Ministry of Agriculture Holds National On-Site Eradication Event for the Invasive Alien Species Buffalobur (Solanum rostratum)
This website news Recently, the 2015 National On-Site Eradication Event for the Invasive Alien Species Buffalobur (Solanum rostratum) was held in Hinggan League, Inner Mongolia. The Department of Science, Technology and Education holds three national on-site eradication events for invasive alien species each year, aiming to raise the ecological and environmental protection awareness of cadres and the public and their ability to identify and eliminate harmful species, exchange experience in the prevention and control of invasive alien species across regions, and push the prevention and control of invasive alien species to a new level.
Buffalobur (Solanum rostratum) is an annual toxic plant native to North America and one of the 52 invasive alien species under key national prevention and control. It is drought-tolerant and barren-tolerant, with extremely strong reproductive capacity. When it invades farmland, it severely inhibits the growth of crops such as wheat, corn, cotton and soybean, affecting yields; when it invades pastures, it reduces grassland quality. Buffalobur is also a host of the Colorado potato beetle and potato leafroll virus, among which the Colorado potato beetle is the most important and most destructive quarantine pest harming potatoes and other crops worldwide.
At present, buffalobur has spread to more than 112 counties (cities, banners) in Jilin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Xinjiang and other places, with a harmful occurrence area of 4.8 million mu, showing a trend of rapid spread and expansion. If effective prevention and control measures are not taken in time, it will cause irrecoverable economic losses and ecological disaster.
According to researcher Zhang Guoliang of the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, selecting one or more plants with strong adaptability, fast growth, relatively high economic value and the ability to achieve a relatively high canopy density in a short time to replace and control buffalobur is the best choice. Under the support of the public welfare industry (agriculture) scientific research special project “Research, Demonstration and Extension of Integrated Prevention and Control Technology for Invasive Plants”, the buffalobur replacement control technology demonstration area has screened out ideal combinations such as alfalfa, tall fescue and Leymus chinensis. Test results show that biological replacement can efficiently control the spread momentum of buffalobur, recovering an average forage yield loss of 285.6 kg per mu, with direct economic benefits of about 427.5 yuan/mu.
