Seen any news on killing Z Mussells

[imajigger2]

Craig, have you seen anything on this yet?





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Biologist discovers safe way to kill zebra mussels, Great Lakes’ silent invaders

Article by: ROBERT H. BOYLE , New York Times
Updated: March 1, 2014 - 9:07 PM
Biologist has discovered a safe way to kill the Great Lakes’ silent invaders.

Photos by L. MANN • APO Sleepy Hollow Lake; below, D. P. MOLLOY • University at Albany via New York Times
Since they arrived in the Great Lakes in the 1980s, two species of mussels the size of pistachios have spread to hundreds of lakes and rivers in 34 states and have done vast economic and ecological damage.
These silent invaders, the quagga and zebra mussels, have disrupted ecosystems by devouring phytoplankton, the foundation of the marine food web, and have clogged the water intakes and pipes of cities and towns, power plants, factories and even irrigated golf courses.
Now the mussels may have met their match: Daniel P. Molloy, an emeritus biologist at the New York State Museum in Albany, N.Y. and a self-described “Bronx boy who became fascinated by things living in water.”
Inspired by Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in high school, Molloy, 66, became a pioneer in the development of environmentally safe control agents to replace broad-spectrum chemical pesticides.
Leading a team at the museum’s Cambridge Field Research Laboratory in upstate New York, he discovered a bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens strain CL145A, that kills the mussels but appears to have little or no effect on other organisms.
As a result, New York state has awarded a license to Marrone Bio Innovations, a company in Davis, Calif., to develop a commercial formulation of the bacterium. The product, Zequanox, has been undergoing tests for several years, with promising results. (Molloy has no financial ties to the company.)
Zequanox killed more than 90 percent of the mussels in a test using tanks of water from Lake Carlos in Minnesota, said James Luoma, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in La Crosse, Wis. A control group of freshwater mussels was unharmed.
In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that P. fluorescens CL145A presented “little risk to nontarget organisms.” The agency is now evaluating proposed open-water uses for Zequanox.
Natives of Eastern Europe in the genus Dreissena, zebra and quagga mussels began moving up the Volga River toward Western Europe 200 years ago. Highly prolific, they attach themselves to boats or any hard surface with their byssus, or beard.
They can live out of water for two weeks, and their larvae, known as veligers, use currents to colonize new waters. As many as 700,000 mussels can pile up in a square yard.
Both species are thought to have arrived in North America in the ballast of trans-Atlantic cargo ships. By 1991 they appeared in the Hudson River, and within a year there were 500 billion between Troy and West Point, said David L. Strayer, an ecologist with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y.
The tiny mussels became a dominant species in the Hudson. Not even counting their shells, their total weight exceeded that of all the fish, plankton and bacteria combined, Strayer said. There were no natural enemies to keep them in check.
None, that is, except scientists like Molloy.
Failure, Molloy said, “is not an option.”

[Blackdog40]

I hope it proves out and can be used for our lakes. Melvern has been hit hard with these things and the fishing has gone down hill

[huntnfishnguy2014]

Same here...really need to get rid of these dang things.

[bluebasser86]

I believe Lake Wabaunsee is going to try to test an experimental zebra mussel treatment in a portion of their lake. I'm hoping it works out there, those things will wreck the fishing in that lake.

[Craig Johnson]

Craig, have you seen anything on this yet?





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Biologist discovers safe way to kill zebra mussels, Great Lakes’ silent invaders

Article by: ROBERT H. BOYLE , New York Times
Updated: March 1, 2014 - 9:07 PM
Biologist has discovered a safe way to kill the Great Lakes’ silent invaders.

Photos by L. MANN • APO Sleepy Hollow Lake; below, D. P. MOLLOY • University at Albany via New York Times
Since they arrived in the Great Lakes in the 1980s, two species of mussels the size of pistachios have spread to hundreds of lakes and rivers in 34 states and have done vast economic and ecological damage.
These silent invaders, the quagga and zebra mussels, have disrupted ecosystems by devouring phytoplankton, the foundation of the marine food web, and have clogged the water intakes and pipes of cities and towns, power plants, factories and even irrigated golf courses.
Now the mussels may have met their match: Daniel P. Molloy, an emeritus biologist at the New York State Museum in Albany, N.Y. and a self-described “Bronx boy who became fascinated by things living in water.”
Inspired by Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in high school, Molloy, 66, became a pioneer in the development of environmentally safe control agents to replace broad-spectrum chemical pesticides.
Leading a team at the museum’s Cambridge Field Research Laboratory in upstate New York, he discovered a bacterium, Pseudomonas fluorescens strain CL145A, that kills the mussels but appears to have little or no effect on other organisms.
As a result, New York state has awarded a license to Marrone Bio Innovations, a company in Davis, Calif., to develop a commercial formulation of the bacterium. The product, Zequanox, has been undergoing tests for several years, with promising results. (Molloy has no financial ties to the company.)
Zequanox killed more than 90 percent of the mussels in a test using tanks of water from Lake Carlos in Minnesota, said James Luoma, a research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in La Crosse, Wis. A control group of freshwater mussels was unharmed.
In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that P. fluorescens CL145A presented “little risk to nontarget organisms.” The agency is now evaluating proposed open-water uses for Zequanox.
Natives of Eastern Europe in the genus Dreissena, zebra and quagga mussels began moving up the Volga River toward Western Europe 200 years ago. Highly prolific, they attach themselves to boats or any hard surface with their byssus, or beard.
They can live out of water for two weeks, and their larvae, known as veligers, use currents to colonize new waters. As many as 700,000 mussels can pile up in a square yard.
Both species are thought to have arrived in North America in the ballast of trans-Atlantic cargo ships. By 1991 they appeared in the Hudson River, and within a year there were 500 billion between Troy and West Point, said David L. Strayer, an ecologist with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y.
The tiny mussels became a dominant species in the Hudson. Not even counting their shells, their total weight exceeded that of all the fish, plankton and bacteria combined, Strayer said. There were no natural enemies to keep them in check.
None, that is, except scientists like Molloy.
Failure, Molloy said, “is not an option.”

Imajigger2,

Yes, this product has been around for several years as the article mentions. I've heard that it works well in closed systems such as power plants where water volumes are controllable and smaller than a lake.

The problem for open water use is hitting the required concentration needed for control and maintaining it long enough to be effective. If 100% percent control is not achieved in a larger lake then the very high reproductive rates of the remaining zebra mussels would quickly recolonize. Large lakes are tough to deal with due to the huge amount of water and the feasibility of getting a chemical or substance evenly distributed to provide uniform concentrations lakewide in a timely manner for the best control. Lakewide eradication of zebra mussels is not yet possible for large waters. Scientists are still working on solutions to the zebra mussel problem. Hopefully they will find the solution soon!

[crappiedoc]

Hope this pans out, things could get very interesting.
http://kdwpt.state.ks.us/news/Fishin...tocking-Report

[Craig Johnson]

Hope this pans out, things could get very interesting.
http://kdwpt.state.ks.us/news/Fishin...tocking-Report

I had poor success with redear sunfish at El Dorado Reservoir. During 2005, 2006, and 2007, 1.2 million redear sunfish fingerlings were stocked (roughly 400,000 per year) in to El Dorado Reservoir. I have seen only ONE redear sunfish as a result of these stockings and that was in a shoreline seining sample in 2005.

Redears prefer deep, clear, weedy water which is something not offered by most of our Kansas reservoirs. Hopefully Wilson will have better recruitment than El Dorado did.