Volunteers remove invasive air potatoes
COASTAL WATCH
The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation’s (SCCF) Coastal Watch reported that this winter, while the tides were too low to restore oyster reefs, a few volunteers stayed on land to help remove invasive air potatoes. The air potato is one of Sanibel’s most stubborn non-native aggressive species. The fast-growing vine can climb up to 70 feet, smothering and choking out native plants along the way. The vine dies off in the winter, leaving the bulbils, or “potatoes,” behind to resprout in the spring. The volunteers helped to remove countless bulbils to reduce the spread of the aggressive, invasive plants.