Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Transplanted emergent plants from the wild

I have a fairly new 1.6 acre pond in New England stocked mostly with YP and SMB with a few pumpkinseed. It is nearly devoid of plant life. The water is brown stained from tannins from the Eastern hemlock in the watershed, but is somewhat clear (think ice tea colored). Briefly there was some FA however the crayfish made quick work of that (they are nearly out of control). I have cattails that have tried to force their way in, but I've been diligent to keep them in check. I have about 38 tons of rock for structure, but I would like to add some emergent plants.

I have easy access to pickerelweed and to a lesser extent, arrow arum. I collected about a dozen bunches of pickerelweed and have them in buckets in a couple inches of water. I wanted to check in here with a couple questions. First, is there anything I should be concerned about when transplanting mature plants from the wild? I specifically got them from a pond that (to my knowledge) doesn't have a duckweed problem. It seems like it's easy to make the mistake of bringing in a few of those and it turns into a much larger problem.

From the same pond that I collected the pickerelweed from I've occasionally caught YP and they had "yellow grub". My understanding is that this requires a blue heron (which drop by occasionally but not often), a particular snail and a fish to complete its life cycle. My pond is stocked with YP, SMB and a few pumpkinseed sunfish. Of course I'd like to do whatever I can to prevent introduction of this "yellow grub" into my pond, therefore I wanted to ask specifically if this is a concern, ie the snail phase of their life cycle, when transplanting from the wild. I don't see any snails, but I can imagine it would be easy to miss them.

My other questions:
Has anyone here introduced pickerelweed and regretted it for any reason? If so, why?
How does arrow arum compare? I have access to some of that as well.
Are there others that are native to New England that I should be keeping an eye out for?

I was hoping to get wild rice established this Spring, but I couldn't find any seed suppliers that had any in stock. My intent is to order early to get some for next Spring, to add to the emergent vegetation mix.

Thank you for all of your help as always.

Non-expert speculation to follow:

Perhaps dunk your plants in a strong solution of saltwater for a few minutes?

That should be really toxic to snails and any eggs with soft membranes. I would think the plants could tolerate that easily for a few minutes (or longer), and then rinse them in freshwater.

Or course, I would try just a few plants first to make sure my suggestion is not toxic to them.

Good luck on your pond vegetation project! Hopefully you can get some actual expert answers in your thread.


P.S. If you have lots of crayfish grazing, you will need to start your plants in "cages" with a small enough mesh size to exclude your aquatic harvesters that wield dual scythes.