Bethel College Campus Buckthorn Regulation Project

Initiated Spring 2002
Managed by the Bethel Green Council

If you are wondering why the understory shrubs are being removed and stacked "mile-high" beside the west entrance or why "trees" are being cut all over campus, here is the story.

European Buckthorn is a "weedy" invasive shrub (an exotic species in the jargon) that was imported (you guess where from) as a landscaping plant and "escaped" into the wild. The shrub is fast growing, produces lots and lots of small black berries (with seeds) that birds love to eat. The birds due to their biological nature "pass" these seeds in a fertilizer treatment ideal for young seedlings. These seedlings will grow anywhere and thus they have almost entirely replaced the native shrub and perennial understory plants in the forested and forest ecotone (edges) around the Bethel campus, through out Arden Hills and the state of MN and beyond.

For more information on Buckthorn see:
Minnesota's Department of Natural Resouces Buckthorn Page

Moriarty, John J. The Trouble With Backyard Buckthorn, Minnesota Conservation Volunteer


What we are planning is a multistage project:

1. Removal of reproductive Buckthorn (and these shrubs reproduce at a very young age totally disregarding lifestyle). The removal will be done in a patchy way so that some understory remains as this forest component is habitat for a large number of birds, insects, and small mammals, as well as being an important regulator of forest soil erosion. (Student labor in ENS102D Environment and Humanity (Dr. Jeff Port) and BIO302 Human Ecology (Dr. Jeff Port) provided the initial labor pool as an part of an on-campus service learning project.)

2. Treatment of the cut stumps with a re-growth inhibitor by Bethel Grounds personnel.

3. Replanting (donations accepted) native understory (shrubs like willow, dogwood, viburnum, speckled alder, serviceberry, hazelnut) and overstory (in this shoreline area trees like cottonwood, black ash). A diversity of species will replace the former monoculture of buckthorn.

4. Continued longer term ecosystem and landscape management to remove remaining younger and newly seeded buckthorn and to continue restoration of the native understory and overstory natural communities essential to healthy forest diversity and soil and water conservation on campus.