Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Cattail question.

Hopefully this is a simple question. I have about 2 dozen cattails. I want to keep them in control.

How much do they spread by area per year? Just guessing, 2x’s, 3x’s per year?

I've always followed the Barney Fife method for cattail control ("Nip it in the bud, Andy!") and completely removed any plants each year.

I have watched them completely take over the shore line of a small (1/4 acre?) pond on my way to work, covering the area about 10-12 feet out from the shore, over a ten year or so period. So I believe they can spread pretty fast.

Control them by removing them. A few becomes a few more then all of sudden you have a mes.

My pond is about a year old, I have pulled any young cat tails I have found growing around it. Earlier this summer, I noticed one pop up in a wet area on the other side of my barn, approximately 70 ft away. I decided to watch it's growth and progression since it was a good distance from the pond. The original growth got to full size, but had not grown a seed head yet. As of 2 weeks ago, there were 6 other new growths that shot out from the original rhizome. At that point I decided enough was enough with the amount expansion it created and hadn't even sprouted a seed head yet, I pulled all those suckers up. As others have said, tight, early control or they will quickly get out of hand. Those smaller ones are way easier to pull too!

When my pond was new I also got a couple of fainting goats. When the Cat tails sprouted i pulled them and fed them to the goats, they learned to eat them. 5 years later and not a single one

In my neighborhood retention pond, we used to have cattails. At first, it was just a few clumps of them around the perimeter of the pond, and those clumps steadily grew larger. At that point, I'd manually remove a good chunk of them from each clump; they were easy to pull, and not too deep into the water.

Sometime later, a family of muskrats moved into the pond, and within a short amount of time. all the cattails were gone. Not a single cattail in the pond nowadays.

Cattails = MEWS: Muskrat Early Warning System

When I see them getting chopped down and spread about I know it's time to go hunting for the muskrat.