Water hyacinth, a native of Brazil was introduced in Calcutta Botanical Garden way back in 1895 to decorate garden ponds.  Subsequently, this aquatic plant which decorated the  garden ponds, village lakes, streams etc across the country.  It has an alarming multiplication rate & doubles in as little as twelve days.

 

With an alarming multiplication rate, this ornamental aquatic  plant gradually proved to be a menace.  It even now, in addition to various socio-economical problems, affects irrigation, fisheries, water transport etc.  Efforts were made to contain its growth.  However, expensive mechanical cleaning proved to be ineffective & Chemical cleaning have  variety of ecological disadvantageous. 

 

Our efforts scientifically proved that neochetina eichhornia is effective under the climatic conditions of Chhattisgarh to clean vicious aquatic weed, water hyacinth, which poses threat to socio-economic life of Chhattisgarh.

Water hyacinth, ?Eichhornia crassipes? is a floating aquatic plant grows in lakes, streams, ponds and even anchored in mud.  It is considered as the world?s worst aquatic plant.  As a free floating plant, all its nutrients come from water alone. 

It forms dense mats over the water preventing oxygenation and alters  ecology of the water body. It also severely impede the flow of water in canals, thereby reducing availability of water to farmers? field.

A water body once affected with water hyacinth degrades water quality, losses its beauty and utility.  Generally it becomes the ideal place to deposit waste materials reducing depth and width.  Finally, the water body itself extinct.  

PROBLEMS

   Degradation of water quality    Increased growth of mosquitoes    Problem related to fishing    Clogging of intakes of irrigation & water  

    supply systems

   Extinction of water bodies    Deteriorating ground water level

CONTROL METHODS

 

Best method to control water hyacinth is to protect water bodies from its clutches.

 

Following methods are available for removal of water hyacinth from an affected water body.

 

?nbsp Chemical cleaning ?nbsp Mechanical cleaning ?nbsp Biological cleaning

MECHANICAL CONTROL

Mechanical removal of water hyacinth is considered as the best short-term solution to prevent the proliferation of the weed. 

 

It is, however, labour intensive and hence expensive and only possible in relatively small areas.

CHEMICAL CONTROL

Chemical operation mainly by using herbicides can definitely destroy the grown up vicious weed. 

 

Leaving the environmental effects, rapid reproduction ability of water hyacinth defeats even this hazardous method.  The method also requires skills.

BILOGICAL CONTROL

Biological control is engagement of host specific natural enemies to reduce the population density of a noxious pet or weed.  It is said to be environmentally benign, as the control agent tend to be self regulating.  Control programmes are usually inexpensive due to the fact that the control agents once released in a water body will multiply themselves and hence less labour intensive.

 

Another advantage of this method is that the agents will dissolve themselves when it is not able to locate its food.  

With the assistance of Dr. Sudhir Chipre, a local Biologist, we identified the weevil.  Under the guidance and patronage of our Teacher Guide Dr. Panu Haldar we conducted laboratory experiments in our school laboratory.  During the course of our laboratory experiments,  we studied the habits, growth, multiplication rate etc of the weevil.  On successful laboratory experiments we defined the following methodology for adoption in the experiments to be conducted in an open water body.

Our laboratory experiments revealed that  if sufficient number of  weevil is  released in a water body the following will be the result: -

Day	Action by neochetina eichhornia
1-7	eats away the leaves
8-15	eats away stem
16-30	eats away petioles
31-40	eats away root & starts self-dissolution
41-48 In the meantime, our experimental results were published in the local news papers.  Mr. Ashok Vidhani, Municipal Counseller of Ward No. 38, BMC, who was attracted by the result of our team, approached seeking assistance of ?Nature bodies? to clean ?Bandhwa talab?.  This gave us an opportunity to conduct an experiment in a lake owned by the State Government of Chhattisgarh with the permission and patronage of local self Government.	die off

Nature bodies released 16  Neochetina Eichhornia  weevil cultured   in our laboratory on 20.08.10The biological agent gave the following results :-

#   In the first week almost the entire leaves were eaten away

#   In the second week biological agent started eating steam

#   In the third and fourth week it eaten away petioles, and

#   In the fifth week it eaten away the roots.

#   Finally, Nature bodies proudly presented a clean Banduwa Talab as...