On a glorious summer day, 21 participants joined us for the pennywort pulling working party, supported by funding from Cambridge Water’s PEBBLE fund.
With fantastic help from Cambridge Canoe club and their members, we had a fleet of 11 canoes out on the river, plus a team working from the bank in Grantchester Mill Pond.
We started with some instruction from Mike on Floating Pennywort, and how to distinguish it from other plants, using a handy patch in the nearby Snobs stream.
We then headed out on the river to find and clear the emerging strands
We surveyed the whole river, from Mill lane, Cambridge to Grantchester Mill Pond, and removed virtually all visible pennywort. There were just a few strands identified and left, to be dealt with later from the bank or by canoe. This included one new patch found in a ditch near Fen Causeway that we weren’t previously aware of (now dealt with from the bank)
We then finished with some refreshments… Pennywort drink from Cho Mee supermarket was interesting to try (and is apparently good for arthritis) but more conventional drinks were more popular!
The days’ work will be immensely useful in the eradication process, although I’m sure we’ll all need to remain vigilant to collect regrowth during the summer
Do keep an eye out when you’re on or by the river over the summer, and either remove any that you see, or just let us know and we’ll try to get someone out to deal with it. If you want to keep an eye on progress before you go pennywort hunting , do check the status reports on our website here: https://camvalleyforum.uk/pennywort-status/
If you would like to be kept informed of future working parties, do let us know, ideally registering here