There’s up to $2000 to be won by students who are serious moth pod hunters—one pod at a time.
“The best green jam ever” is how one of the Macleans College students described the launch of the Moth Plant Pod Competition at the Pestival hosted at Howick College recently.
Run by the Pest Free Howick team, the competition is open to all students (Years 9 to 13) who attend one of the 12 secondary schools in the Howick Ward.
Students can register in teams or as individuals, then they go out into the community and collect the Moth Pods off the vines (one pod has approximately 250 to 1000 seeds). If students pull out small vines by the roots, it will count as one pod.
The team or individual with the most pods wins!
Students must send in a photo with the moth pods as proof of their work–one photo per team/individual.
As part of the competition requirements students must include the location of vines to the community organisation Society Totally Against Moth Plant (STAMP) run by Richard Henty – a Howick local and teacher at Howick College.
Students must email the location of the vine to mothplantlocations@gmail.comin to enable further work to be done on the vines—just in case they are too big for the students to deal with.
The last date of competition and disposal of the pods collected coincides with the Annual Weed Swap Event on Saturday May 4 and disposal bins at Lloyd Elsmore Park (Bells Rd Entrance) from April 23 to May 6. Moth pods can also be bagged up and disposed of in the weekly landfill waste bins.
There is $2000 in prize money.
Prize Draw for the Moth Plant Pod Competition 2019 will be held at Howick College on Thursday May 23, 4pm. Prizes will be presented by Barry Potter, Auckland Council, Director Infrastructure & Enviro Services and John Spiller, of the Howick Local Board.
Last year’s winner was Amelali Vaka from Botany Downs Secondary College with 1083 Moth Pods.
