[APWG] Wildflower Seed Postcards, only 1/1000th as bad as the Federal government? mix"

[Craig Dremann]

Dear All,

Isn't the few grams of wildflowers contained in all the postcards sold
at gift shops in the entire USA every year, that unsuspecting visitors
might buy and without knowing, sow seeds and release an exotic into our
public lands, really extremely low on the scale of possible exotic
introductions every year, compared to what Federal agencies
intentionally sow themselves?

The Federal government, hires professional botanists and ecologists, who
are trained to know better about NOT SOWING EXOTICS, intentionally sows
hundreds of thousands of pounds of exotic seeds onto our public lands
every year. 

Here's an example of only one year's exotic seed purchase from only one
Federal agency, the BLM:

Crested Wheatgrass.......Total bulk pounds......28,200
Siberian wheatgrass......Total bulk pounds......29,200
Intermediate wheatgrass..Total bulk pounds...... 5,500
Pubescent wheatgrass.....Total bulk pounds......66,100
Russian Wildrye..........Total bulk pounds......70,000
Smooth Brome.............Total bulk pounds...... 4,300
Orchardgrass.............Total bulk pounds...... 4,400
Annual ryegrass..........Total bulk pounds......16,500
Triticale................Total bulk pounds......12,500
Alfalfa..................Total bulk pounds......47,200
Yellow sweetclover.......Total bulk pounds...... 7,100
Sainfoin.................Total bulk pounds......11,100
Small burnet.............Total bulk pounds.....128,300
Forage Kochia............Total bulk pounds......23,200
=============================================================
Persistent exotics being sown on BLM land......453,600

In addition to the 453,000 pounds of exotic seeds being sown on our
public lands every year by BLM, there's a certain percentage of weed
seeds allowed when the government purchases seeds, like cheatgrass, and
even at 1%, that means an additional TWO TONS of weed seeds were sown
along with the exotics.

Probably any person would agree, that the scale of the Federal
government's intentional sowing of exotics and weed seeds, dwarfs by a
factor of maybe 1,000 times, the total amount of "wildflower postcard"
seeds being sown every year?

After 35 years in the seed business, and with the Federal government
hiring professionally trained botanists and ecologists, why does the
1950s exotic-sowing mind-set still persist, when we all know we should
never sow any exotic seed into wildlands/public lands/highway roadside 
situations? 

You can read more at http://www.ecoseeds.com/juicy.gossip.six.html

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann, Redwood City, CA (650) 325-7333