permaculture

["Kirby Fry" <peace@totalaccess.net>]

Rick,

So the usnea is a lichen?

Yes, a friend of ours was just about to buy a home and the big oaks in the
front yard were covered with lichens.  They consulted me and I said it may
indicate some decline of the oaks, they did seem to be more heavily covered
than the other trees next door, but that I wouldn't touch the lichens or
worry about it too much - just let the baby oaks grow up underneath.

Of course they had to call an urban tree pruiner who for about $800 U.S.
would go and pull down most of the lichens while pruining the trees.  They
ended up not getting the house, but it goes to show the austere sort of
ecosystems we are accustomed to and seek.

Kirby


----- Original Message -----
From: Rick Valley <bamboogrove@cmug.com>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Turning Deserts into Woodlands


>
>
> > From: "Kirby Fry" :
> > I would love to study and better understand the relationship between
> > precipitation and vegetative covers.
>
> Mollison got me looking for examples. I've never been able to get photos,
> but I have seen recently cut areas devoid of cloud when adjacent forest is
> covered, including a HUGE cut in Southern Beech forest in NZ (1500 acres
at
> least) that was the only open spot in the cloud cover in the mountains.
> Here, the big trees (1-2 meter) Douglas Firs) behind my house drip
> constantly on foggy nights or days.
>
> One friend remembers the stream thru his farm flowing all year, before the
> forest above was converted to grazing. Now he pumps from his well to allow
> the tree frogs time to mature in a small dam.
>
> Another can barely keep her garden watered from the creek, when the guy
she
> bought from used to keep 6 big rainbirds blasting out over the whole 10
> acres of pasture, 25 years ago. But the floods are worse now; county road
> culverts aren't big enough. Nearly the entire catchment above has been
> clearcut; the first cut which went into the 1930's, was selective; no one
> wasted time on little trees or making huge slash piles.
>
> I had an ecologist at OSU tell me that my ideas were crazy, trees wouldn't
> improve the situation on Willamette valley low elevation land (as opposed
to
> studies showing fog drip up in the Cascade mountains) The next day I saw a
> trapped cloud downwind of a "shelter belt", the narrow line of trees in a
> gully. Weren't any other clouds anywhere else down on the land in that
> wind...
>
> They call lichens "barba de palo" in Spanish; ask any hirsute male what
> happens with his facial hair in a moist wind. Dripping wet. People always
> ask me if they should pull the Usnea off their trees, if it's harmful?
>
> -Rick
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