ADAMS -- Polatin Ecological Services begins treating invasive plants at the Greylock Glen today in what will be a three-year process interested parties are invited to follow online.
A new website the company has launched to provide updates on the treatment process also offers visitors an opportunity to learn in detail how these treatments are performed across the Glen’s 1,063 acres.
As work continues throughout this month, winter and the spring, people can visit www.greylockglenipm.info/ to find out where plant treatments are occurring at a given time by viewing Dodson and Flinker grids, and one also has access to the entire Greylock Glen Invasive Plant Management Plan document.
"As time goes on, I’ll be adding more things to [the website] -- pictures, documents and information about work at the Glen in general," said Joan Deely, of Polatin.
Work begins south of the trail that leads to the gazebo from Gould Road’s parking lot, to move on to the trails northwest of Gould and Thiel roads. Signs will be posted and trails are to remain open during the work, but people are advised to steer clear of the posted areas. Deely said overall, the invasive plant presence at the Glen "could be worse" but there are "hot spots located around the trails."
Despite snowy conditions presumably being on the way, herbicidal work on woody invasive plants can continue until a
Invasive species present on the 1,063-acre swath include garlic mustard, Japanese barberry, Asiatic bittersweet, Autumn olive, purple loosestrife, buckthorn, black locust, multifloral rose and phragmites. Concentrations are located around the ponds, north and east of the Bellows Pipe Trail, in some fields and near the kiosk.
Polatin hopes to report 85 percent control over these plants by 2015, whereupon they’ll hand over site management to the town.
"Regardless of how effectively you treat the plants, there’s going to be seeds in the soil that will keep coming up," Deely said. "The goal is to decrease the amount of plants over time. It’s like flossing your teeth; you have to keep up with it."
Polatin is one of two subcontractors -- along with Biodrawversity -- the state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has employed to handle invasive plant work at the site. Their work is part of a larger $3 million project, headed up by DCR, to cut new and refine existing trails there.
The funds for the trail portion of the ongoing Greylock Glen infrastructure and development project were given to the town in 2010. They came from a state infrastructure earmark that was set aside more than 20 years ago.
Visit www.greylock
glenipm.info/ for more information.
To reach Phil Demers, email pdemers@thetranscript.com.
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