North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@bellsouth.net>]

On 2/2/2012 11:44 PM, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:

> Its a matter of whether you would have bare ground to become eroded
> barren landscape, devoid of life, vegetation, wildlife and happy
> backhoes, bulldozers, track and skid loaders and groaning dumptrucks
> heading off to the landfill or acres or square miles of valuable plants.
> Its much harder to put the ecoscape back than it is to remove it. Think
> permaculture and put these "invasive plants" to use or work around them
> or at worst grind them up and spread the mulch on site to be planted
> with something else.
>
> This societal abberation that condones indiscriminate vegetation removal
> without replacement using machinery or herbicide needs to come to a
> screeching halt.

Fwd: New Insights into Invasive Plant Management
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: New Insights into Invasive Plant Management
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:32:52 -0500
From: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
--View this report online, plus photos and related stories, at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr
--Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/USDA_ARS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Read the magazine story
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/feb12/rangelands0212.htm> to find 
out more.*
A program called Ecologically-Based Invasive Plant Management developed
by ARS researchers can help restore rangelands choked with invasive
weeds like cheatgrass (top) to a healthy ecosystem with a mix of shrubs, 
perennials, grasses and forbs/./
    New Insights into Invasive Plant Management
By Ann Perry </is/contacts.htm#Ann>
February 3, 2012

Over a decade of research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
<http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome> (USDA) has resulted in
the development of a new matrix for invasive plant management. The model 
was created by scientists with the Agricultural Research Service
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/main.htm> (ARS) in Burns, Ore., and helps
land managers recognize how rangeland degradation processes vary across
landscapes. ARS is USDA's chief scientific research agency.

Using the model can also increase the success rate of restoring native
vegetation on damaged landscapes, which supports the USDA priority of
responding to climate change.

Ecologist Roger Sheley
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/pandp/people/people.htm?personid=35073>
synthesized a range of findings from scientific literature and field
research to develop the model, which is called Ecologically Based
Invasive-Plant Management <http://www.ebipm.org/> (EBIPM). The process
is a mix of plant establishment and succession theories, ecological
principles, the identification of parameters that contribute to invasive 
plant management, and management actions that help restore native forage 
plants for livestock and wildlife. Sheley works at the ARS Range and 
Meadow Forage Management Research Unit
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=53-60-00-00> in Burns.

Sheley and his colleagues based EBIPM on three general causes of plant
succession: site availability, species availability, and species
performance. They identified site-specific ecological processes that
influence plant succession dynamics and determined how these processes
are modified by environmental and human factors that affect plant
establishment and long-term vegetation change. This information can be
used to fine-tune the mechanisms and processes influencing plant
succession, all of which helps rout invasive plants and support the
return of native grasses and forbs.

Results from this work have been published in /Rangeland Ecology and
Management/ <http://www.srmjournals.org/loi/rama>, /Journal of Invasive
Plant Science and Management/ <http://wssajournals.org/loi/ipsm>, and
www.ebipm.org <http://www.ebipm.org/>.

Read more
<http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/feb12/rangelands0212.htm> about
Sheley's research in the February 2012 issue of /Agricultural Research/
magazine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ARS News Service, Information Staff, Agricultural Research Service
5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD 20705-5128
NewsService@ars.usda.gov | www.ars.usda.gov/news
Phone (301) 504-1636 | fax (301) 504-1486