Number of Harvesting Trips

                                                                                                                                                 Milfoil Harvest Record 2013-2022

This chart  shows how many trips were taken each year (again broken into quarters), with the total for each season shown in the right-hand column. The average for the past six years is just over 23 harvest trips per year

You can see that 2015 did have more trips than average but nowhere near double the number. (For trips alone to account for the spike in harvest, we would have needed to take more than 51 trips.) Since 2015 we seem to have returned to average numbers of trips with this year continuing that trend, but the harvest has dropped off precipitously in recent years as shown in chart 1. It wasn’t that we took a lot fewer trips to dig up milfoil. Could it be that less milfoil is actually growing in Mascoma Lake?

   Milfoil Plant Intensity

This chart shows that up through 2015, the number of plants per marker was much higher at an average 13.75 plants per marker. Over the past two years that average has dropped to 6.62, and this year (so far*) the average has been just over 2.5. In fact, there has been a significant reduction in milfoil intensity.
For the past six years, we have stood up at the annual meeting and discouraged optimism in our reports. But this year, we are finally ready to say, cautiously, that we’re making real progress in controlling milfoil in Mascoma Lake. Even so, in order to maintain progress, we’ll need all the weed watchers we can get to help our divers and boat captains and crews to stay involved in the fight. Thank you all! Let’s keep up the good work.

–David Kelman & Martha Rich, Milfoil Control Coordinators, July 2018                  Setting up Milfoil markers for harvesting Milfoil