I can't believe another week has come and gone at the Manassas National Battlefield Park. This summer is flying by! This week we welcomed a new intern, which means another person to help us with all of our projects!
This week I got more experience spraying herbicides, but this time we were targeting a different species. In this application, we were spraying Chinese Lespedeza. There is a growing pollinator meadow, that I have talked about in past posts, that is being overrun by the Lespedeza so we went through with backpack sprayers and sprayed as much as we could. The Chinese Lespesedeza is a non-native invasive plant that has the ability to quickly outcompete the native plants that we are trying to grow there, like milkweed, blue mistflower, and various warm season grasses.
This week I got more experience spraying herbicides, but this time we were targeting a different species. In this application, we were spraying Chinese Lespedeza. There is a growing pollinator meadow, that I have talked about in past posts, that is being overrun by the Lespedeza so we went through with backpack sprayers and sprayed as much as we could. The Chinese Lespesedeza is a non-native invasive plant that has the ability to quickly outcompete the native plants that we are trying to grow there, like milkweed, blue mistflower, and various warm season grasses.
Rather than only spraying from a small backpack sprayer, we also sprayed from a large 200 gallon tank with an engine attached to it. This was a different experience because rather than targeting a specific plant with the small nozzel of the backpack sprayer, the tank sprayer was able to cover a large area while only killing specific plants (leaving the rest intact). We sprayed a systemic herbicide, so rather than just killing on contact, the herbicide is soaked into the leaves or the roots and moves throughout the plant.
This week, we had the opportunity to attend the 2017 NPS Youth Summit at Anacostia Park. I was able to meet many other interns and youth workers that are spending their summer working for the National Park Service. It was an great experience to hear everyones stories, and we also had the opportunity to learn some things about the parks in the National Capital Region! Anacostia Park has an Aquatic Resources Education Center that is ran with the help of the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment. This center showcases all the aquatic life that can be found in the park or right nearby in the Anacostia River.