Colorado Noxious Weeds

The Colorado State Noxious Weed Act defines ‘noxious’ weeds as plants that are toxic and invasive. A lot of noxious weeds are very aggressive competitors. They can rapidly invade rangelands and cause serious decline in desired vegetation. Some of the weeds can be toxic and poisonous to livestock. For these reasons it is important to control toxic and invasive noxious weeds when they are present on your land.

These toxic and invasive noxious weeds can cause the following damage:

Yellow starthistle. Damage: livestock can be damage by it, it causes injuries and infections; may cause neurological poisoning in horses. Most livestock avoid it and the productivity of rangeland decreases.

Russian knapweed. Damage: poisonous to horses. It invades grasslands and competes heavily with forages, crowding out desired vegetation.

Leafy spurge. Damage: it can reduce rangeland carrying capacity by 50-75% through decreased grass production. Cattle will not graze in dense leafy spurge stands and these areas can be a 100% loss.

Tamarisk. Damage: it is very detrimental to the overall ecology of the landscape. It increases salinity of both groundwater and soil. It depletes groundwater reserves and can dry out springs, ponds, and wetlands.

Houndstongue. Damage: Toxic and invasive noxious weeds is very toxic to grazing animals, especially horses.

Common mullein. Damage: it grows much more rapidly than native species. Thus it can easily crowd out native vegetation.

Downy brome. Damage: it is also known as cheatgrass. It “cheats” other vegetation out of moisture. Its shallow root system enables it to extract as much water and nutrients as possible from the soil. It increases fire frequency on rangelands.

Poison hemlock. Damage: it is highly poisonous to humans, livestock, and the grazing animals. It causes redding of the skin, rash, blistering, and burning. The Western water hemlock is considered the most violently toxic plant in North America.

These are just few examples of damage caused by toxic and invasive noxious weeds. They can affect agriculture, wildlife forage, water supply. As a good steward of your land, you should work to keep your properties free of noxious weeds.

If you have toxic and invasive noxious weeds on your land, give us a call at (720)248-0000 or contact for a free estimate right away. Immediate actions are required. Do not let noxious weeds take over your property.