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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Craig and friends: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Frankly, I don't care how anybody spels; I just
follow standard conventions in writing--I make misteaks all the time. And I make
tyepos too. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As to "spatial extinction," I'm not sure that it
will hold up to academic scrutiny, but I get Dremann's point, and
it's one worth making--still, I worry that straying too far into the
intellectual weeds could undermine credibility. Ditto, "statistics" like 99.99%.
It simply smacks of exaggeration and a level of accuracy that can't be
sustained. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm concerned most about "iffy" and "over the top"
remarks being made in public forums where students and other less-experienced
folks might be mislead. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I am also dubious about planting California poppies
from containers. First, they are primarily annuals, but they also need to
develop their "tap" roots and containers interfere with that. Further, they come
easily from seed. Solid fields of California poppies are "unnatural." They are
primarily plants that respond to disturbance, and, as grasslands and other
perennial plants advance, California poppy populations decline--but this is
completely natural. Like other colonizing species, including weeds, California
poppies respond well to cultivation--in the absence of suppression by other
colonizing species, including weeds. Finally, I do not believe that
California poppies alone can do much to resist invasion. But that's not their
"job." </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>WT</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>PS: In my own practice, I have
consciously "used" California poppies as attention-getters, even though
their "utility" in ecosystem restoration is limited. They do, however, make
excellent gopher food, and gophers labor long and hard at soil-building.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>With respect to donations, is plantconservation.org
a nonprofit organization? I don't even consider NGO's candidates for
donation if they don't practice full transparency, including full financial
statements and the salaries of the officer and employee categories as well as
the extent of their use of volunteers and charges to students--at minimum.
</FONT></DIV>
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style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=craig@astreet.com
href="mailto:craig@astreet.com">craig@astreet.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=apwg@lists.plantconservation.org
href="mailto:apwg@lists.plantconservation.org">apwg@lists.plantconservation.org</A>
; <A title=craig@astreet.com
href="mailto:craig@astreet.com">craig@astreet.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, August 28, 2013 2:09
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [APWG] ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION
Percent distribution and trends of indigenous and non-indigenous plant species
Re: Funding a 70-acre weed-back-to-native project with donations--99.99%
natives</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<P>Dear Wayne,</P>
<P>Thanks for your email and the correction with my spelling. </P>
<P>I had a hard time coming up with a new word for this idea of Spatial
Extinction, so that we can start a conversation about it. The point is,
every square meter that an exotic plant grows, has caused the spatial
extinction of the individual native plants that used to grow there.</P>
<P>When you get the awesome privilege to see 99.5% weed-free areas
like Mark VandePol's 14 acres, or ever catch a glimpse the 99.99% that I am
attempting to achieve, perhaps you can use the Bob Dylan method of running
transects--"You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blow" or
essentially, you do not see any weeds. </P>
<P>It is like getting into a time machine and going back 300 years into the
past.</P>
<P>I have 1,000 poppy plants in place already planted as seedlings last
winter, and am growing another 6,000 of various species for next
spring. </P>
<P>Next spring when everything is planted and blooming, I invite everyone to
come and view and bring your huhu hoops or whatever transect devices you use,
and see how close to 99.99% weed-free I got. </P>
<P>Usually when a grassland restoration project has been done in the past in
California, people cordon off the area and post signs for everyone to Keep
Out! I am doing just the opposite, everyone come and smell the flowers
and take home lots of pictures for your family albums, of you and your
relatives enjoying the beauty.</P>
<P>If we do not have pictures of the native plants in our family albums, they
will never become part of our families. Personally, I am also doing
paintings on canvas of the project as it proceeds at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/art.html, and done four so far.</P>
<P>I have been recently collecting California wildflower post cards on Ebay,
if you search California wild flower post card, and the ones from Kern County
that advertised the Arvin Wild Flower Festival from the 1920-1940s are
staggering. </P>
<P>On the back of one of those post cards I bought, a note is written by the
observer at the time, " All the yellow color are poppies, the blue and
lavender are lupin and beside there are 105 other varieties of flowers. I
nearly lost my mind over so much beauty all at once."</P>
<P>I guess that could be another way to do a native vegetation transect--If
you lose your mind over so much beauty at once, you might be getting getting
close to 99.99%?</P>
<P>I am hoping that other readers struggling with annual weeds, like sites
elsewhere in California and the Great Basin, might try my
killing-the-weeds-using-5X-their-own-straw method, and get the 99% kill rate
in 60 days, like I did here in Palo Alto.</P>
<P>And if you think this project is worth supporting, toss me a bone
at http://www.gofundme.com/3yiq8s</P>
<P>Sincerely, Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333</P>
<P> </P>
<P>=============================================</P>
<P>> Craig et y'all:<BR>><BR>> Naw, I'd say it was more like 4.4
(actually 4.39956) square feet--if I<BR>> wanted to be ridiculously
consistent.<BR>><BR>> But cover is not an accurate enough measure.
