I just returned from the Western Aquatic Plant Management Society (WAPMS) meeting in Coeur d’ Alene Idaho. My interest in aquatic weeds is mostly as they relate to interfering with irrigation and frost protection ponds in California’s North Coast grape growing region. The emphasis at this conference is on weed control in large lakes and water moving systems and is dominated by people from the Northwest (Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Montana). There were several people from California in attendance, but only two of us from the University of California, myself and Dr. Michael Anderson of UC Riverside who is a soil chemist that studies and teaches limnology (among other things). Last year I attended the national APMS conference held in Salt Lake. That conference, while dealing some with the problems of the West, I think because of its location last year, is really concentrated on the Southeastern US. It could be, and used to be known as the Hydrilla conference. The difference at the WAPMS is that the concentration is on problems in the West. This year the emphasis was on Eurasian Water Milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum) and Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus).
Two weeks ago I attended the Western Society of Weed Science conference. A large majority of the presentations at that conference were made by university researchers. Not so at the WAPMS. I think it is more a reflection of the research being done in aquatics. Most of the presentations come from the private sector or from federal, state or local agency personnel. Many focused on relating their experience with a treatment or control strategy on a specific weed or in a specific lake, or moving water situation.
I said earlier that there were only two of us from UC at the conference, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two people with UC Davis ties. The WAPMS president at this year’s conference, Mark Sytsma, professor at Portland State University, received his PhD at UC Davis, spending much of his time at the UC Davis, USDA Aquatic and Invasive weed lab with Lars Anderson. Last year’s president, Toni Pennington was Marks student, and conducted some of research at the USDA lab, and considers herself a ‘grandchild’ of UC Davis.
If you are interested in seeing the abstracts from this year’s WAPMS conference they will be available later this month at WWW.WAPMS.ORG. Next year’s WAPMS conference will be in Reno at the Peppermill so I hope to see a lot of you there!