By Bob Heffernan
Executive Director
Connecticut Green Industries
The invasive plants debate in New England has had a big impact on the green
industry.
So far, Connecticut, Maine and New Hampshire are deep into regulating invasive
plants, with “bans” and penalties for growing and shipping. Massachusetts state government will order plant phase-outs over the next three
years.
Connecticut’s legislature has passed four laws banning a total of 80 plants. The laws forbid importation, moving, selling, purchasing, transplanting,
cultivating or distributing the plants. Over the objections of the green industry, our legislature attached fines of up
to $100 per plant for violations.
Another 15 plants on the state’s invasive plant list—which have not yet been banned—are worth around $20 million in annual sales to Connecticut’s nursery growers, garden centers, greenhouses, florists, and landscapers. These are popular plants such as Norway maples, barberry, euonymus (burning
bush), and even Star of Bethlehem, used by florists as a cut flower. Click on Economic Impacts.
Connecticut’s green industries have argued that banning plants accomplishes very little. The spread of these plants is caused 95% or more of the time by natural forces:
wind and birds spreading seeds across state borders, and innocence of humans
who like the plants and can get them anywhere.
We’ve argued that public education works best in controlling invasives, telling
gardeners that a particular plant should be avoided. But public ed takes time and money. So until 2007, the Connecticut legislature was willing to ban plants—which costs the state little—but not willing to appropriate any state funds for education. Unfortunately, plant bans target the green industry, but we’re not the real cause of the problem. The green industry worked with the invasive plant movement to convince the state
legislature to finally appropriate $1 million over the 2008-2009 fiscal years
for invasive plants.
A big issue is whether invasive policy is managed statewide or locally. Sadly,
In Connecticut, our 169 towns could be allowed to ban plants, which could
quickly escalate out of control and cause chaos in green industry business that
cuts across multiple town lines. Connecticut’s green industry believes towns should not be banning plants—this power should be held at the state level.
Missing from the invasive plants debate is any discussion of exactly whether
these plants are a danger, or a threat, or a mere nuisance. Few people from the general public or the green industry see the imminent danger
from most of the so-labeled invasive plants. Early on, we agreed that some aquatic plants were indeed dangerous, such as
milfoil or water chestnut, which can choke a lake in a season.
Basically, if a plant makes the invasive list, the political forces behind the
invasive plant movement want that plant banned along with all its varieties and
cultivars. And they are targeting non-native plants as their enemy. If a plant is considered native, but it’s invasive, then that’s acceptable.
Also at stake in the invasive debate is the critical issue of cultivars of these
plants. Connecticut’s green industry agrees that green barberry is a problem, but our burgundy
cultivars such as Crimson Pygmy and Rosy Glow do not appear to spread as much. We’ve taken the position that all plants behave differently. Invasive plant movement leaders oppose our view, stating that if the species is
considered invasive, then all plants within that species must be banned. Ongoing research at the University of Connecticut, expected to take about
two-to-five years, will answer the question of just how invasive cultivars
really are.
From the beginning, the green industry has been involved in the invasive issue. But the stark political lesson from Connecticut is this: when the forces of the invasive plant movement lose their patience with the pace
of the green industry, they will seek to push laws through a legislature.
The invasive plants issue is often hyped and exaggerated. In hearings before the Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality years ago, I
disputed a draft report ranking invasive plants as the “number two” environmental problem in our state.
The role of the green industry in this debate is to provide balance and
perspective, and to remind everyone that the green industry has done more to
improve and beautify the environment than anyone else. We are not the “biological polluters” that some have claimed we are.
We must continue to insist that science reign in this debate, and that officials
consider the economic impact to the green industry before banning profitable
plants out-of-hand.
It’s important that the green industry not be alienated here. If there’s any chance of an effective and successful public strategy in controlling
invasive plants, our industry must be intimately involved, because we are the
people who provide plants to consumers.
"Barberry continues to be in demand because it offers that contrasting color
throughout the spring-summer-fall season in an otherwise monotonous green
landscape, and it holds up well in most gardens," said CNLA executive director
Bob Heffernan.
CNLA gave details of the new industry-decided plan in a June 8 presentation
before the nine-member Connecticut Invasive Plants Council, which then voted
unanimously to endorse it.
It was the culmination of a long journey from 10 years ago when the state
legislature was considering banning entire species of plants--including
barberry--without first considering whether there could be cultivars within a
plant species that might not be as invasive as the parent species plant, in
this case, the green barberry that has invaded the Connecticut environment.
