News

S ycamore trees have become a topic of conflict in recent weeks, with the Dunedin City Council and the Chalmers Community Board arguing that they’re choking out native plants, hogging sunlight and stamping out undergrowth bush.

According to Lisa Wheeler, DCC Parks Manager, the city is “being inundated with [sycamore] seedlings … They are actually starting to reach maturity enough to create their own seedlings, so it’s becoming a problem.” She said, “[Dunedin] has a number of sycamore trees and [they] germinate quickly, so we have new seedlings coming through anywhere the wind blows.”

According to Wheeler, the issue with sycamores is “the impact they have on the environment and just how fast they spread.” Due to their height and fast growing rate, sycamores tend to block natural light very easily,” argued Wheeler. “They’ve got a big root system as well,” she added, “so they affect the underground and the bush environment that [the DCC is] trying to regenerate.”

Wildscreen’s online initiative, Arkive, notes that a sycamore tree can live to be 500 years old and can produce over 10,000 seedlings a year, which can be dispersed kilometres away with high winds.

Wheeler and the Dunedin City Council have begun encouraging residents to cut and poison sycamores on their property: “We are trying to see if we can do anything and, if so, what those controls will be,” said Wheeler. “We’re looking at it from a city perspective,” she said. “The community board and [Dunedin residents] are becoming more conscious [of] the nuisance the sycamores are creating.”

Sycamore seedlings can be pulled out, but once the trees grow to a larger size they must be covered with a weed-control paste to kill the roots. The Dunedin City Council currently has contracts that include the removal of noxious weeds, but a limited budget constrains their ability to remove full-sized trees. “We want to identify the best control method for different size trees in different locations, and then make a plan for people to remove the sycamores from their own property,”
said Wheeler.

The DCC will be working closely with the Chalmers Community Board, beginning with a mapping activity in West Harbour to locate individual trees. They plan to test methods for controlling the sycamore trees in that area and then expand successful methods throughout the city.

The council will also be recruiting volunteers to help remove trees on public land.