Talk:Jacobaea vulgaris

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hi MPF,

My source for teh scottish origin was http://www.crescentbloom.com/Plants/Specimen/SE/Senecio%20jacobaea.htm which generally I found a reliable source.

What source do you have for removing it? TeunSpaans 19:04, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I tend to agree that it does sound unlikely. TeunSpaans 19:14, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Height of Tansy Ragwort

I changed the maximum height of Tansy Ragwort to 2 meters. I am the manager of a noxious weed control program on the west coast of Canada and we commonly find plants growing to 2+ meters in height.

I can support this also for the UK. I am the Research manager for Ragwort-UK ltd and have frequently recorded plants over 2m tall growing in fertile land with good water supply. These are not rare strains of ragwort, any plant can reach these proportions if given the right conditions. These giants typically have ca 12 major stems originating from the crown and the total seed production has been estimated to be in excess of 2 million seeds for the whole plant.

DerekSmith

I have removed the following paragraph.

Since 1996, the population of Ragwort in the UK has substantially increased due to Wolf-Sheep Predation Dynamics and 1988 success of Ragwort's only major predator, the Cinnabar Moth. + - The population of ragwort has continued to grow since the early nineties and is now becoming a problem for animals. Ragwort is highly toxic to animals. Usually horses are able to discriminate the ragwort, see Poisonous effects. Horses have eaten it in hay, or ironically after it has been cut down after trying to protect the horses.

There is someone who is trying to promote the idea that the cinnabar moth has undergone a population crash in the UK and that consequently a plague of ragwort has ensued as it supports the sale of the moths as a biological control. It has got repeated many times as a result of a marketing campaign. However, as any competent British entomologist ( insect specialist) will tell you, this is not so. The moth has remained common and whilst in common with most British moths a decline in numbers can be shown statistically there is no known correlation with any increase generally in the ragwort population.

Ragwort has not increased either. There is no plague. The remainder of the paragraph simply repeats information that is better covered elsewhere in the article, therefore I deleted it.

Neilj

Too many red links!

Self-explanatory. Bibliomaniac15 00:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

removed a link ragwortfacts, cause that link is have to many unproven suggestions, ans the website forget to look at the primary literature where th WHO report points. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Falka (talk • contribs) 10:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the other changes introduced by that last group of edits sound very POV and tend to promote the individual's business more than I think is acceptable. I also notice Googling around that a commercial website run by the same editor contains the same statement that Neilj removed from the article before as a central marketing theme. I am relatively new to this editing business as I think as we have some obviously expert naturalists (looking at the names) that I will leave it to you people to handle for now but we need some better sources for one or two things in the article particularly toxicity.