NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

April 8, 1999

Yellow Starthistle Will be Added to Noxious Weed List

Yellow starthistle will become the latest addition to North Dakota's prohibited noxious weed list while three other weeds, hemp, perennial sowthistle and hoary cress, will be removed from the list.

According to Rod Lym, weed scientist at North Dakota State University, yellow starthistle is a newcomer to the state detected in a Conservation Reserve Program planting in Kidder County. It apparently arrived in contaminated seed. It is a problem weed in Idaho and California.

A knapweed relative, yellow starthistle is an annual growing 2 to 3 feet tall. Yellow flowers appear in mid summer, and spines up to three-quarter inch long grow from the seed case.

Lym says it is not difficult to control, but it spreads rapidly from seed. Once established it is hard to keep up with and can take over an area, he says.

It usually appears in rangeland or waste areas. It can grow in cropland, says Lym, but tillage and cropping operations usually control it.

Yellow starthistle is a newly introduced weed and potentially troublesome, so producers should be alert for it, Lym says.

Hemp, perennial sowthistle and hoary cress, the weeds being removed from the prohibited noxious list, are no longer considered major problems. Perennial sowthistle and hoary cress are easily controlled with available herbicides. Lym says hemp never has been a threat to crops or rangeland and was probably originally put on the list for drug enforcement purposes. The hemp plant is a close relative of marijuana and almost identical in appearance.

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Source: Rod Lym (701) 231-8996

Editor: Gary Moran (701) 231-7865