Mechanical Weed Control

Our hand-pull crew was started in 1981 to work on pulling Musk Thistle for a few landowners who could not control it themselves. Thus evolved our crew. We do have a long history of hand-pulling, not only Musk, but many other noxious weeds, plus mapping and surveying. Our crew really is a success story and they have achieved many accomplishments in the world of noxious weeds.

When we first started, the members were not county employees. At that time, we had a private contractor who operated the crew and paid each member. Now, we hire the crewmembers as part-time county employees for the summer months. Each year we usually have the same crew members return for their position on the crew. Very seldom do we hire new people because they need the summer work for school and college. Many of the members, because of working out in the field on Noxious Weeds, are making their career choices in Biology, Forestry, Agriculture, Botany and other related fields. Many of the members have also become our Field Inspectors, which saves time and money in training and travel. This program can be a GREAT success for future employees for the Noxious Weed offices around the United States. Let's face it! You never forget a weed you've pulled for years to eradicate! The education stays with you and we have many hilarious stories to remember. We have also met thousands of landowners through this program. Our office uses the crew for private landowners, who hire them after they receive our letters of notification of weeds present.

The Musk crew consists of 4 to 6 people, and the Scotch Thistle crew consists of 5 to 6 people, from 15 years old and up. When hiring, we want the best possible workers. Experience in farm or ranch work helps a great deal in knowing how to work outdoors and knowing the importance of controlling weeds for their livelihoods.

	The Musk crew mainly works in the north end of Okanogan County eradicating Musk Thistle around Oroville, Tonasket, Loomis, Wauconda, Aeneas Valley and Chesaw.

The Scotch crew is contracted out to the Colville Confederated Tribes and only performs work on the Reservation. They are based in Okanogan and work in the south end of the reservation, which is part of Okanogan County. The Scotch hand-pull crew was started in 1999 and they had a very productive first year.

A Field Inspector is in charge of supervising and organizing the Hand-pull crew for the field season and works with them on each landowner's property.

Crew Leaders duties are: Time sheets, Landowner field sheets, gathering aerial maps, and working with crew on properties. Crew members are paid an hourly wage by the landowner hiring them to work.

ATV's and horses are used when necessary on larger and more mountainous terrain. Especially on large acreages, this can reduce our hours by covering the ground faster and provides the landowner with the best possible price.

I can see a real need for our Hand-pull crew in our county and in other counties. There seems to be so much more work in weed control now, one or two people can not do all of it without the help of extra people during the window of time we have. I have several ideas and suggestions on "How" to start a hand-pull crew and make it a success for other counties. Please, feel free to ask questions or come and see our Crews in action!

We utilize the County Jail trustees to hand pull right-of-ways for the area's State and County roads.

We are planning to utilize them to help our senior citizens with weed control on their private property.

The trustee's will also work during town clean up day to help beautify our towns.
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Mechanical Control