“We got a tremendous response from native grasses up on Gibbons Pass in 2004,” said Gale, the Forest’s Invasive Plant Program Leader. “That is a really good example of what a reinvigorated native plant community can do once you take out the knapweed.”

The Bitterroot Forest has included aerial spraying in its arsenal to fight noxious weeds since 2004, Gale said.

The places chosen for the aerial spraying are often steep and so rugged that it would be difficult to treat from the ground.

“It’s not easy carrying a 40-pound pack on a 40- to 50-degree slope,” Gale said. “A helicopter can cover about 500 acres in a matter of hours, where it might take weeks for ground crews to get across the same amount of ground.”

Gale said the agency will use a different chemical this year that’s more focused on knapweed and less harmful to other native plants.

“We’re beginning to replace Tordon with a new chemical that’s highly selective for knapweed and doesn’t damage native plants,” he said.

While the areas that are being sprayed this year don’t have much live water, Gale said the helicopter crew is always required to stay at least 300 feet from any waterways.

The helicopter sprays about two gallons of herbicide per acre, he said.

The focus this year is on key big game winter ranges and areas where private landowners have done significant weed control on their properties bordering national forest lands. Substantial portions of the areas being treated were burned in the wildfires of 2000.

“We try to select areas where there is a good potential for a rapid recovery for native bunch grasses,” he said. “We’re in danger of losing a lot of those native species in some of these of areas with a high monoculture of noxious weeds.”

Using chemicals to control weeds is a temporary solution to a long-term problem, Gale said.

“The long-term solution is biological controls,” he said. “We don’t see herbicides as a long-term solution.”

Once an area is sprayed, biological controls like knapweed-eating bugs can keep the weeds from dominating the landscape again, Gale said.

In the 2004, the Bitterroot National Forest estimated that more than a quarter of a million acres of the 1.5 million acre Forest were infested by noxious weeds.

Antler hunters and recreationists are encouraged to consider alternate locations on the days the helicopter will be flying.

The Forest will issue a temporary closure on the Darby District’s Brennan Gulch Road No. 1362 and the Sula District’s Jennings Camp Creek Road No. 723 during the periods of helicopter operations adjacent to these roads.

Those needing more information about the aerial spraying project should call Gil Gale or Diane Bessler-Hackett at 821-3201

Editor Perry Backus can be reached at 363-3300 or editor@ravallirepublic.com

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