Mustards are invading California! And no its not bottles of Heinz

Mustard flowers spread atop a hill near a highway in Mission Viejo, while they are viewed as a common member of the native plant life, one environmentalist says they’re actively harming it. Nathan Porter | Lariat

This picture of lush yellow flowers filling up a field doesn’t seem to have much wrong with it at first glance, after all, it’s common for plants to sprout after heavy rainfall.

However, the flowers in this photo are an invasive species called mustards. While they are pretty, they do heavy damage to the native ecosystem here in California.

These plants take up vital space and nutrients for the native plant life, which in turn limits the variety of plant life in our ecosystem. Mustards in particular are known to produce broad leaves which act as big solar panels, capturing sunlight so that the plant can photosynthesize and grow as quickly as possible. 

This invasion didn’t start recently, however, far from it as a matter of fact. The plant can be traced all the way back to the 18th century when Spanish explorers brought them in from the Mediterranean who grew them in abundance as it thrived in the warm California climate and quickly spread. Now over 200 years later, the invasive mustard plants remain, and now it’s basically seen as a staple of California’s plant life with fields of them growing everywhere.

“The last I heard was around 200 different invasive plant species in California, and most of them are mustard species,” said Matt Yurko, instructor of environmental studies at Saddleback College.“There’s a few different species of mustards around two or three that we see very commonly here in California, but short pod mustards like the one we see in this photo and black mustards are two of the species we usually see the most.”

There are thousands of plant species in California so around 200 invasive species may not seem like a big deal, however while their numbers are small, their impact on the ecosystem is not.

“I would say like I said before the last thing I heard was around 1800 native plant species in California, and then 200 are considered invasive,” Yurko said. “And so it’s a small percentage but I think the understanding, the notion of invasive plants means that they spread rapidly and grow quickly, and so their impact is disproportionate to the number of species that exist. They can have a larger impact than it otherwise might seem.”

The plants are a problem and Yurko, the staff and students at the environmental department recognize that, and do their part to remove them.

“We often work with students or volunteers to help remove plants like that,” Yurko said. “Some of the bigger species might require bigger equipment  like chainsaws if they’re invasive trees, specific herbicides are also sometimes used within the process of ecological restoration if there’s a big infestation and as long as that’s done responsibly it can be very effective at removing these plants.”

Mustards have become a common part of California’s plant life despite its invasive status. And while they’re not on the level of fossil fuels or wildfires, at the end of the day it’s just another thing that harms the environment yet gets treated as normal.

“We should adjust our activities so that we can maintain as much of a healthy environment as possible,” Yurko said. “Because a healthy environment supports our everyday lives.”

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