Held during the Invasive Plants Symposium of the Natural Areas Association Annual Conference, Monona Terrace and Convention Center, Madison, Wisconsin

Board Members Present: Nancy Braker, Rolf Utegaard, Lauren Ebbecke, Jamie Corbisier, Dave Hamel, Steve Strachota, Jim Reinartz, Gene Roark, Tom Boos, Patrick Goggin, Susan Lehnhardt

Approximately 30 others present.

President Dan Undersander called the meeting to order at 11:45 a.m.

Undersander welcomed the group, recognized and introduced board members and pointed out the annual member’s report. Each board member introduced himself or herself.

Jim Reinartz was asked to report on the work of the Science Committee on the survey and subsequent draft working list invasive plants. This effort was potentially a political one, and caution was exercised in how the information was gathered and presented. IPAW collaborated with GLIFWC to conduct and summarize the survey. The list was published in March of 2003, and there has been no known controversy yet to date. The committee is now working to collect information on invasive plant mapping projects around state and the possibility of IPAW serving as a clearinghouse for this information. There are currently 32 known mapping or database projects going on in the state or neighboring states. Jim encouraged others to be involved in the science committee.

Communications Committee: This committee has been working on the web site, newsletter, etc. The request was made for feedback on these products. Information was provided on how to join the yahoo groups listserve. Tom Brock asked for assistance in writing material that could be used for the web site, particularly species accounts. Reed Canary Grass is a need right now.

Legislative committee: Of note is our planned legislative field day to educate our elected officials on this issue.

Plant Industry Relations Committee is working to collaborate on this issue with the various industries that develop and market plants and seeds. Member help would be welcome.

Education Committee: This committee is just getting into gear. Please consider helping work on this front. Materials will be developed according to needs that you help us identify.

Regional Groups: Several very strong and effective groups around the state. Bylaws are being changed to allow us to assist them in various ways through a chapter structure. We would like to hear from these groups to find out what help we can provide.

Nominating committee: Please consider bringing new potential board members to our attention.

Additional topics: Undersander asked for input on –

Invasive Plant List: What do members think we should do with this piece, how should we use it?

Audience Questions/Discussion:

Were priorities set for control of those species? No, plants were ranked based on impact, but not on which or where they should be controlled.

Suggested that we post photos and range maps for those species – could be done by linking to the herbarium site. Marsha would prefer that we have the photos on our site, but we could link. Would prefer to have it right on our site so people don’t leave our site. Pbarry@wisc.edu is the director of the herbarium and he would likely give us permission to use them. We need to provide the excel spread sheet to Marsha for use on the web site. Pat Goggin will assist with getting the photo situation figured out with the herbarium.

Jim Reinhartz suggests a short article might be published from the original list. Also we need to move forward on using this list to work on our legislative issues.

David Hamel – most of his concern is with species spread by roadside mowing. He would like information available on when a species should not be mowed to avoid spreading seeds. Jerry Doll agreed that he could come up with some of this information. Ron Martin would also like guidance on how to work with roadside managers; if you have the right people working on this you can make a difference. Kelly Kearns is in touch with the roadside mangers and would like to put them in touch with local experts who can identify plants for the managers. Information needs to be useful by local roadside managers based on their situations. Tom Brock mentioned their work with the local roadside managers in western Dane County and their success with working with the supervisors of the folks doing the mowing.

Mention was made that other control measures need to be used to really make a difference. Avoiding mowing may help, but we also need to herbicide in some areas to eliminate; mowing may not help, or may not help in the long run.

Problems are also occurring on the highways where control is not happening. State land is exempt from control of noxious weeds. Leafy spurge is a problem in this situation, it is being spread along state highways and not being controlled.

NOTE: Invasive Plant Survey is still “open” to be filled out, please consider doing this so we can have a more robust data set. We had 60 respondents statewide that filled out the survey.

Kelly Kearns: The science committee is planning a workshop for those people who have databases that might be coordinated so that we can use them in a compatible way.

Educational materials: What do we need?

A video would be very helpful since it is hard to get people out in the field at the right time to see the things that would make a difference. We could distribute this kind of thing on CD or have on the web site.

Need to reach out to the public on this issue. So many people need to be aware of this issue. Bring it beyond the scientific and land management community. We need tidbits of information that we can use in the educational materials to reach the general public. Costs, impacts, to general public would be useful.

We are getting requests for talks on invasive plants. We can use these requests as a way to get more information out to the public. Additional materials can be developed to use to accommodate these requests.

Jim encouraged us to use the IPAW listserve to share ideas of what is needed, products that we could use, people who would like to help with projects, etc.

Meeting adjourned at 12:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Nancy Braker

IPAW Secretary