COLUMBUS — Professionals who manage parks, farms, trees, wildlife, landscape plants and more can get a detailed look at Ohio’s invasive species — both what has arrived and what may be coming — at a workshop May 17.
Called “Ohio’s Non-native Invasives,” the event goes from 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Founder’s Auditorium in Ovalwood Hall on Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus, 1760 University Drive.
The program features 14 sessions on topics such as feral pigs; emerald ash borer; Asian longhorned beetle; white-nose syndrome in bats; new Asian carp species, especially the silver carp and the bighead carp; and new threats to hemlocks, walnuts and viburnums.
Mississippi State University forester Andy Londo will give the keynote talk on the fast-growing kudzu vine, which is now in Ohio.
The sessions will also cover identification, management, post-invasion woodland renovation, economic and ecological impacts, and how to involve stakeholders in fighting invasive species.
Invasive species are species that aren’t native to a place but have gotten there through human activity, either by accident or on purpose. They escape, tend to spread fast, and can reduce or eliminate native species by eating, shading, crowding, damaging, infecting or outcompeting them.
The workshop’s sponsor is Ohio State University Extension’s Ohio Woodland Stewards Program. OSU Extension is the statewide outreach arm of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
The speakers will be experts from OSU Extension, the Appalachian Ohio Weed Control Partnership, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Registration costs $55, and the final deadline to register is May 10.The agenda, speaker and topic list, and registration form can be downloaded at http://go.osu.edu/ISworkshop (pdf). Online registration and payment are available at http://go.osu.edu/ISregister.
For more information, call 614-688-3421 or e-mail ohiowoods@osu.edu.
