WATER CHESTNUT INFORMATION

(This is yesterday's post with more information)

WATER CHESTNUTS (Trapa natans)
I want to pass on some info about water chestnuts today.  These are not native plants, but have been brought here from Euraisa in the late 1800s as ornamental plants, and now considered invasive plants.  They are NOT the same as the Chinese Water Chestnuts we eat in Chinese food. (Although, I guess the nuts of our Trapa natans are also boiled and eaten in India and China.)

There is a really good short flier from Cornell, Cayuga County Cooperative Education Department.  They say to pass it on, so I have posted it at 
http://bandnotes.info/PondsWaterways/waterchestnutalert.pdf

One interesting piece of information (which explains why they take over the pond so quickly!):

Water Chestnut is an annual plant with a high reproductive capacity. The seeds germinate in early spring. An individual seed can give rise to 10 to 15 rosettes, each of which can produce 15 to 20 seeds. Thus, one seed can produce 300 new seeds in a single year. Water Chestnuts begin to flower in mid to late July and nuts will ripen approximately one month later. Flowering and seed production continue into the fall when frost kills the floating rosettes. The mature nuts sink to the bottom when dropped and can remain viable for up to 8 to 12 years. The plant spreads either by the rosettes detaching from their stems and floating to another area, or more often by the nuts being swept by currents or waves to other parts of the lake or stream. The plant over winters entirely by seed.

Wow...  So it is crucial that we get all of the plants, BEFORE they go to seed.  And whenever you see a nut floating on the surface, pick it up and put it in the trash!  Don't leave it on the shore as the barbs are VERY sharp and some animal could step on it and get it lodged in a paw/hoof.  

It is important to pull up carefully to get the seed pod on the bottom so that more plants don't grow up from it.  The plant can also reproduce from plant parts left in the water.

========
This video is of the Mystic River and the narrator pulls up a whole plant and talks about being careful to get all of it.  (1:50 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ-Orod1Lf4&feature
 
=======
Here are some great pictures from the MassNature.com website:
http://www.massnature.com/Plants/Herbs/waterchestnut.htm
(photos courtesy of massnature.com (c) 2003)

Water Chestnut Leaves

Water Chestnut Seed Pod

========
This video is a little longer (5:39), but talks about why this invasive plant is a problem in our waterways (we know it is hard to paddle, impossible to swim.  She also talks about choking out the fish, frogs & turtles, and the mats hold in the heat so the temperature rises.  One acre can become 100 acres the next year.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FSj2C-IX-A


========
More info from the US Department of Agriculture: 
http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatics/waterchestnut.shtml#.UHrV6hjaizQ