Progress with Herbicides Gallery

From boat ramps, workers are ferried around the Everglades on airboats. They disembark and walk from tree to tree.using boats to treat Melaleuca with herbicidesTen hours a day and four days a week, they hack melaleuca trunks with machetes and apply herbicide.In stands this thick, no species can grow other than melaleuca. These dense stands are sometimes referred to as "dog-hair melaleuca."The herbicide mixture contains blue dye, which makes it easy to determine which trees have been treated.Making progress, one tree at a time.The herbicide mixture can be applied to stumps as well as girdled trees.For large stands of trees, helicopters are used to apply herbicide. On a dike, this helicopter is filling its spray tanks.A year after being sprayed with a helicopter, its easy to find dead melaleuca trees in the Everglades.The herbicide is broken down a few weeks after being sprayed, and the areas are soon recolonized by sawgrass (Cladium jamaicense) and fragrant water lily (Nymphaea odorata).