[APWG] Try and get reveg costs down, plus quicker, better quality

[Wayne Tyson]

Dear Craig and all:

I continue to believe that these issues are very important to the alien 
species and restoration issues, so I am continuing to enter my responses to 
all comments into their texts [[thus WT]]. I do not believe that the 
discussions should be confined to Dremann and Tyson, and I invite critical 
contributions from everyone. I believe it would be helpful for us all to 
follow the practice of being directly responsive when commenting upon one 
another's posts, either by inserting our comments into the text being 
commented upon or by quoting the relevant text. This is necessary to 
minimize misunderstanding and to ensure clarity by being direct and 
relevant. I especially wish that Dremann would follow this kind of practice; 
otherwise I presume that he does not disagree with my statements about which 
he makes no comment.

Yr. Ob't. Sv't.,
WT


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company" <Craig at astreet.com>
To: <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>; <rwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 12:14 PM
Subject: [APWG] Try and get reveg costs down, plus quicker, better quality


Dear Wayne and All,

Thanks for your detailed replies.

Where we are so thoroughly weed infested like California, and starting
with 99% weed cover on most sites,  trying to achieve a long term 50%
native plant cover threshold in a California non-riparian grassland or
coastal sage scrub habitat, is like flying a jet plane and trying to break
the sound barrier.

[[I'm not sure I understand the analogy, but I don't remember where the 50% 
figure came from. There are certainly many places in CA and elsewhere where 
there are a lot of weeds, and cover is often 99% or more. WT]]

Even achieving the 95% native cover threshold like Shaw--is NOT GOOD
ENOUGH in California--you absolutely must plug up all of the empty niches
in upland grassland or coastal sage scrub ecosystems.  Otherwise,  the
weeds just move back into your beautiful 95% weed free areas, and occupy
those empty niches again.  Any open niches are like hanging out a
"vacancy" sign for the weeds to come back.

[[I discussed the niche and cover issues in my post previous to this one. 
I'm not looking to split hairs for nothing, but I think it's very important 
to have a clear understanding of what we mean by "niche." I certainly would 
like to see 100% indigenous stands with zero alien species, but I don't 
believe that that alone is either achievable or necessary to restore a 
functioning ecosystem. If Dremann means that any unoccupied space will be 
occupied by weeds, I would tend to agree with him (with certain caveats, 
most of which have been mentioned in previous posts, so I won't belabor them 
here). I would also agree that "Nature abhors a vacuum," and that "empty" 
spaces will tend to become occupied by something--very possibly weeds, 
either indigenous or alien. IF the actual niche (as a "microhabitat") is a 
"weed niche." If the niche lacks, for example, a critical feature that would 
complete its qualification as a weed niche, then, for that time and place, 
it would not be a complete weed niche and would be exploited/colonized by 
organisms whose requirements and characteristics match those of the niche. I 
gave an example of this in my last post. But the mere existence of an open 
space does not, in of itself, mean that it will be occupied by a weed to the 
exclusion of some other organism. WT]]

The concept that 95% local native plant cover is not good enough, is a
difficult concept for us to get our minds around, but that is just how the
reality is.  When you are missing key native plant families because of
spatial extinction, you are going to start on an open-ended, never-ending
weed fight, and it will only end when you fill in those gaps with the
missing plant families.

[[It's not that it's difficult to get our minds around the point; speaking 
for myself, I don't believe that any kind of arbitrary numbers are relevant. 
What is relevant is complex ecosystem dynamics, much of which nobody has any 
idea about what's really going on within that concept. THAT'S difficult to 
get our heads around--again, speaking for myself and hoping that someone 
will straighten me out if I am wrong. WT]]

You can look at the project along Interstate 505 here in California at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/road.test.html and see how rapidly the weeds
destroyed each of the five sowing attempts, and see in the long term, was
unable to stay above the 50% native cover threshold:

February 2003 sowing on west side, resulted in zero native cover by June.
January 2004 sowing on west side, by September 2005, 99.9% weed cover.
January 2006 sowing on west side, by September 2006, 99% weed cover.
January 2006 sowing on east side, by August 2011, 26% native cover.
October 2008, sowing on the west side, by August 2011 is only 48% native,
still not over the 50% native-cover threshold.

That is a very, very  sad result, for either a weed management project or
for ecological restoration, to get less than 50% long term native cover,
after spending a decade of work, five sowing attempts and $225,000 per
acre.

[[Spending that kind of money is certainly sad, but the figures given don't 
tell us much about the assumptions made initially, the design particulars, 
or the predicted performance made by those involved. What is most relevant 
is the direction of the trend--whether indigenous species are gaining or 
losing in the long run, reproducing or failing to reproduce enough to become 
dominant. The examples given might indeed be conceptual failures, but that 
alone says nothing for other examples.
WT]]

The biggest problem regarding weeds getting established in California, is
the spatially extinct and missing native species, specifically, the native
grasses, both the hundreds of species of perennials plus the annual
Vulpia, the missing sunflower family, the missing bean family, the missing
lily family--plus the always overlooked--the missing Miners lettuce
(Claytonia or Montia).

[[I don't know what Dremann means by "spatially extinct." Perhaps he will 
define it as he sees it. I certainly would agree, if that's the point 
Dremann intends, that the decline of indigenous populations and their 
apparent extirpation from areas where they were once present or even 
dominant is regrettable. I recall searching Round Valley several years ago 
for remnant stands of creeping wildrye (Leymus/Elymus triticoides) and not 
finding any. This plant was an important part of the original human 
inhabitants' economy, but has since been wiped out by agriculture and 
overgrazing. (Even in the hills around Round Valley, the understory was 
seriously cow-burnt). Craig, is one of the miner's lettuce genera alien? 
WT]]

All those native plant families work together to keep the native
non-riparian ecosystem understories intact.

