[RWG] Ecosystem Restoration, weed project Performance Standards Costs

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear All,

I apologize if any reader thought that I was doing any self-promotion with
any of my posts recently.  I thought all the readers of these two lists,
would be thrilled to know that high quality weeding and/or ecological
restoration standards, are a possibility in 2012?

When I was co-authoring papers with Dr. G. Ledyard Stebbins for the
GRASSLANDS journal (Davis, California) in the late 1990s, we had many
conversations about the possibility of achieving a 99+% performance
standard for native grasslands and wildflower fields  here in weed-choked
California, and he did not think it would ever be possible.  Now 12 years
after his passing, we all know that it is possible.

Michael Shaw, the private land owner and developer, got his 74 acres done
with restoration technologies he mostly invented himself, to get to his
95% native cover today, after starting with that horrible 99% weed cover
when I first saw the property in 1992.

And Mark Vande Pol is an acquaintance of Shaw, and was influenced by
Shaw's project, and for his 14 acres, Mark invented his own methods of
weed control and ecological restoration, to get to the 99.5% weed-free
standard that I saw last summer.  It is like visiting the Weed-Free
Promised Land, where I could walk 100 paces and not step on a single weed.

What I am suggesting with my posts, is that Shaw and Mark--not botanists,
nor ecologists, nor professionals, just simple private land owners--each
independently figured out how to produce a 95%+ weed-free ecosystems in
California--the most weed-infested place on the planet.

So shouldn’t every single person on these two discussion lists who are
working on weeding or restoring non-riparian ecosystems anywhere in the
USA, be encouraged that there is the possibly of achieving the same
Performance Standards as Mark and Shaw?

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333