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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Dear Craig and Forum:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I share Dremann's hope that others will become involved in
these exchanges. I consider this to be a real forum about issues, not about
personalities or the opinions of individuals. I suppose that may be what could
distinguish a "discipline" from dilettantism. Disciplined examination of
phenomena, to my way of thinking, involves a <EM>quest,</EM> a questioning of
our opinions or beliefs, not limited to a defense of them. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I agree with Craig that discussing a single aspect of the
issue might be useful. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Perhaps a discussion of standards of performance for
ecosystem restoration projects would be an interesting place to start.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>In that spirit, I will withhold an exposition of my own
biases in this regard in the hopes that someone else will describe their
standards of performance. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>WT</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>----- Original Message ----- </FONT>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>From: "Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company"
<</FONT><A href="mailto:Craig@astreet.com"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Craig@astreet.com</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>To: <</FONT><A
href="mailto:apwg@lists.plantconservation.org"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>apwg@lists.plantconservation.org</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial size=2>>;
<</FONT><A href="mailto:rwg@lists.plantconservation.org"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>rwg@lists.plantconservation.org</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial
size=2>></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 8:55 AM</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Subject: [APWG] Perfomance Standards, Niches,
Spatial Extinction and Wonders</FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><BR><FONT size=2></FONT></FONT></DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Dear Wayne and All,<BR><BR>Thanks for very much your detailed replies,
and I really appreciate the<BR>time you have taken to make all of your
comments.<BR><BR>I did not comment on all of your previous points, to allow
others to<BR>comment on our discussions. I feel that we are discussing so
many<BR>interesting aspects of weed management and ecological restoration,
that<BR>perhaps breaking it into several separate topics might be
useful?<BR><BR>For example, up to now, PERFORMANCE STANDARDS for
non-riparian<BR>professional ecological restoration, has been largely absent,
because<BR>nobody has been willing to spend the time or massive amounts of
money<BR>necessary to invent the technologies that can consistently get you a
very<BR>low percentage of weed cover and a high percentage of
self-sustainable<BR>local native plant cover within six months or
less.<BR><BR>Instead of Federal and State agencies taking the lowest bids
for<BR>restoration projects, perhaps it might be better to review the
available<BR>licensed ecological restoration technologies for a project, in
small scale<BR>test plots first?<BR><BR>Hire a half dozen or dozen potential
restoration companies to set up small<BR>scale test plots on the future project
site, a year or two in advance of<BR>the big project? Then, you could give each
company's restoration<BR>technologies a test drive?<BR><BR>And expect to have to
pay for a license to be able to use the most<BR>successful restoration
technologies for the big project, that the<BR>successful technologies are not
free, or bundled with either the test<BR>plots or the big project
itself.<BR><BR>I learned from Ken Kolence, who in 1967 was the first person to
license a<BR>software program ever, that successful technologies have value
in<BR>themselves and should be licensed. Ever since Ken started the
license<BR>concept in Silicon Valley the 1960s, every single software program
or<BR>computer operating system written, even the free or shareware
programs,<BR>are licensed.<BR><BR>Regarding NICHES, for the non-riparian
understory, especially in the arid<BR>West--ecosystems are like a cake recipe,
with ingredients in certain<BR>proportions in relationship with each
other.<BR><BR>That is one very important thing I had to invent as I went along
after<BR>observing and measuring hundreds of plant interactions. How do
you<BR>determine what is missing from the recipe, and what do you add, in
what<BR>amounts, to help the recipe balance out at the end of the day?<BR><BR>I
call it the Species Threshold test, and it is an interactive balancing<BR>act
that each species does when growing together as a group. So when
you<BR>add 25% more cover of Nassella pulchra, what does that do to
the<BR>percentage cover of the weedy yellow star thistle, for example?<BR><BR>Or
how many cups of Bluebunch wheatgrass seed to do have add per acre, so<BR>that
the weedy cheatgrass completely goes away as an ingredient, like in<BR>my
pictures at </FONT><A href="http://www.ecoseeds.com/greatbasin.html"><FONT
face=Arial size=2>http://www.ecoseeds.com/greatbasin.html</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial size=2>.<BR><BR>The niche is the spot in the recipe for each plant
family, that make up<BR>the total ingredients for a local native
ecosystem. So the common<BR>families in central California that are
important ingredient in the<BR>recipe, are grasses, sunflower family, lily
family, bean family Indian<BR>paintbrush family, miners lettuce family, mint
family, etc.<BR><BR>Whenever the right amounts of the native ingredients absent
or are not<BR>adequate in the recipe, that is a spot where the exotics can
substitute<BR>themselves into the ecosystem recipe.<BR><BR>That is where SPATIAL
EXTINCTION comes in.<BR><BR>The concept of extinction has been from a European
perspective so far, to<BR>mean that a species has to be wiped off the entire
face of the planet,<BR>usually from our ecological misdeeds in the past, like
Martha the<BR>Passenger pigeon on September 1, 1914, or the Xerces Blue
butterfly that<BR>used to live in the sand dunes of San Francisco in 1941.
That the word<BR>extinction is only considered when it is on a planetary
scale.<BR><BR>However, I am suggesting using the words Spatial Extinction to
mean<BR>extinction on a teeny-tiny-micro-scale--on the scale of square
millimeter<BR>by square millimeter. Basically, the ground where a single
weed plant<BR>sprouts and grows. that the occupying of that space causes
the extinction<BR>of the native plant or plants that used to grow there, on that
particular<BR>spot.<BR><BR>Spatial extinction on a massive scale has happened in
all of our<BR>non-riparian areas below 3,000 feet elevation nationwide, so that
our<BR>native grasses and native forbs are greater than 50% extinct overall,
and<BR>in some places like California, 99% extinct.<BR><BR>That is one of the
most important aspects of our new Anthropocene geologic<BR>era that we are
living in, that spatial extinction on a continent-wide<BR>scale can only be
reversed by human actions. Once you allow your<BR>ecosystems to get
below 50% native grass and forb cover, like in<BR>California and most of the
West, it cannot recover on its own.<BR><BR>These ecosystems and the species like
the Riverside County Krats that need<BR>to live within them, need us humans to
learn how to restore them to high<BR>quality standards, quickly, gently and
efficiently, so those native<BR>species can survive. It is a life and
death issue for them.<BR><BR>THERE ARE WONDERS YOU WILL SEE, at the 50% native
cover threshold and the<BR>95%+ native cover. When you get though that 50%
native cover threshold,<BR>it is like seeing the outline of the ruins of the
vanished ecosystem come<BR>back to life. But when you get over the 95%
threshold, then everything<BR>changes, because like a ruined city, you not only
have rebuilt the<BR>buildings, but you have put a coat of paint back on them
too.<BR><BR>For example, Shaw says that managing a 95% native ecosystem for
diversity<BR>is more difficult than managing the weeds to get there in the first
place.<BR> There are probably so few examples of managing non-riparian
weeds back to<BR>5% or less cover, that to also want to manage for native
diversity in your<BR>ecosystem, is another higher level of restoration, that
really boggles the<BR>mind.<BR><BR>Wayne, I always enjoy your comments, and hope
that others feel like<BR>commenting on whatever parts of our discussions, that
they feel are<BR>important.<BR><BR>Sincerely, Craig Dremann (650)
325-7333<BR><BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>PCA's
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