North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Tom Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>]

Hello,

My father in-law has a 300 acre pasture for grazing cattle.  It has been grazed by cattle for close to 100 years.  There are a couple of wild apple trees in the pasture, and a number of seedlings.

What I can tell you is that in this particular pasture is that they are not invasive.  Cattle eat the fallen apples and spread the seed (through manure) around the acreage.

The adult trees have been severely dwarfed by cattle browsing, and seedlings are stripped of leaves as soon as they grow them.  You can find a number of apple seedlings under 3' tall that are very "bonsai" in appearance.

The same holds true for wild pears.

Later,
Tom

"Lon J. Rombough" wrote:

They might do the trick, though for me the time and expense of fencing the place, providing water for the cattle, etc. would be prohibitive.  Goats work well with the blackberries here.  The trick is to mow the plants once so that the clumps all produce new, green shoots that the goats love and will keep eating.   Same problems as with the cattle, though.
-Lon Rombough

 
From: "tanis cuff" <tanistanis@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Sun, 01 Sep 2002 14:40:36 +0000
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [NAFEX] Re: VEG/Rubus control
 

A little off the main vein for NAFEX, but re Rubus as an invasive genus----
There is an experiment being run by our UW & Extension in southwest
Wisconsin, studying rotational grazing by scots highland cattle.  A
brousing-grazing breed.  Turns out they really set back all our Rubus !
Native red raspberries, black raspberries, & black berries all will fill up
a woods if not subjected to grazing, mowing, burning, other disturbance.  I
don't think they are as much an issue as the Evergreen & Himalayan b.b.s.
And I don't know if the same impact could be got from grazing in your
climate.  But maybe rotational grazing is worth learning about.

Tanis Cuff
 

>From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
>Reply-To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
>To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] VEGETERIAN
>Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 19:12:27 -0700
>
>Some crabapple species are invasive, and though I see volunteer apples of
>the cultivated species popping up here and there, here in Oregon, I
>wouldn't
>call them invasive.  The Himalaya blackberry IS invasive here, though the
>fruit is quite good.  The Evergreen blackberry is also invasive here.
>Problem is, anything that might be brought in to control the invasive
>types,
>(insects and diseases) would also attack the cultivated types, and they are
>big business here, so the invaders keep spreading.  Something that can
>layer
>itself 20 feet from the original plant, come up from any root piece left in
>the ground, and spread seedlings anywhere birds go HAS to be considered
>invasive.
>-Lon Rombough
>Grapes, writing, consulting, more, plus word on The Grape Grower at
>http://www.bunchgrapes.com
>
>From: "Mike Levine" <mlevine@umich.edu>
>Reply-To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
>Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 20:35:43 -0400
>To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [NAFEX] VEGETERIAN
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Denny Davidson <mailto:ddavidson@mwci.net>
>To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
>Sent: Saturday, August 31, 2002 10:43 AM
>Subject: [NAFEX] VEGETERIAN
>
>You asked...
>
>ARE YOU IMPLYING THAT PROPIGATING APPLES ETC MAY NOT BE ETHICAL? THAT IS
>SOMETHING THAT I HAVEN'T CONSIDERED..  WOW...DENNIS DAVIDSON ZONE 5 N.
>ILLINOIS
>
>I haven't found apples to be invasive in my area, although I suppose it's
>possible somewhere else given the right set of environmental factors.  You
>have to know your own home place for what are weeds and what are not.  In
>my
>area (and many others) Autumn Olive/Russian Olive (Eleagnus spp.), European
>Cranberry Bush (Viburnum opulus), and Japanese Barberry (Berberis
>thunbergii) have edible fruits and are all generally agreed to be invasive
>species.  I suppose Multiflora rose (Rosa Multiflora) is edible too,
>although a little bitter compared to roses with larger hips.  There are
>also
>the Himalayan blackberries all over the west coast and other places.  Lots
>of people don't mind these, but I know many west coast gardeners and
>ecologists who battle it and insist its a big problem.  Besides, the
>cultivated varieties of blackberries really do taste better anyway and are
>usually not quite as agressive.  Someone also had also mentioned something
>about the rootstocks of bradford pears have been spreading around the New
>England States...
>
>Mike Levine
>Ann Arbor, MI
>
>
>
 
 
 

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--
Thomas Olenio
Ontario, Canada
Hardiness Zone 6a