permaculture

["Dylan Ford" <dford@suffolk.lib.ny.us>]

From: "rafter t. sass"
Subject: [permaculture] phragmites end-of-thread


> As for "of course you can use it for compost," if you dig just a little
> further into those google results you find enough scientific studies
> indicating allelopathic effects from root exudates and foliage to give
pause
> before applying it to your garden.
>
> best,
> rafter

rafter,

As usual I am hopelessly behind on my e-mails so I have just come upon this
thread. Long ago I was fooling around with ideas for using phragmites in
agro contexts, as it would obviously a terrific resource if some use could
be made, grows nearly anywhere, requires no attention of any kind.

I live on Long Island where phragmites has overwhelmed vast patches of
wetlands (salt and fresh marsh), where once grew wet spartina grass meadows,
grass that long ago was used to pasture animals and mulch gardens (salt
hay). A friend of mine bought a14 acre waterfront property thirty years ago,
7 acres of which were formerly a salt marsh. A commercial duck farm had
leased the marsh (before wetlands protection) before he bought it, erected
earthen sod dikes around the margins and pumped duck doody from a deeply
befouled river bed all over it, seven feet deep, after which phragmites
galloped across the entire thing. We were making moves to restore the salt
marsh when he was bitten by a tick and became one of the early Lyme's
disease sufferers, nearly died. End of restoration attempt.

My ambition had been to try to interest stable owners in using chopped
phragmites reeds for animal bedding, and then to compost it, but the tick
problem put that idea permanently to bed (so to speak). The phragmites on
Long Island are tick infested.

Also, though phragmites supposedly rarely sets viable seed (spreads by root)
, obviously it occasionally does, which makes it a high risk mulch. Once
phragmites takes hold it is incredibly difficult (read: impossible) to get
rid of it, and I have seen it clogging streambeds and fields far from the
sea. I still think there is some potential in there, but the dangers and
difficulties of messing with it has cooled my interest. I was not aware of
the allelopathic possibility.

If I was going to experimentally try to use it as compost, I think I would
want to get permission (if it is far from homes, forests, etc.) to burn it
over once in late winter (kill ticks and seeds), stock it with guinea foul
in the spring (eat returning ticks), and mow it constantly before it got
tall and dense and set seed.  dylan


Dylan Ford is the author of the proposal at www.ideaforpresident.com , a
website devoted to an idea that could provide an avenue to address pollution
issues, food safety, social justice, prison reform and healthcare.