Gosh, you could make a fortune selling it on ebay!!!! Most of us struggle to get water lettuce to survive and shell out big bucks for it on line or at a local pond store.

I don't know what would be a better way than what you are doing already. I hate to use any chemicals myself, and if you did, you probably would then have to deal with decaying water lettuce which might be a worse curse than the water lettuce itself.

Hopefully Gary or someone else will have a good solution.

Water Lettuce, Pistia stratiotes, usually dies back a bit in winter and if you're in zone 9 then I'd have thought it would totally die out. Unless there's another plant that's also called Water Lettuce.

Yes, this is pistia stratiotes. We didn't have a "real" winter last year, so lots of things that should have happened didn't (not enough hours of chill to set peach blooms, internal parasites in cattle, dogs, horses much more prevalent, and of course the issue with the water lettuce).

I'm half tempted to use a chemical if there is one. I can use the excavator to remove what I can again and then spray the rest. The tank that has been taken over is a small square one. It holds a lot of volume because it is deep, not because it is large. I can't reach every water lettuce plant with the machinery, but I could remove a good portion of it so that the die off wouldn't be as bad. If I wait to do that, my cattle will be off that paddock for about a month. Perhaps that will be a good project to start once I move them to another pasture.

Is there an aquatic version of roundup?

@ pashta - people buy this stuff??? Holy cow, I have a water lettuce plantation in my cow turnout!

This is why water lettuce and water hyacinths are illegal noxious weeds across the southern USA.

They completely take over waterways causing severe problems with shipping and other river traffic and they also crowd out native species.

aladatrot

Since the surface area isn't that big and it is square, what is the possibility of using some kind of a net like fishermen use that would span the width of the pond and be dragged across to scoop up the water lettuce?

If it would be too heavy for people to drag, maybe a tractor on either side could drag it.

This might be totally impractical, but it is a thought. I have seen videos of tilapia ponds where they do something like this to harvest the fish. Those must have to be very strong nets.

Matter of fact I just found a you tube video demonstrating the nets. I realize you couldn't have people walking along (since your pond is deep) but since water lettuce can't evade the net, maybe there would be a way to keep the top above water and just scoop along.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tilapia Harvesting

Amazon Manatee eat 8% of the their weight in water lettuce per day. Worked great for me.

My question is does anyone know how to get rid of Amazon Manatees? Is there another invasive species I could import?

Hi
You might look into selling it as pashta mentioned. ??
i use my excess plants as a mulch for terrestrials. They also make great compost ... If they are growing at that rate there's obviously a LOT of nutrients in the water
so they are probably helping with that.
For the manatee problem, killer whales and motorboats They have really done a number on the florida population.lol Oh you will need a nuclear plant to provide warm water during cold spells of they will migrate!! gary

I shudder to think about the nutrients in the water. This isn't an ornamental pond, this tank's sole purpose is to catch run off water and allow my cattle pen to drain. The whole paddock drains into that tank. It doesn't smell, but there is likely a fair amount of poo that gets in there from the paddock. The cattle have a trough to drink from, but a couple of them actually prefer to drink from the pond. There are some volunteer fish in there that came from the birds. Actually the minnow population is similarly out of control.

I never thought of the rate of growth being linked to the amount of organics in the run off water which drains to the pond. Makes sense though.

Cheers
M

the aquatic version of roundup is called rodeo herbicide.
never used it but a friend who has a dug koi pond used it successfully a couple of years ago to rid his pond of parrot's feather. we are both located in zone 8a, east central alabama.
water lettuce is not hardy here, unfortunately. i really like the look and performance of it in my preformed.
water hyacinth will make it through most winters here.

Awww... What I wouldn't give for several pounds of your water lettuce to run rampant in my pond... I could send you postage and you could box a bunch up my way :) :)... It's not illegal here.