Ray's Thought for the Day
King Ranch bluestem (Bothriochloa ischaemum) made it to the the top on the Texas Parks and Wildlife's draft list of invasive plants in Texas. TxDOT has removed KR from it's seeding specs, maybe. Now we are challenged with getting a bunch of people riled up enough about some of the most injurious invasives to do something, about them, the invasives.
RGVECB is going to give this considerable thought, and we urge the Druidry in these parts to do the same. One interesting idea is to have a Smokey the Bear type to advocate for native plants. We have some ideas, of course. How about Boot Curt? A cartoon graminoid who fights for native plants and is always having to rescue his girlfriend, Curly Miss Keet from evil invasives.
While we're at it, how about some really nasty sounding common names for introduced plants? Instead of the benignly inaccurate KR, we could call it Satan's Weiner bunchgrass. Buffelgrass is way too cute. It needs to be Sin-grass or Yo-mama-is-my- ho-grass, maybe. Chinese tallow needs a common name something like slimyboogertree.
Once things progress a little further, perhaps we can name all these invasive plants after the politicians that, through their cynical neglect and profound ignorance of and inattention to the land have allowed these weeds to flourish. How does Bushprivet sound? That one name would cover a multitude of sins and obviate the need for having to identify all the different kinds of privets. Spray the dang thang. It's just one of them Bushprivets.
RGVECB is going to give this considerable thought, and we urge the Druidry in these parts to do the same. One interesting idea is to have a Smokey the Bear type to advocate for native plants. We have some ideas, of course. How about Boot Curt? A cartoon graminoid who fights for native plants and is always having to rescue his girlfriend, Curly Miss Keet from evil invasives.
While we're at it, how about some really nasty sounding common names for introduced plants? Instead of the benignly inaccurate KR, we could call it Satan's Weiner bunchgrass. Buffelgrass is way too cute. It needs to be Sin-grass or Yo-mama-is-my- ho-grass, maybe. Chinese tallow needs a common name something like slimyboogertree.
Once things progress a little further, perhaps we can name all these invasive plants after the politicians that, through their cynical neglect and profound ignorance of and inattention to the land have allowed these weeds to flourish. How does Bushprivet sound? That one name would cover a multitude of sins and obviate the need for having to identify all the different kinds of privets. Spray the dang thang. It's just one of them Bushprivets.
posted by ray pistrum at Friday, November 18, 2005
7 Comments:
This makes no sense to me all this bad mouthin about these perfectly fine plants, they do no harm. They just grow like there are supposed to. Plus the can grow under the crappy conditions we created around us and lots of the indigenous species can't because the conditions are so different.
None of these plants has invented a bulldozer, a motorgrater, a tractor. they don't clear land or spread goats, sheep, pigs and cattle over every inch of open land. They don't mine, drill, plow, dredge or build dams. They just fill in the wasteland we have created. I admire them for that, they are tough bastards to live well in such a shitwell we have made. If we had never turned our world into such a shitty wasteland they would have never had a place to grow.
I agree with almost all of yer comment. However, since I don't want them around me, and would rather have native plants around me, I have decided to eliminate them at the Cow Barn to the extent that is practical. Of course there is no point worrying about them much in seriously ruderal areas. But what about dedicated preserves and the like? I am also willing to expend some effort to keep them out of preserves and work to restore some areas that are not too far gone jsut so I wn't have to look at so many of them. Also, some of these spread to some extent regardless of disturbance, maybe. Besides, I like to feel guilty about everything. Also, in a weak moment, I took the weed buster pledge at the conference before I thought about what I was doing. How are the bracted twist flowers coming along?
I don't think there is any thing wrong with trying to control a plant species that goes out of control but the real solution to bring back some control is reducing the impacts of disturbance especially for larger tracts of land.
I got a good idea on how to do that. Just like we got a gas tax to pay for roads we need a food tax to pay for restoration. we pay some of the lowest prices in the world for food. We could pay to take maginal land out of grazing and cultivation. the government needs to stop paying huge subsidies to corporate farmers to keep prices high enough to make it pay to grow damageing crops like cotton and alfalfa etc.
We should tax Sugar, Beef, pork, vegetable oils plus all the highly processed foods and things like ice cream, candy, chocolate and soda. And leave basic commodities like flour, rice, beans, bread, milk, eggs etc unchanged. Also make it easier to convert farm and ranch land into widlife habitat but tax it at a slightly higher rate than farm land. Also change the ag tax so that crops that really wear out the soil and need lots of fertiliers, pesticides and water are not given the lowerest tax rates. And expand programs like the CRP and pay for them out of the food tax.There are lots you could do to promote better land practices and to also control development with out ruining the economy, all these things actually do something postive towards a solution as oppose to making some plants illegal.
The Streptanthus grow pretty slow this time of the year, most have got to 4 leaf stage, maybe next month they will be ready to transplant into larger pots
I actually had a cotyledon in the bed the other day. So I got all excited and watered it. That night it froze and I couldn't find it the next day.
Yep. Agricultural subsidies should be stopped. Also, all this crappy research the USDA does. For example there is a public notice out now for some introduced grass that was genetically altered to be herbicide resistant. I forget what it was, but I think it was a fescue. Anyway, the planned use is for golf courses. The USDA is requesting comments on this. My comment is that everyone associated with the research on this golf course grass should be deported to Iraq.
Doing anything to stop the importation of exotics is already a lost cause. What we have to do is weed out the ones that are truly invasive.
I sort of wondering how responible the government is for realyy spreading the worst invasive plant species with the exception of aqutic ones.
Tamarisk was spread on government recomendation for erosion control, kudzu was for animal feed and erosion control and little plants were grown and provided to farmers by the millions. It really takes a federal program to spread a plant over an area of many states, tallow tree was brought in for it's wax. I wonder waht percetage of really wide spread invasive plants have a history with the government, All the crappy grasses here have been promoted and some distributed by them which is why it really pisses me off to hear some Government conservation person lecture me about the danger of the exotics I grow.
Yepper. The USDA has been the worst offender and the agencies under the USDA, like NRCS were not very well represent at the Invasive Plant Conference. I don't really think it's a good idea to traffic in any exotic biota unless one has a pretty good idea that they are benign in most respects.
I sure don't think we ought to be taxed to bring in exotics and then develop bioengineered strains of them to turn loose.
Hi Ray,
You sound like my friends and I!
We are native plant and native ecosystem enthusiasts, conservationists, and restorationists. We are also haters of non-native invasive plants like King Ranch Bluestem (which a friend suggested we call Terrorist Grass to give it a bad name).
I am involved in two organizations I think you would be interested in:
Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT):
http://npsot.org/
Native Prairies Association of Texas (NPAT):
http://texasprairie.org/
The purpose of the Native Plant Society of Texas is to promote the conservation, research and utilization of the native plants and plant habitats of Texas, through education, outreach and example.
The Native Prairies Association of Texas (NPAT) is a non-profit membership organization and land trust dedicated to the conservation, restoration, and appreciation of native prairies in Texas and throughout the United States.
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