Harvesting Weeds in 2026

Every year, since 2014 we’ve grown used to seeing a weed harvester on our lake. This amazing machine cuts an 11 foot swath of weeds and with a conveyor, puts the weeds into a holding area where they’re unloaded onto another conveyor that piles them into a large dump truck. The operator wears special glasses that help him see where he last harvested.

The invasive weed, Eurasian Milfoil, is the main target although clearing out other weeds can be helpful. Although we use herbicides effectively to control milfoil, we supplement that effort by mechanically removing the weeds to enhance the lake's usability for recreation and just as important, to remove the biomass that contributes to our phosphorus levels. Weeds that aren't harvested release more nutrients as they decompose, and those nutrients feed the very weeds we're trying to control. It’s a vicious cycle. 

The amount of weeds removed varies each year due to changing weather patterns and how long it’s been since our three-year treatment cycle. This year, being the third year since treatment we expect the most weeds. Next year, after treatment, we would expect the fewest weeds. The town, with the help of your tax dollars, pays for the weed harvester and pays for the highway department to operate this incredible machine. On a typical year, the harvester will take about 85 loads of weeds off our lake. Each load contains 15,000 pounds of wet weeds which represents about 4 pounds of phosphorus. And adding that up for 12 years shows a real impact on the amount of nutrients in our lake. 

For a few years I was the beneficiary of this resource. My farm, better known as Our Farm, received all the weeds harvested on the north end of the lake. Keep in mind: a huge dump truck filled with weeds and dumped and left to sit there until spring would be reduced to a pickup full of compost. Weeds are mostly water and after being broken down, I would spread them around my field using the loader on my tractor. I would then till this product into my fields. I found the areas where I put this felt a little spongy when I walked on it. There was more give to the soil and that made it a great medium for growing crops. There was better water percolation and more organic matter. There was a down side to all of this. In a word: GARBAGE. I haven’t gotten this product in 6 years but I still find garbage in my field that I try to clean up. Yogurt containers, bottles, cans, rope, buoys , all kinds of plastics, cups, styrofoam, pieces of lumber, bottle caps, gloves, broken glass, hats, socks, fast food wrappers, and much much more. This is our lake, please don’t use it as a giant trash can. Most of that stuff doesn’t go away. A lot of it ends up on our fields. So the next time you’re enjoying our lake, think twice before you allow your garbage to blow out of your boat and into our lake.

And wave to the guys on the harvester. They like that.

—Jimmy Golub