Since I have abundant larger perch in my pond, I did not have any problem getting them to quickly show up and eat sinking pellets in all three deeper water spots that I checked. In two of the spots perch were present on the bottom as soon as I lowered the camera. Once the perch were food inquisitive some were rising from 15ft to 6 and 8 ft of water.
Curly leaf growth was absent in two of the deeper water spots and a few sprouts were seen in 13ft spot. I did not treat the curly leaf last fall, but I did have a lot of adult tilapia in the pond who apparently ate most all the new sprouts from the winter bud turions before the tilapia died.
Curly leaf's life cycle as a cool water plant is to grow and rise to the surface in early summer. At that point it produces seeds and winter buds called turions. The plants then die back mid summer and turions sink to the sediments. Turions sprout in mid-late Aug-September and grow until the water temps drop to around 50F. The short plant growth remains viable as it waits for water temperatures to rise to 50F-55F and it restarts growing toward the surface to complete the annual life cycle. It is easiest to chemically kill the curly leaf when plants are small (12"-3ft tall). Since I saw some small sparse curly leaf plants , I will treat with a 12 ppb dose of sonar in April. My 0.6ac pond has around 1.2million gallons. So to treat with fluridone at 10ppb I use around 55-60 milliliters (2 ounces). I then about 2 weeks later add a bump dosage of another 2 ounces.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 02/04/21 08:21 PM.
