Events

As part of the new Natural Resources and Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area Webinar Series Getting into the Weeds, Mike Schuster, Ph.D, an ecologist in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota, will present "Using Plants to Control Buckthorn." 

Common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) is one of the most widespread invaders of temperate forest understories in North America and suppression of buckthorn following removal is a common management goal. However, this goal is rarely realized since remaining buckthorn propagules exploit the periods of high resource availability directly following management and rapidly re-establish dominance. Since 2017, the Cover It Up! project has evaluated methods of revegetating native plant species to compete with buckthorn and reduce its capacity to re-establish following initial management. Now in its eighth year, findings from the project paint a cohesive picture of effective revegetation strategies to buckthorn and other understory invaders.

Schuster is an expert on invasive plants and is currently one of the lead scientists on a project focusing on buckthorn management. He and his team have shown how planting native species can help protect forests from invasion by buckthorn and other exotic shrubs, leading to healthier and more valuable forests that require less intense management over time.  

Register online and a virtual invite will be sent with registration confirmation. For more information, please click here.