Annual weed conference held at Big Bend

MOSES LAKE — Roughly 215 people learned about ways to control weeds recently.

The Noxious Weed Control Board of Grant County held its 13th annual Noxious Weed Conference at Big Bend Community College Wednesday.

The conference drew attendees ranging from farmers to city employees, Coordinator Jerry Janke said, adding the goal of the conference is to educate people.

“Many years ago, I used to go around to these little Block 40 buildings and different things. I wouldn’t get many people, so we put this together as a day-long thing and really worked hard on it and got the community involved,” he said.

Janke said the ?conference works well to educate people, with topics ranging from updates on noxious weed permits to controlling weeds in turf, ornamental and shrub beds. He pointed out speakers talking about calibrating equipment and a presentation on the effects of poisonous plants on animals.

“We purposefully get a variety of speakers that we’ve heard before that are good speakers for this type of audience,” he said. “We try to reach a variety of all this, so everybody is reached.”

The weed board tries to find speakers who present their information in an easy-to-understand manner, Janke said, noting Phil Petersen’s presentation on herbicides.

“He kind of got the crowd involved with little clickers that he hands out,” he said. “He talks for about 10 or 15 minutes and then he asks questions of the people in the crowd what they would do, one, two or three or four or five … They punch and it gives a percentage.”

Janke said the audience was attentive to all of the speakers.

“What we’re after is to bring the knowledge of chemicals and control of weeds on a simplified form, because people come here and don’t want to see a bunch of graphs and those kind of things,” he said. “They want to be told, ‘How can I take care of my property,’ and that is what this is all about.”

Janke pointed to the issue of weeds around Moses Lake as one place where the speakers are helpful, noting a presentation about aquatic weed control.

“We got noxious weeds surrounding the shorelines of Moses Lake and our other lakes that we got to get something done,” he said.

“It’s not just weeds in farmlands and lots in town, it’s weeds in water. It’s a big problem here because we are a big, water-based county.”