Hogweed as a “bioweapon”: what to do and who is to blame

“Mr. President Biden, we have a problem. It’s becoming more and more difficult for us to penetrate Russian entrances in order to cause harm there – there are intercoms everywhere.” “It’s okay, we will bring hogweed to Russia.” Similar memes appeared on the Internet after State Duma deputy Timofey Bazhenov declared hogweed to be a bacteriological weapon of the West.

“I don’t rule out that this was part of a bacteriological war directed against us by the United States,” the people’s representative sincerely stated. Is this true or is it completely the other way around?

The entire pre-holiday week in the State Duma was spent under the slogan of the fight against harmful plants. At first it was the hallucinogenic morning glory tricolor, and now it is the ineradicable hogweed. Deputies in the first reading approved a bill obliging land owners to fight this weed.

What’s next? Potato? It was also imported from America.

Unlike, by the way, hogweed: some of its species are especially common in our country, on the contrary, they come from the North Caucasus.

And this, by the way, from the Russian Empire back in the 19th century it came to Great Britain, America, and from there – everywhere. That is, this is our native biological weapon.

Giant stems of plants, hollow inside, which spray poisonous juice – at first glance, they are weapons, although hogweed belongs to the same peaceful family as parsley, carrots, parsnips, cumin, and coriander.

In general, speaking seriously, this is a worldwide problem – the invasion of invasive species (sometimes they also say invasive – both names are correct, from the English “invasion” – “invasion”). Invasive plants travel across the planet, spreading uncontrollably, taking over more and more territories, causing damage to the economy and nature. You could say these are creeping spies.

The capture of the center of Russia by hogweed is one of the most striking examples of such “occupation.” At the same time, initially we not only did not fight with hogweed, but, on the contrary, we rushed around with it like a dirty bag. And even using administrative resources.

The ideological inspirer of the introduction of hogweed – Pyotr Petrovich Vavilov (not to be confused with Nikolai Vavilov) – occupied high positions. Soon after the Great Patriotic War, hogweed was brought from the Caucasus to be used as a fodder crop.

Then it became clear that hogweed is not so nutritious, corn is much more filling, and it was not possible to get rid of its dominant feature – a high concentration of substances that cause burns.

They tried to carry out selection. But either the hogweed became small and “non-spicy”, or large and dangerous. There is no third.

“But its seeds have already fallen into fertile soil and now you can’t get rid of it, it grows everywhere,” says Anton Gladilin, an agroecologist, head of the “Stop Hogweed” movement.

“In fact, if you don’t take Deputy Bazhenov’s words seriously, the new law is not bad. Since it will contain a clause on land protection, and the concept of “invasive plant” will be introduced. Before this, there was no legally defined concept. Only at the regional level were some separate regional programs adopted. For example, to combat Sosnovsky’s hogweed in many regions of central Russia,” continues Gladilin.

By the way, when in the USSR they tried in vain to develop a safe species of Sosnovsky’s hogweed for use in agriculture, in Great Britain giant hogweed had already become the object of a targeted fight, which is still being carried out with varying success.

A real fight against the pest, not an “ideological” one.