[[Agreed, as well as numerous other families of both plants and animals that 
make up the ecosystem. That is the condition that defines a healthy 
ecosystem, but like all systems, they are by definition always in a flux, 
always changing, never frozen in time just because we are observing them at 
one point in their infinite, interacting life cycles according to their 
needs and the environment's fluctuations. WT]]

And it is sometimes it is absolutely necessary to achieve very quickly,
the very best quality weeding projects and/or restoration project, like
for the Endangered Riverside County Krat.

If the government has already spent $42 million to buy some land for the
Stephens Krats, it cannot be left as a solid weed patch, in order for the
animals to survive, and some serious money must be spent immediately, to
do the job quickly, gently, and efficiently.  Quick but gentle conversion
of the weeds back to local native species, is what is called for.

To answer some of your comments:

1.) ONLY BROADCAST SOW native seeds, and never use seed mixes.  I only
recommend broadcast sowing of locally genetic native seeds, without ever
any soil disturbance at all, and never any tilling or drill seeding.  And
always sow your native seeds as individual species in swaths like a
mosaic, and NEVER use native seed MIXES.

[[Sounds good to me, provided you get the kind of survivorship and 
maturation and reproduction that you have predicted--as closely as possible. 
I have never achieved perfection in this, but it's a laudable goal, and a 
professionally responsible one. WT]]

2.) FERTILIZERS:  ALWAYS use fertilizers when sowing native seeds.   I
know that goes against the myths and legends that have been told for years
about sowing natives, but native seeds always need some type of
fertilizer, and sometimes in the arid West, needing shockingly large
amounts.

[[While indigenous species do have minimum requirements for nutrients, 
commercial fertilizers can seriously backfire, bending the "equation" in the 
direction of weeds. I would be interested in seeing good data to support 
this, but I think fertilizer is a serious mistake in most cases. (I won't go 
off into a big lecture on this, but would be happy to discuss it further if 
there is any interest in the subject.) WT]]

3.) VULPIA MIMICS. The Vulpia mimics in California issue is between the
native Vulpia microstachys and the European Vulpia myuros (Rat tail or
Zorro fescue).  There was a controversy about the origins of the Vulpias
in California, until a study was done in 1974 by Lonard and Gould in
Madrono 22:217-230, that sorted those two out.

[[Thanks for the reference. Do I presume correctly that you mean that their 
conclusions have not been contested by any qualified person? WT]]

4.) YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU LOST, until you see how 100% fits together
again.  Until you get a North American non-riparian ecosystem understory
back to  99.5% native cover, you do not get to see the complete picture of
what the original interactions were between the native species, before the
weeds invaded those areas.

[[I agree with the first sentence and do not disagree entirely with the 
rest. However, I fail to see the significance of the 99.5% cover figure. 
WT]]

The weeds and spatial extinction of native species in North America, have
so decimated and interrupted our native ecosystem functions, you need an
almost 100% pure ecosystem to be able to see those interactions and how
they functioned together in the past.  That is what I learned by seeing
Mark Vande Pol and his 14 acres of 99.5% native cover, or Shaw and his 74
acres--unexpected plant interactions I could never have imagined.

[[Sounds wonderful. Could you site some examples of plant interactions that 
you never imagined? WT]]

5.) SPATIAL EXTINCTION--those two words should be added to our ecological
vocabulary and added to our dictionaries--that is exactly what every
individual weed does within our native ecosystems-.  Wherever an
individual weed grows, it has caused spatial extinction of our native
ecosystem, on that spot of land.

[[I don't understand any of this, but I doubt that it is 100% true (whatever 
that means). WT]]

6.) FEAR NOT, the 99.99% native non-riparian ecosystem.  It may seem like
an impossible Holy Grail--either for weed management or for ecological
restoration-- but this standard needs to be established as our goal when
we are doing our work out there, plus achieve it as quickly, cheaply and
efficiently as possible, like six months or less.

[[I'm just in much in favor of turning back the clock as Dremann, but I 
don't see how these claims hold up, either in theory or in the field. Yeah, 
I guess I have to count myself on the "impossible Holy Grail" side of the 
skeptical divide. However, I do support the call for achieving restoration 
quickly--not in terms of cover, though, but in terms of niche creation and 
filling. WT]]

7.) ADOPT the 99.5% PERFORMANCE STANDARDS.  Federal and State agencies
should ask for that performance standard, for 99.5% local native cover for
any projects done on their lands--like pipeline right of ways, gas or oil
pads, new highway construction, mitigation, HCP mitigation, Endangered
species habitat, etc.

[[I have long disagreed with any kind of "cover" standard. Cover is the 
easiest thing to achieve, and many a charlatan has bamboozled innocent 
bureaucrats into believing that cover rather than diversity and 
niche/species matching is the mark of a successful ecosystem restoration 
effort, in addition to self-sufficiency and self-reproduction. WT]]

It sounds like we should have annual meetings somewhere about these
issues--either state-wide or for several Western states, or regionally on
a nation-wide basis--where the land managers and practitioners could have
a more in depth discussion, and invite the people to speak, who have been
able to break the 50% non-riparian native cover barrier?

[[I have given up on meetings. I always learned more in the halls, 
restaurants, bars, and parties that I did listening to "papers" anyway. Much 
ado about damned little, if you ask me (and peace, I know you didn't ask 
me). I think we can settle most of these issues right here if we will 
respond specifically to specific statements and work together toward greater 
understanding and identifying what we know and don't know. WT]]

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333



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