Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Michigan pond owners only option to control Chara?

Recently a Michigan pond owner and taxidermy customer was telling me about his problems with prolific Chara which I can relate to. Problem is his options seem to be limited. In his half acre pond, copper based herbicides like Cutrine plus don't work as the water it too cold (pond is quite cool with artesian flow into it from the bottom). Michigan pond owners aren't allowed to use even triploid grass carp so that is out although I have doubts how effective they would be if his water is indeed that cool year around. The only option I could think of was to dye the pond in late winter or early spring before the new crop of Chara begins. Any other options? Ideas?

Cecil, You can teach him how to use one of the various rakes that are on the market. If the water is as cool as you indicate the Chara should not regrow very fast, thus raking woudl provide fairly long term control. "Water girl" is in the final stages of developing a new style of lake rake for removing submerged pond weeds. Since Chara and Nitella are algae, herbicides for vascular plants are not effective on Chara and Nitella. He might be able to come up with some sort of weed rake drag that he pulls with his garden tractor.

Bill,

Thanks for the reply. Actually from personal experience the Chara I have seems to like cold water and grows fairly rapidly even in my trout pond.

Yes, a rather large weed rake pulled with a tractor may help, but I can't imagine trying to control it in a 1/2 acre pond even that way. But it doesn't seem like he has anymore options.

As far as herbicides for vascular plants not effective on Chara he is aware of that, and has used the Cutrine Plus which is supposed to work on the Chara.

Cecil,
Has he tried to use Cutrine granular. If he is using the liquid for, it is a waste of time. The granular works good even in colder water. It sits on the chara a lot better than the liquid does. One other option would be to use Reward and Cutrine liquid combo. I would try the granular first though......
Holler at me if you need application rates.
Brett

Cecil, in the spring of 2006 we had a large natural die off of chara which triggered a cold water algea bloom in our pond. What triggered the chara die off was a very strong cold front that came through with high winds that prevented the pond from freezing back over, air temps dropped to 20 degrees with the wind blowing at 25-30 mph for 3 days in March. Basically the wind super cooled the water column very rapidly down to a depth of 9-11ft on just one side of the pond. The cold water algea bloom which resulted from the die off reduced the water clarity for 3 weeks and robbed the remaining chara of the sunlight it needed in the deepest parts of our pond. Over the next several months the remaining chara slowly died and lots of FA began to show up. Before this cold front chara could be seen clearly more than 10 ft down, when the cold water algea bloom was going our water clarity dropped down to 36", after this bloom subsided with warmer temps, the water clarity came back up to 84"-96".

Shorty,

That's interesting. Just talked to friend that manages ponds here. He told me a herbide that is usually recommended for eel grass works good on Chara in all temps and all times of the year. You can also do small areas at a time. It's called Nautique.