Conservation district works to eliminate noxious weed in Morgan County

A Morgan Conservation District program to help control Dyer’s woad has been very popular, district chair Jason Morgan told the county commission July 2.

Under the district’s program, local residents can pick up bags, fill them with Dyer’s Woad and turn them back in for a small amount of cash, he said.

“This year was by far the biggest year we’ve ever had in participants,” he said. “We had to turn people away; it was crazy.” 

The program was helped by the local FFA which handed out flyers at local schools as a fundraiser.

“This year we handed out 548 bags and took in 493,” Morgan said. “We turned numerous people away. We just finally had to say, ‘We're out of money.’”

The conservation district received a $5,000 grant and an additional $1,500 from Morgan County to help fund this program, Morgan said. Each bag holds about 40 pounds which means more than 19,270 pounds of Dyers woad was picked, he said.

A yellow flowering plant, Dyer’s woad releases seed pods at maturity. It was introduced into Utah during the mid-19th century as a source of indigo dye but escaped cultivation and has spread across rangelands, foothills and other sites throughout the Intermountain West, according to the Utah State University Extension website.

While the bag program is popular and not sufficient on its own to control the weed, it is helpful Maggie Matthews, USU Extension agent told the county commission. 

Certain herbicides such as Plateau or Escort, combined with Rejuvra (which contains Indaziflam) will also help take out the seed banks, she said. “An integrated management plan where you have a combination of these would probably work the best. A combination of those two things, continuing the bags of woad [program] and then spraying would be pretty helpful.”

Most of the infested areas in Morgan County are privately owned, Morgan said. One major area is along rail lines. Although the railroad does not have a program to take care of the weed they are willing to pay people to do so, he said. “If they will pay us that’s a good option to do something.” Using drones to deliver the herbicide is also a possibility, he said.

Conservation board member Kathy James also spoke and encouraged the commissioners to get a weed board going in Morgan County. Surrounding counties such as Summit and Weber have effective weed boards and federal grants are available to help them in their work she said.

“If you don’t control weeds, they will control you,” she said. Utah counties are actually required by the state weed act to “develop Implement and pursue an effective program for the control and containment of weeds,” James added.

Under the weed act, a weed board can be set up, James said. At least two members must be farmers or producers. In the spring it is supposed to post a notice of all the weeds in the county that need to be sprayed or removed.

“You’re even allowed as counties individually to designate if you’ve got a particular species in your county that might not be on the list you can name that and post it,” she said. “So, it’s actually pretty extensive and there are a lot of resources out there.”

Morgan County has had a weed board for more than three years, commissioners responded but turnover has been high, and it has not been as effective as hoped. Commission member Blaine Fackrell volunteered to follow up on that issue and to bring it to the commission in an upcoming work session. 

“We can definitely follow up on this. I think it’ll be worthwhile,” Commission Chair Mike Newton said. “It sounds like there’s support from the commission to continue our weed mitigation efforts.” λ