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Re: [iowa-native-plants] RE: a worrisome news item

In a message dated 2/18/2003 10:44:07 AM Central Standard Time, 
James.Trager@mobot.org writes:

> This link covers the comments made at the AAAS meeting in more depth,
> unfortunately it's even more unbelievable than the summary in Nature.  Note
> Dunne is a seed producer-

What's unbelievable, the stated problem is fires?  The reason fires are a 
problem is that the range lands have been "taken over"by small trees and 
weedy species from other parts of the world.

The proposed solution is to replant with native grasses after a fire.
But native echo types are not able to compete against the above other 
species.
So the proposal is to selectively breed "native" grasses to develop strains 
that can compete with the weeds.

It seems a waist of time and money to plant local strains that will not 
survive in a changed environment.

The first article dealt with a few other issues like forge value for grazing 
animals and stated that most native species contributed little biomass to the 
soil or nutritional value to animals.  But an inproved mix of grasses could.


Paul Henjum
Specialty Perennials
481 Reflection Road
Apple Valley. 
MN 55124

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