OMB Free News

OMB Status Map now available

Thanks to all of you who have reported OMB on iNaturalist, we now have over 3,000 observations! With the seeds being viable for 10 years, we need to continue checking these OMB patches for 10 years after they were last controlled.

Managing all of these OMB patches needs a solution that tracks the status of each patch over time. That's where the CAMS weed app comes in. It's already in use for similar weed management by STAMP (Society Totally Against Moth Plant) and other groups around New Zealand.

The app resets the status of each weed annually, then as you update each weed status, it changes colour (and shape) to show the current status. This allows everyone to clearly see what's been tackled and what needs doing.

It's a lot of fun to use, kind of like a cross between Pokémon Go and weed spotting!

We've extended this app to synchronise data from iNaturalist and to allow you to update the weed status in iNaturalist. The 3,000+ observations have been synchronised and we've started updating them.

Open it in your browser here.

Or install it on your device, this will install the ArcGIS Field Maps app and open the CAMS Weed App map. After installing, the map will open by default when you open Field Maps.

See our user guide for how to update the status in iNaturalist so it is reflected in CAMS.

"OMB-Free" Reserves

For the 2022-2023 OMB season, we are aiming to make a number of reserves "OMB Free", ie all known OMB is cleared. In future years, we're hoping to create "halos" around these reserves to reduce the risk of reinvasion as well as ongoing monitoring. The current status is:

"OMB Free"

Largely "OMB Free", aiming to complete soon

Partly controlled this year

Deferred until next year

Herbicides

We've also started using Glimax as our herbicide this year. Glimax is a high strength Glyphosate, which has the advantage over Picloram that it breaks down quickly in the soil and does not affect neighbouring plants.