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Roger Batt is standing by a stream with Bryan Dallolio, Ada County Noxious Weed Control, and comments. "Well what a difference a year makes! A year ago the Idaho Weed Awareness Campaign filmed a Purple Loosestrife commercial in this exact area." He notes that you don't see any Purple Loosestrife in the background now, but last year this whole area was virtually covered in the weed. This is a great story for success about how biological agents can control Purple Loosestrife. Roger notes that Bryan has found a few plants that still remain and asks Bryan to explain more about the biological control agents. Bryan notes that this is a fairly long lived perennial plant and points to the purple flower of this years plant and to an example of brown shoots from last year. He continues to explain that there is a set of wonderful biological controls for Purple Loosestrife. There are two types of an insect called Galerucella, a beetle. These are the "golden margined" and "black margined" Galerucella. These bugs reproduce fairly well in this environment in Idaho and their one sole purpose in this world is to eat Purple Loosestrife and they do a wonderful job of it. They defoliate the plant and weaken it until they eventually control it.
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