The Long-awaited Arrival

This is slightly off-topic, but those who find it irrelevant should consider themselves fortunate.

Many of us are far too familiar with Dioscorea bulbifera, the air potato vine. When I first laid eyes on my 2-acre property a little more than three years ago, the eastern portion was a sea of the relentless creeper, floating on a bed of saw palmetto. A skillful man with a backhoe lifted out most of the palmettos, and I was ready with a few tons of leaves (raked up and bagged by friendly folks all over town, who leave them along the road for me) and wood chips to spread on the newly bare ground.

I ended up with a nicely mulched third of an acre, and after pulling out a few thousand vines as the buried potatoes sprouted, the battle was won. Little ones still pop up here and there, and potatoes appear overnight, perhaps left there by the raccoons as an offering to the slow-footed ape-gods who provide them with so much tasty fruit. But under control.

Not so much in the hopelessly-infested conservation area that borders us to the south. I attacked in the winter by wandering through the woods picking up buckets of potatoes, in the spring by keeping the vines from going up the trees to the full sunlight, and in the late summer by ripping out masses of vines just before they started to fruit (if such a beloved word can be applied to the toxic aerial tubers). Aided by the shade of the oak canopy, and the competition of tough native ferns and sawgrass, these efforts managed to keep the invaders more-or-less at bay, not smothering trees or ruining the vista from our house.

But what I've really been waiting for is Lilioceris cheni, the air potato leaf beetle. This Asian import was released by Florida authorities in 2012 after extensive testing to ensure that it will restrict its diet to its namesake plant. Three weeks ago, pal Kevin reported them at his place just over a mile from me. We captured a dozen, and I released them into the conservation area.

We needn't have bothered, because a week later, a tsunami of the red-orange heroes had arrived, munching their way through the woods. They can fly for short distances, but are generally spotted either eating or making more air potato leaf beetles.

Lilioceris doesn't destroy its food source completely, which is as it should be--- most species are smart enough not to wreck the ecologies on which they depend (ahem…). But they do provide a formidable check on the ravaging vine. I hope my new friends survive through the winter to make a quick start when the potatoes sprout next April.