[APWG] Journal of Chemical Ecology for allelopathy, especially Liu's articles on barley

Fri Aug 19 23:46:08 CDT 2011

Dear Ty and All,

The best journal to read about allelopathy is the Journal of Chemical
Ecology, and Dr. Liu et al in 1993 wrote at least two papers on how to
measure the relative power of the chemicals produced by a species, and
used cereal barley plants as his test subjects.  Vol. 19, No. 10, 1993 ...
ASSESSING ALLELOPATHY IN BARLEY. and Biologically active secondary
metabolites of barley. II

The measurement of the effects of the Claytonia, Elymus glaucus and other
Elymus species is my own, using a tool I developed called the Species
Threshold Test, that measures the relative allelopathic effect of plants
against each other on a 1-100 scale.

On my scale, "One" means you look at the plant and it jumps out of the
ground, and 100 means that you need to buy a box of TNT.

Everyone doing any wildlands weeding, should be using allelopathy to your
advantage, as it is much easier than constant weeding.

By planting a native plant in the place of the weed that you have removed,
these native plants produce natural herbicides on a constant basis, and
suppress the dormant weed seeds that might still be in the soil, or that
might be introduced later.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333

> I agree with Craig regarding seeding native  perennial forest grasses and
> forbs after exotic removal to lessen re-establishment of exotics of all
> kinds.  I was interested in the utility of native Elymus species in weed
> suppression.  I have notes here in northern Utah that Elymus glaucus is an
> important understory species in our Quercus gambellii stands and may help
> exclude exotic annuals by allelopathy.  I would appreciate published
> references on allelopathic chemicals in native Elymus species.  Ty
> Harrison
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company" <Craig at astreet.com>
> To: <ialm at erols.com>; <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
> Cc: <rwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
> Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2011 9:13 AM
> Subject: [APWG] What about native grass and herbaceous perennial
> colonizers?
>
>
>> Dear Marc and All,
>>
>> You mention that when you are doing your weeding in Maryland and want
>> indigenous early succession species, you are mentioning non-grass
>> species?
>>
>> What about the native perennial forest grasses and herbaceous perennials
>> that we saw at the Great Falls National Park in Maryland when I was out
>> teaching classes to DELDOT in 2000, or the other native grasses like the
>> Little Bluestem that I saw growing along the BWI Parkway in places?
>>
>> The Elymus or Wild Ryes that have been so successful here in the West,
>> and
>> in the forests of the East, a pinch of local seeds of the Canadian and
>> Virginia wild ryes should be sown in every spot where you pull a weed.
>> These wild ryes are strongly allelopathic, giving off natural herbicides
>> that will suppress the resprouting of weeds seeds that may still be in
>> the
>> soil wherever you have already weeded.
>>
>> Sowing in wild ryes immediately after weeding an area, is like putting
>> in
>> permanent weed seed suppression workers, plus they help start the
>> natural
>> succession. The switchgrass, little bluestem, indiangrass and gama
>> grasses
>> would do the same thing, but the seed for the wild rye would be the
>> cheapest and easiest to start with, then you could graduate to the more
>> expensive grasses once you get the wild ryes figured out.
>>
>> Also, everyone should look at the herbaceous perennials, like DELDOT did
>> over a decade ago, that you can read at
>> http://www.ecoseeds.com/deldot.html when I did a class for them on
>> roadside native plants.  It might be interesting to go back and view the
>> DELDOT plantings, and see what worked after a decade?
>>
>> The weeders of the East coast, should be looking at replanting all of
>> the
>> non-tree and non-shrub forest understory plants that should be there in
>> your Eastern forests, like the sunflower family which will produce the
>> cheapest seeds like the goldenrods and rudbeckias, which at the same
>> time
>> are very excellent weed killers.
>>
>> Also try the legume family, the Claytonia which is a very strong
>> allelopathic plant and a good weed killer,  and try all of the
>> Eupatoriums, the milkweed, and the mint family.
>>
>> And do not forget two other strong weed killer of Maryland, the Blue
>> Eyed
>> grass or Sisyrinchium and the native violets that will have to be
>> planted
>> as plugs.  And the frosting on the cake would be to replant a few
>> Silenes
>> or some Shooting stars around your restoration sites, in the proper
>> places
>> for them.
>>
>> Once you surround your weeding efforts with 99% cover of these local
>> native grasses and native herbaceous plants, they can permanently
>> suppress
>> the weed seeds from ever germinating, and that is very useful to protect
>> the spots where you have weeded already.
>>
>> I hope this information is useful for the East Coast weeders reading
>> this
>> list, and this method would work for anywhere in the world where you are
>> weeding out exotic plants, and want to end up with a weed-free local
>> ecosystem as the end product.
>>
>> We need to go from weeding, to restoring 99% cover native grass and
>> herbaceous perennial understories that can help keep the weeds from ever
>> coming back.
>>
>> Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333
>>
>>
>>
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>> opinion of the individual posting the message.
>>
>>
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