It took seven years of research, which is still ongoing, at UConn's College of
Agriculture to lay out for Connecticut's nursery growers just how "invasive"
the different cultivars of barberry really are. Dr. Mark Brand and his team at UConn have spearheaded this research.
Soon after Brand met this spring with the growers, the growers and CNLA leaders
made the painful business decision to embrace the scientific findings of
Brand's research, potentially costing them many millions of dollars annually in
sales.
CNLA, American Nursery & Landscape Association, the Horticultural Research Institute (HRI), and U.S.
Department of Agriculture have, combined, contributed several hundreds of
thousands of dollars to Brand's research on invasives. Further, CNLA has
lobbied to secure millions of dollars more in federal funding for UConn's
College of Agriculture to create a New England Invasive Plants Center there,
where Dr. Yi Li recently announced he had developed the first sterile Euonymus (Burning Bush). Researchers are also trying to develop sterile forms of barberry too.
It's not the first time the state's green industry has policed itself on plants.
Back in the late 1980s, long before the invasive plant movement began, CNLA's
growers decided to halt production of another invasive plant, autumn olive.
More recently, the nursery/landscape industry has stepped forward to stop
selling Porcelainberry.
Of the 50 states, Connecticut has banned the most invasive plants -- 80 in
total. Connecticut's green industry has always favored public education and
self-regulation over government bans.
The floral-nursery-greenhouse-landscape industry in Connecticut is more than
half of all of agriculture in the state, with $1 billion in annual sales,
48,000 employees, 3,300 companies, 46,000 acres of land, operating in all 169
towns.
Following is the text of the phase-out plan that CNLA presented to the state
invasive plants council:
Connecticut Nursery & Landscape Association Invasive Plant Voluntary Phase-Outs / Barberry Cultivars · June 2010
The Connecticut Nursery & Landscape Association and its members are voluntarily imposing an industry ban
state wide on 25 Berberis thunbergii cultivars and parent species (wild type)
(see chart).
Based on scientific research, much of which is currently being done at the
University of Connecticut College of Agriculture, the Connecticut Nursery and
Landscape Association and its members acknowledge that this list of cultivars
represents an unacceptable risk to Connecticut's environment.
It's important to note that we are removing from production and sale 13 high-seed-producing cultivars above the level of the parent species (green barberry) and another 12 cultivars that produce seed at a rate less than the green barberry. The cultivars
remaining in cultivation after this ban are in the lowest 10 percent of the spectrum of viable seed
production based on the research by Dr. Mark Brand at UCONN.
Most of the sales and production of Berberis cultivars in Connecticut in this
list are concentrated in "Rose Glow", which up to this point has been a big
seller. By including this cultivar along with the others listed above, we estimate
annual sales in our state of the 25 cultivars we will self-ban at $2.5 million
retail, and over $5 million wholesale.
Our industry members as environmental stewards have taken this step to
self-regulate, based on data now becoming available. The following details
outline our voluntary phase-outs:
· CNLA will formally enact this voluntary ban starting July 1, 2010.
· As of the adoption date NO NEW production of these cultivars will take place.
· There will be a 3 year phase-out, from the adoption date, of these cultivars to
allow plants currently in production to be moved out of the industry.
· An education campaign will be launched to help inform the general public of the
risks associated with these cultivars.
· An effort to bring the mass merchants into honoring this agreement will be made
by communicating directly with the buyers for those chain stores.
· No listed plants would be brought into the State of Connecticut from other
states
· Future efforts will be made, based on scientific data as it becomes available,
and appropriate declarations will be made as necessary.
CNLA and its green industry allies have always maintained the position that
self-regulating on this issue is much more effective than government
regulation. It allows quicker response to future plants that may be deemed
Invasive by scientific data. It preserves the incentive to responsibly develop
new and improved cultivars in the future. It will not create an unfair
advantage for out of state businesses. It does not impose an undue financial hardship on the businesses in the green
industry in Connecticut. And with self-regulation, the industry's heart and soul is invested in making
the voluntary ban work.
This new policy of CNLA could also have national repercussions by encouraging
growers and their Associations in other states to follow the science in making
decisions to phase down invasive plants that are proven to be harmful.
UConn's nearly seven years of research on barberry confirms that every plant is
different--even cultivars within a species. Decisions to ban plants must be done after careful research when there is
evidence that cultivars within a species may not be as invasive as the parent
species.
