Iowa City hopes to set world record with garlic mustard hunt
Posted: Monday, May 21, 2007
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- Volunteers in Iowa City spent Saturday morning pulling garlic mustard from the ground in parks and wooded areas. They hope their efforts will result in a new world record and more awareness of the pestlike plant.
On Monday, city employees will weigh bags filled with garlic mustard at the Iowa City Landfill. If they weigh more than 3,000 pounds, city officials think they'll have a world record. Terry Robinson, superintendent of Iowa City's parks and forestry, said that the city has a chance to set a new record.
That's because nobody else has ever done it.
"We're kind of cheating. We actually tried to get the Guinness folks to acknowledge it, but it's just not something they deal with. They have to be a little bit discriminatory." Robinson said.
Robinson hopes to make the garlic mustard hunt a yearly event, because he says the plant has no redeeming qualities.
"It's a highly invasive species that will shade out and out-compete all the native plants inside the woodland or along the edge of a stream," Robinson said. "Because it's invasive or it's been introduced to our natural environment, it has no natural predator or no natural parasites or diseases to hold it back, so it just runs rampant."
Garlic mustard is native to Europe and parts of Asia and Africa, and insects and fungi that control the plant's growth don't live in Iowa.
Robinson started planning the event in January. He said that awareness of the plant is his primary goal.
"It's just a good idea so that everybody knows what the plant looks like and it's in a lot more places than people realize," Robinson said. "There's a lot of backyards that I suppose if people knew what it looks like, they'd see it in their backyard."
On Monday, city employees will weigh bags filled with garlic mustard at the Iowa City Landfill. If they weigh more than 3,000 pounds, city officials think they'll have a world record. Terry Robinson, superintendent of Iowa City's parks and forestry, said that the city has a chance to set a new record.
That's because nobody else has ever done it.
"We're kind of cheating. We actually tried to get the Guinness folks to acknowledge it, but it's just not something they deal with. They have to be a little bit discriminatory." Robinson said.
Robinson hopes to make the garlic mustard hunt a yearly event, because he says the plant has no redeeming qualities.
"It's a highly invasive species that will shade out and out-compete all the native plants inside the woodland or along the edge of a stream," Robinson said. "Because it's invasive or it's been introduced to our natural environment, it has no natural predator or no natural parasites or diseases to hold it back, so it just runs rampant."
Garlic mustard is native to Europe and parts of Asia and Africa, and insects and fungi that control the plant's growth don't live in Iowa.
Robinson started planning the event in January. He said that awareness of the plant is his primary goal.
"It's just a good idea so that everybody knows what the plant looks like and it's in a lot more places than people realize," Robinson said. "There's a lot of backyards that I suppose if people knew what it looks like, they'd see it in their backyard."
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