Acacia mearnsii (black wattle)

Seedlings and saplings younger than three years old are sensitive to fire. However, Pieterse and Boucher (1997) investigated burning standing A. mearnsii trees as a viable management technique but found that a high proportion of mature trees survived to resprout, a large number of seeds in the seedbank were stimulated to grow and the overall size of the thicket increased significantly. In localized areas there are interactions with existing herbivores that limit the spread of this plant. An example cited in Kruger et al. (1986) occurs in the Umfolozi Game Reserve, South Africa where black rhinoceros removes A. mearnsii from river bank habitats. Attempts have also been made in South Africa to produce a sterile triploid variety by controlled crossing of the natural diploid form with an artificially created tetraploid form (Beck et al., 2003). However, this approach, while appealing, may yet create more problems in the future, as naturally occurring hexaploids in most plant species are thought to have originated from a natural doubling of chromosomes in triploids. Thus, plantations of sterile triploids could produce even more invasive hexaploids.  

Since A. mearnsii resprouts from the roots, these should be removed (Weber, 2003), and girdling of the stem is also effective (PIER, 2007).

At Kunming Changshui Airport, mechanical control is recommended (Liu et al., 2016).

Due to the variable regulations around (de-)registration of pesticides, we are for the moment not including any specific chemical control recommendations. For further information, we recommend you visit the following resources: