<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2180" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>All:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>One of my fellow subscribers has been corresponding with
me off-list the subject of ecosystem restoration standards, and I have been
unsuccessful in persuading the subscriber to keep the discussion on-list, as I
believe the subject is of broad common interest. This person apparently believes
that I am the only one (with one or two others) interested, because no one else
has weighed in on the subject. Is this person right? Are none but three or four
of us interested in this topic? Should this and related topics be kept off list
(to keep topics of restricted interest from clogging the in-baskets of the
majority? If so, how many subscribers are there to APWG and RWG? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I am hereby taking the liberty to broach the most recent
topic, the collapse of ecosystem restoration projects, signified by the return
of weed dominance in some cases. I would add to this that ecosystem restoration
projects also "collapse" or fail to "take" whether or not weeds dominate.
</FONT><FONT face=Arial>The off-list poster confined the comments to grasslands,
so I will primarily address that issue, but the same principles hold true for
other biomes and can be more broadly applied. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>First, the "return" of grassland restoration
projects to weed-dominance.</STRONG> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>There are a number of reasons for this, some related
to context issues like soil type, some related to restoration methods, but
consideration of soil type must be part of the restoration assessment, planning,
and execution process. Soil type is important; in the case of grassland
restoration, it is preferable (actually essential) that a grassland soil is
present--if it isn't, all the King of Restoration's horses and all the KoR's men
and women will not be able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear (without some
major alterations to the soil). I invite others to expand and expound on this
subject; I will mention only some factors. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>True grassland soils tend to have identifiable
characteristics. They tend to develop on alluvial or aeolian soils of finer
texture and containing considerable natural humus and soil flora/fauna, as well
as mineral deposits at depth (commonly at or near the effective bottom of
the root zone) such as calcium and sodium. Disturbance of such soils can
render the site largely incapable of supporting a true grassland, such as when
bulldozed or otherwise excavated and the surface is changed from a
grassland-type soil to a jumbled mass, sometimes consisting of coarse B-horizon
or deeper deposits unsuited to grassland development. This should be determined
in the initial assessment and feasibility investigation, and consideration
should be given to restoring an ecosystem/plant community type other than
grasslands, at least as a transitional measure until something resembling a
grassland soil can be developed. (Wholesale replacement of the degraded soil
with grassland soil can be done, but it is terribly expensive.) </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>If one tries to establish a grassland on non-grassland
soils, one is most likely going to be disappointed, and "failure" is almost
foreordained. I have, however, attempted to grow hair on such billiard-ball
sites, with limited success. If other conditions are favorable, a soil can
sometimes be developed (or its development accelerated) by certain tricks (e.g.,
praying for gopher or prairie-dog invasions, adding mycorrhizal fungi and other
essential soil organisms, and transitional plantings of annual plants--sometimes
even grasses, but more commonly dicots like weeds and flowers that will be
humus-builders. Short-lived perennial plants, even some shrubs, also can be
used. This approach is much cheaper than soil importation, and sometimes can be
better. The actual strategy should fit the context. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I should make it clear that my first fifteen years of
attempting ecosystem restoration projects were all failures by my own standards,
and I have continued to make some mistakes once ever since. One must, I believe,
learn from actual experience. However, just experience is no guarantee of
expertise. If I had stubbornly held on to what I "knew" and refused to consider
that what I knew might be wrong, I would have continued to fail. I did get to
the point that could reliably initiate ecosystem processes and avoid "collapse."
All restoration practitioners can do is to accelerate ecosystem development
anyway, largely by setting up conditions that will permit or even maybe
encourage natural ecosystems processes to work. We don't actually restore living
systems. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>In short, most failures can be traced back to the kind of
work done and not done to set up favorable conditions for natural forces to work
upon. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>In short, two of my biggest mistakes (there have been many
others) have been to: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>a. fail to properly assess site conditions and develop a
restoration program that modifies or matches those conditions. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>b. plant too many seeds and plants, spending far too much
money and doing far too much presumptuous guesswork. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>If a grassland soil is present, indigenous species can
persist and eventually re-assert dominance over weed populations. If one can
mimic grassland soils, one has a chance of fostering the development of
grassland, but one must out-draw the Lone Ranger to do it. If one is
presumptuous enough to believe that all that needs to be done is to kill weeds
and scatter seeds, collapse, unless one is terribly lucky, is rather more likely
than not. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Disturbed sites (from bulldozing to trampling) tend to
favor weeds. They are the scabs, as it were, on the scarred face of the
earth--not pretty, but an inevitable result of land mismanagement. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><STRONG>2. Collapse of "restored" ecosystems that do not
necessarily result in dominance of weeds.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>This phenomenon is often the result of simply seeding or
planting too many and/or the wrong balance of the right (and/or wrong) species
at the wrong time, possibly including "maintenance." </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>This can be the subject of another discussion, but I have
run out of time . . . (and since it does not include weeds so much, it might be
"inappropriate" for these lists. </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></FONT> </DIV></BODY></HTML>