By Fred Koch, January 3rd 2022

Happy New Year neighbors! We hope you and your family are healthy, happy and safe as we enter this new year.

Milfoil… We had another conversation with Ted Johnson from the WDNR between Christmas and New Years Eve. The survey results of 2021 EWM treatments have not yet been compiled and shared as of this writing. However, they must be complied for presentation at an annual meeting between WDNR, consultants and applicators. That meeting is always scheduled for the last week of January. For that reason, the results should be coming in soon.

What Ted and other WDNR officials are primarily looking for:

· Effectiveness of ProcellaCOR overall on the EWM areas treated.

· What concentrations for the given conditions were achieved on the treated areas.

· What effect did the conditions, at time of treatment, have on the herbicide contact time and concentrations absorbed by the EWM.

· Where else in the treated lake did the ProcellaCOR drift over to and at what concentrations.

· What other lake plants were affected and to what extent were they effected.

It is important to note that there are many factors that affect the final effectiveness of the treatment. The actual parts per million applied to an area. Wind, wave action, currents, nearby boat traffic, water depth, how fast the plants are growing to name just a few.

The truth is that nobody knows the answers to these questions yet. The answers to these questions are all part of the process that must be conducted to make sure ProcellaCOR does not do more harm than good.

Adding to our frustration, everyone including the manufacturer knows the EWM will start to become resistant to the ProcellaCOR after two seasons of growth.

The herbicide Navigate (24d) is not effective (at all) on EWM that has been treated with Navigate in the past.

When we treat with ProcellaCOR, we must make sure we kill as much EWM as possible the first year. Survey the treated areas and remove any plants left standing. Then we need to go through the whole process again the second year. If we do this correctly over the two-years, we will GREATLY reduce the EWM in our lake. Just as we did with the Navigate 15 years ago.

However, we will never completely, eliminate EWM in our lake. If we reduce the EWM population by 99%, in another 10 years we will most probably be in the same situation we are in now. More to come in the near future.