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| melaleuca trees |
and the edges of swamps. Famous Melaleuca is also known as tea tree which contains an essential oil, notable anti-fungal, and antibiotic properties. Because of those medicinal value tee tree oil is used in many topical applications. There are some multi-level businesses (melaleuca.com) that sell health and wellness products based on metaleuca and provide home-based business opportunity to its consumers.
Melaleuca quinquenervia (Broad-leaved Paperbark) was introduced in the Florida Everglades in the past few decades in order to help drain low-lying swampy areas. However, now it seems to have become serious disaster to the Everglades. These plants are highly flammable, suck a lot water and are able to spread aggressively as they swallowed up precious marshes, mangrove forests, and tree islands.
Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has come up with an idea to control melaleuca trees. The proposal calls for releasing massive amount of snout beetle because of their ability gobble up the leaves of invasive plants like melaleuca. Weevils known as the Australian snout beetle, were released into the wild over a decade ago and, since then, they have been munching the leaves of melaleuca trees to stop them from spreading seeds.
The federal scientists, at the Invasive Plant Research laboratory (IPRL) of Agricultural Research Services (ARS) of the USDA, in Davie, FL, will rear tens of thousands of the snout beetles and other useful insects over the next few years to successfully combat melaleuca. They hope that within 10 years melaleuca will be a non-issue.
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