Saltwater Effect on Japanese Knotweed Survival

Japanese Knotweed is a dense growing shrub that can reach heights of up to Japanese Knotweed, Reynoutria japonica, is a dense growing shrub that can reach heights of up to ten feet.

Japanese Knotweed is often found along roadsides and stream banks. Invasion occurs when dense monocultures expand and when rhizomes are fragmented.

Management and eradication of Reynoutria japonica is difficult as reproduction occurs both vegetatively and through seeds and can survive in almost all pHs.

One of its common eradication methods is the use of the harmful herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate inhibits the photosynthesis process of the plant causing it to lose its functionality.

The present study focuses on inhibiting the plants’ photosynthesis process, the way glyphosate does, through manipulating the osmosis process to determine if watering this plant with salt water is an effective eradication method.

The current study determines saltwater’s effect on R. japonica’s survival by treating four out of the eight parcels with 20 gallons of saltwater from a nearby water body to fight nature with nature.

Chlorophyll fluorescence was measured every two days for about six weeks. The current study data suggest that watering Reynoutria japonica with 20 gallons will decrease the chlorophyll fluorescence, indicating that the photosynthesis process was inhibited, causing the plant to lose its leaves and die, illustrating the efficacy of salt water as an effective environmentally safe, mitigation strategy.