The Problem

Invasive plants affect everyone. In days of old, it was mostly farmers and ranchers who battled these species, as the invaders threatened their crops and clogged up harvesting equipment.

Today, the U.S. Geological Survey reports that some $20 billion in damages¹ can be linked to invasive plant life. This affects not only those who make their living directly off the land, but also citizens of cities, suburbs and rural America. When left uncontrolled, the spreading invasive problem produces many direct and secondary negative effects, including:

• Crowding out desirable, native species
• Creating plant monocultures
• Reducing cropland productivity
• Degrading wildlife habitat
• Reducing property values
• Causing soil erosion
• Harming local economies
• Crowding out forage for game species and grazing livestock
• Damaging water resources including fish spawning habitat
• Negatively impacting endangered species
• Increasing livestock production costs
• Interfering with recreational activities in parks, forests and other public lands
• Decreasing tourism to national parks and monuments
• Eroding local tax bases
• Posing reliability threats to utility power lines
• Increasing the need for road maintenance
• Obscuring vision at intersections
• Contributing to wildfires

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, when invasives enter new ecosystems, "they can grow, adapt, proliferate and spread … indefinitely, causing ever increasing economic and environmental damage²." We often throw around several terms when describing invasive plants. Staff of The Nature Conservancy’s Wildland Invasive Species Team suggests the following definitions³:

Non-native – Species that were directly or indirectly introduced to a given region by humans, were not present in the region before and would not have spread into the area without human interference. Synonyms include exotic, alien and non-indigenous.

Invasive – Species that spread into areas where they are not native. This includes non-native species that escape or otherwise grow outside cultivation. Not all non-native plants are invasive.

Noxious – Species or groups of species that have been legally designated by county, state or federal agencies as pests.

Another buzzword that often enters the invasives conversation is biodiversity. This is nothing more than a technical term for a simple concept – allowing native plant and wildlife habitats to thrive. Enhancing biodiversity in a region means improving an area’s wildlife and plant habitat by controlling unwanted vegetation. For additional discussion on biodiversity, read the brochure, "Making Biodiversity a Reality." (2.5MB PDF).

To view the PDF of this brochure, you will need to download Adobe Acrobat.

For more information on how herbicides control invasive vegetation and help create biodiverse plant and wildlife habitats, contact your local Dow AgroSciences representative for rangeland and pastures, non-rangeland or forestry.