We've been fortunate this winter to have had a series of cold spells that knocked back the giant salvinia a great deal. It's expected that much of the dead, brown material that is floating will take several weeks to sink out of sight.Despite this cold weather, we've found several very thick mats around the lake that show survival of green material under the insulating top layer. It's anticipated that these spots will be major expansion points as summer approaches. The first two pictures show the freeze damaged salvinia with green material showing through. These areas should provide good weevil sites for our early season stockings.
On another note, in late February, we completed the re-filling of our weevil tanks with Caddo Lake water. With the warm, sunny weather we've been experiencing lately, the giant salvinia in these tanks has been greening up nicely. Hopefully, our weevils will flourish and be ready for placement on the lake in the very near future!
Finally, here is a recent article about the Caddo Lake salvinia project in the Winter 2011 edition of "TX H2O": http://twri.tamu.edu/publications/txh2o/winter-2011/controlling-invasive-weed
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