Battling buckthorn

There’s not a lot to like about the stout, spiked branches of the aggressively invasive buckthorn tree. “Buckthorn is spreading actively across the landscape, facilitated by birds eating the berries and spreading seeds,” says Mark Renz, assistant professor of agronomy at UW-Madison and a UW-Extension weed specialist. “The way it is changing the forest understory is really an epidemic in the upper Midwest.”