Bird vetch is commonly seen climbing fences and trees along roadsides in Southcentral and Interior Alaska. Unfortunately, this isn’t good for the trees and other plants that vetch climbs and smothers along roadsides and where it begins to grow into forests which has led many of us to consider the plant invasive and in need of management. On the other hand, those pretty purple flowers are fairly attractive to some pollinators, and because pollinators are so important, we don’t want to remove pollinator habitat when we remove the bird vetch.
Here is where research at the Matanuska Experiment Farm is helping to find solutions. Others have been working to increase the availability of native plants that are attractive to pollinators for use in the revegetation of roadsides, gravel pits, and even for use in home flower gardens. We are comparing visitations of pollinators on these flowers with vetch. It is commonly thought that diverse plantings of native flowers will attract a greater diversity of pollinators, and we want to understand which plants do the best job of attracting those pollinators.
That’s not all. Before the restoration with the native plants, the vetch is removed. We have compared the removal of vetch with three herbicides that could be used to control vetch on roadsides or forested areas. We will next use soil from the treated areas to grow the desired pollinator species for restoration and evaluate the impact of the treatments used to remove the vetch on the potential success for restoring native pollinator plant species to roadsides and forest edges.
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