The City of Largo is using beetles to fight a highly invasive plant species found in its parks.
- Air potato vines can prevent sunshine from reaching other plants
- Largo was 1st city in Bay area to utilize air potato beetles
- Beetles do not sting or bite, provided by Dept. of Agriculture for free
The city first introduced the air potato beetle into some of its parks in 2012 to combat the air potato vine. Largo was the first city in the Bay Area to use the beetles.
“The problem is that [the air potato vine] will cover an entire forest, an entire area, preventing any sunshine from reaching any of the plants we want to keep here,” Taylor Kahns, Largo Parks Foreman, said.
The beetles got the job done. Kahn said the air potato vine once covered almost half of George C. McGough Nature Park. Now, it’s down to about 30 percent.
The city released more beetles this May into John R. Bonner Park and the Largo Central Park Nature Preserve.
“The beetles, when released, can only feed on air potato," said Kahns. "The young can’t survive on anything else.”
The beetles don’t sting or bite and will enter the food chain. They live for five months and all they do is eat and breed.
Kahns said by the end of this summer, the air potato leaves will be filled with holes. By next summer, he said all that will be left are dead vines.
The Florida Department of Agriculture provides the beetles to local governments free of charge.