Mike Shreve has lived at his home in Polk County for 29 years. Throughout the hardships that come with home ownership, he said one problem has been consistent.
Air potato vines pose a threat to native plant life by growing around other plants and absorbing sunlight directed toward them. In 1999, air potato vines were added to the Florida Noxious Weed List by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Part of Shreve's property, located between wetlands and hills, is ripe with plant life where he says the vines "really go crazy." The vines damage magnolias, oaks and red maple trees.
“At first we tried to pull out the potatoes and vines, but that was sort of a losing battle,” Shreve said.
The vine’s name comes from its ability to quickly produce hundreds of pounds of large growths that resemble potatoes, said Shannon Carnevale, the natural resources agent for UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences extension in Polk County.
The resilient potatoes from the vines don’t need water or soil to grow.
“We forgot a bag in a car and they grew right out of the bag,” Carnevale said.
To combat the invasive vines, the Polk County UF IFAS office is making air potato vine beetles available to Polk County residents to protect their properties.
Carnevale said the beetles will come in a container complete with a road snack of air potato leaves and an information sheet on how to properly release them at residences.
The idea was brought to her team when a Polk County resident called IFAS and requested that the air potato leaf beetles be facilitated by IFAS instead of being delivered by the UF-associated Hayslip Biological Control Research and Containment Laboratory.
“This is because he couldn’t guarantee he would be home when the beetles were delivered,” Carnevale said. “They might perish if they are left out on the porch all day.”
Carnevale said the Hayslip laboratory plans to expand this service to other extension offices in the future.
Shreve has received the beetles for a few years now and usually gets about 50 to 100 at a time. He hasn’t noticed the beetles eating any of the other plants on his property.
“So far they haven’t eaten anything but air potatoes,” Shreve said. “We have some stuff that looks just like air potatoes or (has a) very similar leaf structure, but they won’t touch it.”
Carnevale said the beetles have been tested to ensure they only consume the air potato vine.
Even though the vine has been an ongoing problem across the state, it does not stop people from having fun with them.
Carnevale described “air potato roundups” that the IFAS office would hold in places like Alachua as outreach events. They were similar to Easter egg hunts with prizes for biggest, smallest and most unusually shaped air potatoes.
Within two years of the beetles being offered to residents and land managers in Polk County, the air potato vine was no longer one of the top problem species in the area, Carnevale said.
“The site we did this at a couple of times didn’t have any air potatoes left,” Carnevale said. “We couldn’t do (air potato roundups) because the beetles were so successful.”
To request beetles, Polk County residents may visit the Hayslip Biological Control Research and Containment Laboratory’s website. A few forms must be authorized and then residents may pick up their own army of potato leaf beetles. The next delivery to the IFAS extension in Bartow will be June 6.
Shreve said he was glad UF could help local governments to take strides in eradicating the invasive plant.
“This is a great example of academic institutions providing meaningful and actionable information,” Shreve said. “This a much-needed success story.”
