Weed inspector John Benham of Wellington County is warning farmers about garlic mustard.
It’s leaves are poisonous to insects and some animals and it soils the soil for crops.
“It prefers damper locations but will thrive almost anywhere,” Benham writes.
It has a two-year life cycle, growing close to the ground the first year and three feet tall the second year.
It has white rosette flowers in April and produces seed pods similar to the rest of the mustard family. Each pod can contain 10 to 20 seeds and there will possibly be 100 to 150 pods per plant that are shed during the summer and fall.
“One seed can very quickly become a patch that keeps growing each year,”Benham writes.
“Another trait is that it stays green throughout the winter and so is ready in the spring to complete its life cycle before other plants and so can out-compete the other desirable plants.
At least one species of butterfly is tricked into laying its eggs on this plant only to discover the larvae will not be able to eat the plant and so they perish.
Another trick it has is to grow with an ‘S’ in the stem near the root and so if it is pulled the stock breaks at that point and the root remains with the opportunity to send up a new seed head.
“I feel its biggest threat is to forests in that it produces a colony like a mat that in many ways discourages forest regeneration with the result the forest deteriorates,” Benham writes.
