Help pull out, stamp out, or cut off dyer's woad in Rich County

Get your bag at 150 So. (Bess Huefner's) and fill it with woad. It is worth $10 a bag when full.

Dyer's woad is native to Russia, and was introduced as a crop in 18th-Century England for the extraction of a blue dye from its leaves. Dyers woad was introduced to Utah from Ireland in 1910, as a contaminant in alfalfa seed. The state of Utah has lost millions of dollars in crop damage and loss of wildlife habitat. Tens of thousands of acres in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming are infested with this perennial.

Dyer’s woad often grows on dry, coarse-textured, rocky soils. It is capable of invading both undisturbed and disturbed sites, such as roadsides, railroad right-of-ways, fields, pastures, grain and alfalfa fields, forests, and rangeland, especially big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) communities. Dyer’s woad is highly competitive, often completely dominating a site. It spreads rapidly once established.

In France in 1598, King Henry IV favored woad producers by banning the import of indigo, and in 1609 decreed that anyone using the dye would be executed.— Brandon Tensley, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Nov. 2020

Until the advent of synthetic dyes, woad was cultivated in great plantations that were for a time a mainstay in some colonial economies