of the professional lake managers don't place a lot of faith in Diquat for WM, but I may have been misreading or misunderstanding their input. I'd love it if Reward could be effective during early season emergence as I'd prefer not to kill everything in my pond, but as I said, if that's the price of eliminating WM, I'm in!

Gotta run for awhile, but thanks for that feedback.

Bowjo & Todd - I wish your ponds were closer. I need a good WM (or duckweed) test site for a new "forthcoming" aquatic herbicide. I've had lots of volunteers; but no one within an acceptable distance - since I'll need to personally monitor the results on a frequent basis.

As for diquat; it does indeed work on WM - and duckweed; both rapidly & at any time during the growing season.

However, two primary issues often cause folks to discredit diquat's effectiveness on these two prolific species.

1) Insufficient coverage, contact or concentration: diquat will only kill what it directly & immediately contacts at a lethal concentration. Too many folks fail to make adequate applications, often due to excessive dilution, rapid diffusion or the inability to see where they've treated - or missed. A spray-indicator (temporary blue colorant) helps immensely in the later aspect.

2) Assuming a treatment is properly conducted and the contacted plants die; diquat provides no residual activity to control WM or duckweed seeds, which are otherwise free to germinate immediately after an application. Therefore, one to three weeks after a treatment, it may look like the product failed to perform - when, instead, the weeds that "survived" likely germinated from seeds AFTER the previous treatment.

When using diquat, work with the elements. Let a breeze push most of the plants against the windward shoreline. Then, conduct your application - preferably from a boat, so you're spraying with the breeze to your back - but don't let your boat enter/disturb the infested area before, during or immediately after the treatment.

Also, use a fairly high-concentration mixture. REWARD's label allows up to 2-gal per treated surface-acre, regardless of the volume of carrier (water) that is used. *Be sure to review all water-use restrictions*

With diquat, it is better to use a relatively high %-solution applied in a course mist (low-volume), versus a lower %-solution applied with a heavy spray-pattern (high-volume). In theory, the total amount of a.i. (active-ingredient) applied to any given area will be comparable with either technique - with the only difference being the amount of water/carrier used to deliver the a.i. (note: the high-volume/low-concentration approach should be used when spraying copper-based algaecides). The low-volume technique also reduces the likelihood that floating weeds will be forcibly driven beneath the pond's surface by the spray-droplets' velocity - which otherwise reduces the amount and concentration of diquat that remains in direct contact with the floating weeds.

In most cases, the decision to use diquat vs fluridone should be based PRIMARILY on each site's characteristics and infestation levels - rather than cursory misperceptions of costs or "savings".

If a pond regularly experiences (or is likely to experience) dramatic amounts of transient water (flow-though), then fluridone probably isn't a good investment, since fluridone should remain at a DW/WM-lethal concentration (probably >30 ppb) for at least 90-days+ to represent a cost-effective option. Basically, if the pond is normally static (little or no outflows) and is host to a well-established & actively reproducing population of WM or DW, then fluridone is probably the best option - ASSUMING the potential loss of other non-targeted or desirable plants is acceptable.

Alternately, if a pond is prone to frequent or constant flow-through events, OR if non-targeted/desireable plants must be preserved, OR if the presence of WM or DW are detected early (ringing the shoreline) and BEFORE they've had a chance to establish a significant seed-bank within the pond, then the use of diquat is a no-brainer - IF applied correctly.

Lots of good info,thanks everyone

Wow, great post, Kelly. A real tour de force of info there! Gives me plenty to think about for next season as I wouldn't mind getting some other plants growing but want to kill that WM as effectively as I can. Given that I have little flow through in this pond, the fluoridone seems like a good fit to accomplish what I want to do, but other than killing the WM, I definitely do not have a general distaste for vegetation growing in the pond - I just want the WM gone and am willing to kill everything else to get there.

When I applied the Weedtrine, I did use a mist application so there was minimal force behind the application, but I was always in a canoe paddling around the entire pond because it was typically a no-wind day the times I applied it and the WM had covered virtually the entire surface. From your description it sounds like the disturbance of the WM from the canoe's movement may have impacted the effectiveness of the already weak concentration of Diquat to the point that I wasn't getting good results.

Great stuff to think about. Thanks again for that input.

Got a small storm tonight.Got windy for about 20 minutes with a very small shower of rain.Went to the pond to feed the fish and all the watermeal is gone.I suppose it is like algea and will be back tomorrow.It was really nice for tonight I didn't recognize my own pond...Joe

It is all back up today.The pond is completly covered again.Is this normal for watermeal to sink with the rain and rise again after?...Joe

Will Grass Carp or Tilapia help at all for this?

Also does anyone have the list handy as to what they prefer to eat?

Don't know what the experts will say, but I have observed that and think that, in part, that was what got me thinking early on that I was having success with my treatment of the WM on my pond. But after a couple of days it was back in full force. We haven't had rain or much wind for quite awhile now and there is definitely a LOT less WM in my pond after dosing with Whitecap maybe 4-6 weeks ago.