Latta Plantation tries to burn away invasive plant

The Autumn Olive is a tasty treat for wildlife. Its berries provide nutrition for birds, deer and other animals.

County agricultural extension agents touted the shrub as a wildlife food source in the 1960s. 

But it’s steadily becoming a problem for the county’s park department, especially in its large nature preserves. The non-native Autumn Olive can grow up to 15 feet and shade out other plants on the forest floor, and park officials have turned to fire to clean up the problem.

“It out-competes a lot of the plants here. It’s native to Europe and Asia and invasive species are a huge issue for us,” Kevin Metcalf, a county nature preserve manager, said. “There are a lot of species that are elbowing out the natives.”

Birds spread the plant’s seeds after eating the berries. “So they spread very aggressively,” Metcalf said. 

County naturalists typically cut the plant down in the spring and spray the stumps with an herbicide. But that’s time consuming, backbreaking work.

“Fire is a natural occurrence through lightening but with housing developments and roads, you don’t have natural wildfires as you once did,” Metcalf said. “We want to see if fire can take out the (plants) without harming the native species.”

The county started the experiment with a 19-acre burn Tuesday at Latta Plantation. Five county park rangers started the fire just before noon. Using drip torches, the park rangers poured the fire, started with a mixture of gasoline and diesel fuel up a creek bed and just to the north of Mountain Island Lake. 

Although the flames weren’t as hot or as high as they had expected, the fire might have been enough to cut the Autumn Olives back, park ranger Rob McHenry said.

But since the Autumn Olives’ leaves have dropped, park staff won’t know until spring if the experiment succeeded.