[APWG] Small error in San Francisco Chronicle article on star thistle

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear All,

Thanks Olivia, for pointing out the article on the yellow star thistle
that was published in the SF Chronicle at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/30/HOEPUKTTJ.DTL

One tiny error, that can make a big difference on how management of that
weed, and many other weeds are viewed.

The article states that "It pushes out native plants", but we have
measured just the opposite interaction between the YST and natives.

YST only grows well, wherever the native understory has been completely
removed, like it has in 99% of lower elevation California.  Wherever you
have a good denisty of native plant understory, the YST is never any
problem.

This article is continuing to repeat the old, ancient mantra about the
problems of an individual invasive weed, instead of monitoring and
correcting the overall health of the native plant understory of an area.

That's what I am suggesting on my 1997 Megatransect page, at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/megatransect.html that we need to go out into each
State, and measure periodically what the health is of the native
understory, and see what areas are most vulnerable to weed infestations.

Then, in the most vulnerable areas, start the replanting of the native
understory to fill in the empty spaces, to deny weeds areas to get
established.  And that includes restoring the perennial native grass
understories of our Eastern forests, too.

Since 2000, I've done some informal understory surveys in Del., MD., GA
and Alabama, and I was surprising to see how denuded the eastern forest
understory is, but fortunately you can still find relic stands that can
give us a model to work towards, like the grasses at the Great Falls Park
in MD.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333