Lake Worth
5596 Western Way
Lake Worth, FL 33463
The Lake Worth demonstration site is 2 acres of privately owned land in Palm Beach County and contains dense fully-grown melaleuca, Australian pine, and Brazilian pepper. The site consists of various treatment plots marked off with flags. Each plot was treated using a different control method, mechanical, chemical, or biological. Demonstrating these various control methods alone and in combination shows the importance of using an integrated approach to control melaleuca. This site shows treatments as they might occur on residential property.
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Chemical Treatments
Chemical treatments were limited to herbicide applications on stumps after trees were leveled.
Mechanical Treatments
Trees were leveled using chainsaws and a feller buncher, and the remaining stumps treated with herbicides available to consumers, herbicides available to contractors, or biological controls. In one area, stumps were left untreated for comparison as an experimental control. Some trees were leveled and removed and the stumps ground with a stump grinder.
Biological Control Treatments
We released melaleuca psyllids (Boreioglycapsis melaleucae) on 0.16 acres of standing trees. We treated two plots with mechanical control and used the biological control agents as treatment for controlling stump regrowth on one plot and treated the stumps on the other plot with insecticide to protect the stumps from the biological control agents. Melaleuca weevils are present here naturally as a result of earlier releases elsewhere.
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