Back in 2006 I surveyed a large brownfield site in the North West for invasive weeds which was just about to be sold for a significant sum of money. Unfortunately the deal fell through and the owner decided not to proceed with cleaning up the site and protecting their asset despite advice from numerous industries on various issues. Along came the recession and the situation worsened as the site fell victim to large amounts of vandalism and fly tipping, again the owner decided not to spend anything on rectifying the situation, one assumes waiting for the market to improve.
Now the site is up for sale again and I re-surveyed the area, expecting that the original infestations would have increased in size considerably and maybe a few new infestations have established themselves due to cross-contamination and fly tipping. Had this occurred? “By ‘eck it had!”
The original stands were nearly twice the size of what they were, new infestations were rife in areas and perhaps worse of all the vast majority of the new infestations displayed small scattered growth over a vast area. This would suggest that during the original site preparation works, just before our 2006 survey, a large amount of rhizomes had been dispersed throughout the site. These areas appeared to be a mixture of original stands which have had the upper sections removed and juvenile stands established as a result of the dispersed upper sections.
The result of all of the above is that the amount of affected materials had more than trebled and unfortunately for the owner so had the costs.
If a treatment regime complete with one of our warranty packages had been implemented back in 2006 these issues would have been spotted and nipped in the bud for no additional costs!
Hit it early, hit it hard, hit it with Solutions and it won’t hit your pockets quite so much…
Alex Dayes