[APWG] Weed straw to kill weeds & Seed farms on all of our public grasslands?

[craig at astreet.com]

Dear All,

For several years now, I have been using weed straw to kill weeds in Palo
Alto, california, at http://www.ecoseeds.com/arastradero.html.

You cut the weed straw after all of the seeds have shed, and cover the
weed area with 5x as much straw per square foot.  So if you cut 25 square.
ft. of straw, that is used to cover the weeds on 5 square feet.

Also I have been planting native seed farms on site, for future seed
harvesting.    I have also been able to get 1-1/2 tons of native straw
bales donated, that you can see at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/spread-straw.jpg

You can also see pictures of the seed farm, with the two year old Blue
Eyed Grass plants at http://www.ecoseeds.com/BEG.jpg and the Bromus
seedlings at http://www.ecoseeds.com/bromus.jpg  and the sprouting native
Plantago seedlings at http://www.ecoseeds.com/plantago.jpg, plus my
personal favorite, the one year old buttercups at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/buttercups.jpg.

Each of our public grassland area, including National Forests with grazed
areas, BLM and especially National Parks that have grasslands in them,
should have some seed farms planted on site, to be able to harvest and
reproduce seeds? Also let's include every ski slope within public lands. 
It costs less than $100,000 to set something like that up and running per
preserve, by a professional, after you have killed the weeds with the
straw mulch.

For each section (36 square miles) of our public grassland and sagebrush
areas, we should have at least one in-situ seed farms planted, and this
proposal would go along perfectly with the native seed harvesting and
storage program that has been in place by the Federal government for
several years now.

The areas in my plot that have not been mulched with straw,  have from
6-13 weed seedlings per SQ. INCH (38 million to 80 million per acre)
coming up, whereas the straw mulch you can easily keep the number close to
zero.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333