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homestead - Re: [Homestead] Don't feed your bees on rhodies, laurels or azaleas

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  • From: Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Don't feed your bees on rhodies, laurels or azaleas
  • Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2006 23:26:56 -0700

Don Bowen wrote:

Driving through Nevada I heard a radio program that was discussing a real problem they are having with a non native grass. They called it Cheat Grass but the fire fighters are calling it gas grass. It seems that it is invasive and was introduced by Russian Immigrants. The problem is that it is prolific and during fires is almost explodes and can spread a fire very quickly. It is also one of the first to come back after a fire, crowding out other plants, setting the stage for the next explosive wildfire. They are studying ways to eradicate the stuff.

Does it make the headlines when a non-native plant resists burning, or when a native bursts into flames readily?

Then there is always that other Russian import and noxious weed, Russian Thistle, better known as Tumbleweed. I have also heard what the Missouri DNR does if they find Twessle (sp) on your property. It was a plant imported to use in the wool industry.


There's no tumbleweed here, but I'm familiar with it. How many miles away does the problem have to be happening in order to require changing your behavior as a result of it, to warrant a reactionary law against it in your locale? 500 miles? 1000 miles? One state away, in the case of the Oregon statute? That land mass (Oregon plus the states touching it) would be the tenth largest country on earth, if it were one, roughly.

As to the motives of botanists, there's no equivalent of the Scientific Method in the realm of ethics; the Scientific Method just deals with factual aspects. Botanists are just as likely to form their values from their mother's knee, their professors, or their own self-interest, as anyone else. I'd never really thought of it much, but nativism will provide fantastic new opportunities for field botanists. Not only will the imagined re-emergence of previously unknown natives offer hypothetical chances of new plant discoveries, but there will also be many new jobs for inspectors to come to my property and ensure my compliance with draconian laws. Another thing to consider is that botanists are often employed by these agribusiness industries, whose mission it is to shift the blame from their own clear cutting and overgrazing operations (nearly always monocultures) onto us.

I'm sure none of this would be happening if not for the fact that every agribusiness interest will tell you that same exact sentence, with the name of the "weed" changed: we can control all the other weeds with weed killer, but we actually have to hire people to go out and remove weed X, or spend money and lose productivity in some other way.

Bill
S. Oregon coast






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