Euston-Brown, D., Rathogwa, N & Richardson ... - DWA Home Page

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4.4.3 Exploring different alternatives and combinations of methods
The above tables only serve as a rough guide that stimulates thought on the best procedure to
follow when clearing chromolaena and lantana. The most important aspect of clearing these two
aliens is that one may have to follow up an initial clear annually for five years to reach an acceptable
maintenance phase.
However, the key to effective alien plant management is good teamwork on a day-to-day basis. The
foreman of each team needs to have people skills and a good knowledge of the range of available
control options. The integration of the different options such as hand pulling, foliar spray and cut-andtreat
within the same area is likely to produce the best results. It also allows workers to rotate between
different clearing methods. Such an approach is also suited to the nature of early infestations of these
weeds, which tends to be fairly patchy and variable across the landscape. Effective management
demands “thinking on one’s feet” and the capacity to adapt control operations to situations as they
arise. For example, three workers are handpulling and come to a rocky patch where the plants they are
uprooting break off at the base. Rather than continuing, they call a cut-and-treat worker and show him
the place where cut-and-treat is the preferred method, and proceed at the point where plants are once
again uprootable.
A good understanding of weather patterns and being able to mobilise many teams to seize
opportunities created by catastrophic fires or floods or droughts is also very important for effective
clearing and ecosystem recovery.
Working for water alien
clearing team ready to
apply clearing treatments.
Development of a clearing protocol based on ecological criteria for Mesic Savannas and Sweet Grassveld for the Working for Water Programme