Individual plants vary too<BR>> much in their "coverage," so to get really
narrow-nosed about it, basal<BR>> area would probably be closer to
it--expressed as a ratio of the basal<BR>> area of the entire acre.
Otherwise, we would have to generalize, right?<BR>><BR>> First, I'd want
to know what sampling procedure produces the data, and how<BR>> many
replications have been done by other researchers over what period of<BR>>
time. It's not science if the data come only from one sampling at one<BR>>
point in time. Ecosystem dynamics are about trends, not
absolutes.<BR>><BR>> Maybe I'll get a chance to see this miracle one of
these days.<BR>><BR>> I agree with Dremann about the creeping extinction
idea, and am proud of<BR>> him for thrusting himself forward in any attempt
to flatten the slippery<BR>> slopes of gradual reduction in populations of
species, or "spacial [sic]<BR>> extinction," as Dremann terms it--in fact,
I am so insanely particular<BR>> that I am concerned about the
erosion/decline of intra-specific variation<BR>> that biological and
anthropogenic disruptions in ecosystems almost<BR>> certainly must cause. I
appreciate his appreciation of the beauty of the<BR>> earth, including the
odor of tarweeds. I wish him well, even if I am<BR>> skeptical, even
disbelieving of, his 99.99 percent calculations. I hope<BR>> that such
extravagant notions don't undermine the areas in which he is<BR>> more
credible than incredible. I hope that he hangs in there for a long,<BR>>
long time. Craig and me, we're in the same quadrant, if not always in
the<BR>> same corner.<BR>><BR>> WT<BR>><BR>> PS: I gave a talk
(my first in a decade or so) at the Native Seed<BR>> Conference in Santa Fe
last April--all about just a few of the major<BR>> mistakes I've made in
the several decades I've messed around with seeds<BR>> and ecosystem
restoration.<BR>> ----- Original Message -----<BR>><BR>From:
craig@astreet.com<BR>> To: apwg@lists.plantconservation.org ;
craig@ecoseeds.com<BR>> Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 11:34 AM<BR>>
Subject: Re: [APWG] Funding a 70-acre weed-back-to-native project with<BR>>
donations--99.99% natives<BR>><BR>><BR>> > What, exactly, does
"99.99% weed-infested" mean?<BR>> ><BR>> > What, excatly, does
"99.99% weed-free" mean?<BR>> ><BR>> > WT<BR>><BR>> Dear
Wayne,<BR>><BR>> Glad to hear from you again. 99.99% weed-infested acre
of land=If you<BR>> looked at each square foot of that acre, you would only
find about 4-5<BR>> square feet still occupied by some native
plants.<BR>><BR>> Conversely, if you measured another acre and
determined that it was<BR>> 99.99% weed-free, that means that there was
solid local native plant<BR>> cover on the entire acre, except for 4-5
square feet that were still<BR>> occupied by some weeds.<BR>><BR>>
This goes to the heart of my idea of spacial extinction of local
native<BR>> plants.<BR>><BR>> We usually look at the term extinction
to mean the death of an entire<BR>> species, like the Passenger pigeon, for
example.<BR>><BR>> But perhaps what we should be more concerned about,
is the creeping road<BR>> to extinction, which is what I call spacial
extinction, where a local<BR>> native species is extinct on a single square
foot for whatever<BR>> reason--weeds, plowing, plopping a building on top
of that square foot<BR>> of land, planting a corn field,
etc.<BR>><BR>> In California, spatial extinction is a very serious
issue, especially if<BR>> we want to preserve some of our native grassland
and wildflower fields<BR>> for the future--considering that the native
grasses and wildflower<BR>> fields are already spatially extinct over
99.99% of the lower elevations<BR>> of the State.<BR>><BR>> What I am
trying to do with this 70 acres in Palo Alto, is to see how<BR>> this
