ABSTRACT
Under sponsorship of the US Army Corps of Engineers, a multifaceted research program is being conducted on major aquatic weed species in the United States. Alligator weed was an early target of this research due to the difficulty of controlling the weed chemically. Preliminary studies on the chemical control of alligator weed and water hyacinth in Louisiana were made in 1950 under a research contract with the New Orleans District of the US Army Corps of Engineers and Tulane University. Since that time, phenoxy herbicides have been widely used for control of these two aquatic weeds. The cooperative investigation of the biological control of this weed was initiated between the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1959. ARS personnel conducted host specificity studies at the USDA research station in Argentina and at the USDA-ARS Biological Control Laboratory in California.
