By Cindy Gladden Record Staff Writer A battle was waged Friday, Aug. 7, against a new threat to the Katy Trail. That’s when 40 MICDS High School football players and their coaches bused to …
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Battle waged against honeysuckle on Katy Trail
Posted
By Cindy GladdenRecord Staff WriterA battle was waged Friday, Aug. 7, against a new threat to the Katy Trail.That’s when 40 MICDS High School football players and their coaches bused to Marthasville to help eradicate the Asian bush honeysuckle growing along the popular hiking and biking trail.The students, in partnership with Missouri Parks Department and the Katy Land Trust organization, chose the activity for their community service project held in conjunction with the team’s live-in camp held each summer.The teens were armed with axes, root pullers, loppers and shovels. Head Coach Matt Buha said MICDS is “environmentally and service conscious.”“We feel like the project is a good fit for our team,” said Buha. “We can help the environment and enjoy the environment.”Dawn Fredrickson, Katy Trail coordinator for the Missouri Parks Department, explained why the 240-mile-long corridor is at risk.“The plant was introduced from Asia. It’s the first to leaf and the last to drop leaves,” she said. “It will grow into a huge thicket where nothing else can grow. The berries have no nutrition and are of no benefit to the birds, crowding out other good berries.”Jay Doty, a field specialist for the Katy Land Trust, explained the targeted bush honeysuckle is totally different than the sweet-smelling vining honeysuckle.Doty recently mapped 27 miles between Dutzow and McKittrick, finding some very dense thickets from Marthasville to Treloar. He marked the plants with orange tags so the team could quickly identify the bushes to remove.“The task here is to eradicate this,” said Doty. “Trimming makes it worse. The real process is to get it out.”With lots of emphasis on safety, the football team headed out to fight an enemy different from the norm. Parks employees worked alongside the team members, showing them how to avoid poison ivy and remove the honeysuckle safely.For more information regarding the battle against Asian bush honeysuckle, visit katylandtrust.org. The organization was formed to help conserve the rural landscape near the Missouri River Bottoms.
Jay Doty, left, a field specialist for the Katy Land Trust, instructs football players from MICDS on identifying and eradicating the bush honeysuckle along the Katy Trail corridor. The students met personnel from Missouri State Parks and worked east and west of Marthasville to remove the invasive species. Cindy Gladden Photo.
