permaculture

[<permed@nor.com.au>]

>> A fellow there has been working with BLM to imitate fire patterns in the
>> forest. They brought in an enormous rubber-tired machine from Idaho that's
>> essentially a giant chipper: a huge grinding wheel in front  grabs whole
>> shrubs (manzanita trunks can be 8-10 inches diameter) and spews out small
>> sticks and chips. They cleared the understory of several hundred acres this
>> way, leaving small and large trees intact, and creating a mulch layer 3-6
>> inches deep.

Jean Pain invented his shredder initially to clear underbrush from forest 
to reduce fire risk and used the shedded mulch for gigantic compost heaps.

I wonder if there's a defecit of browsers in forests that get these large 
vegetative build-ups in the understory....
Robyn