This year, the Vladimir region allocated 12.5 million rubles for the fight against parsley, Yaroslavl – 16.2, Kostroma – more than 17 million. In all these regions, spending on the destruction of thickets of weeds has increased, and they are growing year by year, and next summer the authorities of the regions plan to seriously increase the volume of treatments of territories infected with parsley, that is, allocate even more serious financial resources for this.
Of course, all these efforts have a result, especially if the same growth centers of noxious weeds are cultivated for several years in a row. But decision makers have long understood that without serious investment and attention to the problem from society as a whole, it is impossible to get rid of the offending plant, it will occupy more and more new territories. Because even a chemical treatment of a site carried out twice a season does not at all guarantee that an unwanted plant will not grow on it next summer. Hogweed demonstrates incredible vitality in seemingly the most unfavorable conditions.
– This is a biennial plant, propagated by seeds, so the main task is to prevent it from flowering, – explains Dmitry Fomin, director of the department of the agro-industrial complex and the consumer market of the Yaroslavl region. – Seeds are transported long distances by birds, car wheels. In addition, the plant is so powerful that even if it is cut off with an immature “cap” and allowed to lie in the ground, the seeds will still ripen – this is confirmed by science. And they will begin to get enough sleep and “shoot”. They shoot at a distance of up to five meters. At the same time, each plant produces an average of 30,000 seeds.
The most effective method of combating hogweed today is chemical. During the season, processing is carried out at least twice: in May-June, and then in July-August, when new shoots appear on the first treated areas. In addition, each time they are sprayed with a new composition of herbicides, because the weeds quickly adapt to the familiar “chemistry”.
Yaroslavl activists created a page on the social network “Region 76 without Hogweed Sosnovsky” and talk about the identified outbreaks.
– This allows to avoid the appearance of the same cap with seeds, – continues Dmitry Fomin. – And such treatments must be carried out for several years in a row, at least three years. After that, there will be no new shoots, seeds, we will multiply the number of hogweed in a particular area.
However, according to experts, the matter will not be limited to a three-year processing cycle, because parsley seeds remain viable for up to seven years, sometimes even up to ten, so it can subsequently regrow in treated areas. . Especially if there are overgrown areas relatively close. And this is the main drawback in the extermination of an annoying poisonous plant – not all landowners are actively involved in this.
Thus, according to the Yaroslavl Department of Agro-industrial Complex and Consumer Market, in the region, out of 4.5 thousand hectares of territory infected with cow parsnip, 49 percent falls on privately owned land. In other words, federal, regional, and municipal lands are cultivated with funds from the budgets of the different levels, and many times private lands continue to be invaded by a giant weed. In order to encourage negligent owners to clear their plots of parsley, in the Yaroslavl region this summer fines for owners of overgrown territories were increased: citizens will now pay from three to four thousand rubles for inaction, five thousand for repeated violation, officials – up to 40 thousand ( in case of repetition within a year – 50), legal entities – up to 130 thousand (for repetition – up to 260). And it is no longer worth counting that the inspectors will not notice: all the sources identified, even thanks to the population, fall on the map.
“Since the fall of last year, we began to digitize the territories affected by the Sosnovsky hogweed,” says Dmitry Fomin. – All this information is published on the region’s geoportal. This gives us the opportunity to understand how the situation is developing, where and what is growing, in what quantity. Now we are keeping a kind of chronicle of the processing of these areas in real time. Each neighbor can see: the processing of this or that plot is contracted, when it will be finished, how many years the plot has been cultivated, what is the dynamics, efficiency, etc.
According to Governor Mikhail Evraev, the entire region must be controlled, because if part of the land remains uncultivated, weeds cannot be controlled.
– We need the strictest measures for everyone without exception. All those who do not fulfill their duties must be punished with fines, the head of the region is sure.
Meanwhile, the residents of the Yaroslavl region begin to take the initiative into their own hands. The most active created the page “Region 76 without Hogweed Sosnovsky” on the social network and talk about the identified foci, as well as how they themselves collect shovels and dig up at least that weed that grew in the courtyard of an apartment building. , on your street, in the park.
how about the neighbors
For several years in a row, the rural settlement of Bernovo in the Tver region was helped by sheep from the local sheep farm with a very non-standard name for the field “Pushkinist” (AS Pushkin repeatedly visited the village) to cope with the hogweed thickets. from Bernovo, so the places and people here are special). And although the head of the farm, Vladimir Kulemin, does not set the task of removing hogweed, but only feeds it to the animals, the effect is synergistic: feeding and trampling harmful weeds along the way, the lambs clean up the territory. of its liquidation. For these animals, it turns out that the poisonous plant is not at all dangerous and even useful, and they gobble it up with great pleasure. According to Vladimir Kulemin, a herd of 50 sheep can destroy one hectare of parsley in two days. The businessman is sure: the excessive distribution of the plant is a consequence of the indifference of the inhabitants towards the land, which “was no longer occupied.” Because on the cow parsnip you can perfectly grow not only sheep, but also, for example, gobies.
The head of the Bernovsky rural settlement, Elena Petrova, complains that this year the number of sheep on the farm has decreased, which immediately affected the situation with the cow parsnip, but she hopes that next year the main fighters of local weeds come out again to graze the territory en masse. Because five hectares of parsley treated with budget funds are a drop in the ocean. “If we don’t fight him, he will strangle us,” the head of the settlement has no doubts.