To the editor:

Thank you for the Enterprise’s excellent June 23 article, titled “Every acre counts,” describing past and ongoing efforts to control the invasive plant Japanese knotweed in the Adirondacks.

A correction is needed regarding knotweed. In the article, there was a quote from Justin Wolford that stated, “It produces a lot of seeds every year and it’s very effective at taking ground with every seed it produces.”

Japanese knotweed rarely spreads by seeds. Instead, it spreads from its rhizomes (its root system). For large Japanese knotweed plants, these can extend over 15 feet across and 4 feet deep. Additional reproduction occurs from plant fragments. Trying to dig up the plant often results in spreading the roots and increasing the problem — or moving the invasive plant to new areas. Tiny rhizome fragments as small as a gram can start a new plant.

New plants can also grow from plant material in the stems. Cutting or mowing knotweed often results in numerous smaller plants, which are more difficult to treat. Knotweed can spread to distant locations from disposed stems or root fragments, from fragments on mowers or in fill or plant fragments taken downstream.

Effective treatment includes the injection of herbicide to all the stems large enough to inject and foliar spray of herbicide to plants too small to inject at the appropriate time. Successful efforts have eradicated Japanese knotweed from hundreds of sites throughout the Adirondacks since 2008, but numerous sites remain.

Adirondack Research (adkres.org/ismi) has been leading those efforts since 2024. With no charge to landowners and no current grants, these efforts depend upon tax-deductible donations. These can be made at tinyurl.com/4szsmhf9 or via check. Checks should be made out to “Saranac Lake Rotary Foundation, Inc.” with the notation “RIIPP” in the memo and mailed to: Adirondack Research 73 Church Street Saranac Lake, NY 12983 to forward to the Rotary Foundation.

Douglas Johnson

Inlet