problem of spatial extinction can be corrected, so that this site<BR>>
could possibly become an in situ source of local native genetic
material<BR>> for other restoration projects where the natives have become
spatially<BR>> extinct.<BR>><BR>> I have set 99.99% local native
cover as a goal, and it is not<BR>> unreasonable after I saw Mark
VandePol's 14 acres only 25 miles away,<BR>> with his entire property
restored to 99.5% native cover, after starting<BR>> with a huge weed patch
similar to the 70 acres here in Palo Alto.<BR>><BR>> I am looking for
donations through GoFundMe to get the bales of native<BR>> grass straw I
want to use to kill the weeds this winter. Anyone in the<BR>> area is
welcome to visit--the site is only about a mile from the Page<BR>> Mill
Road exit from I-280.<BR>><BR>> And that stretch of I-280 between San
Jose and San Francisco is one of<BR>> the most beautiful drives in the
country because the valley was<BR>> preserved without any development in
the 1920s as one of San Francisco's<BR>> water supply
reservoirs.<BR>><BR>> In spring you pass by the I-280 Redwood
City/Edgewood Road exit you see<BR>> serpentine wildflower fields, and if
you drive past this time of year,<BR>> open your windows to smell the
native white flowered hayfield tarweeds<BR>> in bloom, with their stems and
branches emitting their lemony scent.<BR>><BR>> Sincerely, Craig Dremann
(650) 325-7333<BR>><BR>>
========================================<BR>><BR>> > ----- Original
Message -----<BR>> ><BR>><BR>From: craig@astreet.com<BR>> > To:
apwg@lists.plantconservation.org<BR>> > Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2013
8:12 PM<BR>> > Subject: [APWG] Funding a 70-acre weed-back-to-native
project with<BR>> > donations<BR>> ><BR>> ><BR>> >
Dear All,<BR>> ><BR>> > 'Phase one of the Poppy Project is
completed in Palo Alto, California,<BR>> > with very good results, using
the weed straw to kill the annual weed<BR>> > seedlings within 60 days
of the seedlings sprouting. It is so very<BR>> nice<BR>> > to be able
to kill the weeds with their own straw.<BR>> ><BR>> > The whole 70
acre project is going to be done with donations, and I am<BR>> > trying
GoFundMe as one way to fund this weeds-back-to-native<BR>>
conversion<BR>> > project,, as you can see at
http://www.gofundme.com/3yiq8s.<BR>> ><BR>> > I have been waiting
over four decades for the local government<BR>> agencies<BR>> > or
public land managers to get the funding together to do a project<BR>>
like<BR>> > this in my area, and since I will turn 60 in a few months,
decided to<BR>> > see if the public might support the project directly,
so we can get<BR>> > something going during my lifetime.<BR>>
><BR>> > As far as I know, this will be only the fourth project in
California,<BR>> to<BR>> > take a 100% weed infested grassland
ecosystem >10 acres, and try and<BR>> > convert it back to the
original local wildflowers and native grasses.<BR>> > You can see photos
of the potential of what California used to look<BR>> like<BR>> > 300
years ago, before we got 99.99% weed infested at<BR>> >
http://www.ecoseeds.com/wild.html.<BR>> ><BR>> > My project is
right next to the parking lot at the Palo Alto<BR>> Arastradero<BR>>
> Preserve, so anyone is welcome to come and watch as the project<BR>>
> progresses. All the native animals are coming to visit,, a
coyote,<BR>> > butterflies, hundreds of bumblebees in spring, two doves,
gophers, a<BR>> > rabbit and a couple of lizards, within a few months of
establishing<BR>> the<BR>> > natives as a solid 99.99% weed-free
stand.<BR>> ><BR>> > Sincerely, Craig Dremann (650)
325-7333<BR>> ><BR>> ><BR>> ><BR>> >
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><BR>> ><BR>> ><BR>> >
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