Alabama Wages War Against the Perfect Weed 360
pickens writes "Dan Berry writes in the NY Times that the State of Alabama is spending millions of dollars in federal stimulus money to combat Cogongrass, a.k.a. the perfect weed, the killer weed, and the weed from another continent. A weed that 'evokes those old science-fiction movies in which clueless citizens ignore reports of an alien invasion.' Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) is considered one of the 10 worst weeds in the world. 'It can take over fields and forests, ruining crops, destroying native plants, upsetting the ecosystem,' writes Berry. 'It is very difficult to kill. It burns extremely hot. And its serrated leaves and grainy composition mean that animals with even the most indiscriminate palates — goats, for example — say no thanks.' Alabama's overall strategy is to draw a line across the state at Highway 80 and eradicate everything north of it; then, in phases, to try to control it to the south. But the weed is so resilient that you can't kill it with one application of herbicide, you have to return several months later and do it again. 'People think this is just a grass,' says forester Stephen Pecot. 'They don't understand that cogongrass can replace an entire ecosystem.' Left unchecked, Pecot says 'it could spread all the way to Michigan.'"
Killing is so 1940's (Score:3, Insightful)
Alternatively mutate goats to have no sense of taste.
Re:Killing is so 1940's (Score:2, Insightful)
Mutate it to bring forth a strain which is tasty, and make those genes dominant. In 50 years time the goats will come around. Alternatively mutate goats to have no sense of taste.
..... but then it won't spread so fast cos it's busy being eaten, and so unmutated strain will outcompete it leaving you back at square one.... Anything that is so undiscriminating about what it eats will probably eat everything else, posing another problem.
Re:The Perfect Weed? (Score:4, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly... this weed needs to be crossbred with Cannibis immediately!
Actually, that's a great idea. It could shift a large part of the eradication effort to the federal budget, saving Alabama a fortune.
Re:Perfect crime/terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
green fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
Burns very hot (Score:1, Insightful)
Why not use it as a fuel then?
Energy crops for green fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a number of hints that say that we're dealing with a great energy-crop:
1. It burns extremely hot (yay)
2. It grows fast (good)
3. It certainly won't require herbicides (meaning it's "biological").
We just need some biologists to turn this stuff into fuel (ethanol)... alternatively, it can be pelletized.
Re:Turn in into advantage ! (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand that there is a species of lizard that feasts on this grass. Maybe that is an option.
And the introduce Chinese Needle Snakes when you're overrun with lizards, yes?
Re:The basis is sound. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they're barking up the wrong tree; controlling the weed seems like an expensive pasttime. Instead, I'd combat it genetically: - start building up cultures of the weed, test the characteristics of different strains (go for ones that are more susceptible to infections, aphids, lower burn temperatures, less serrated edges, etc), breed these together, and create a weaker strain; distribute that across infested regions to weaken the weed.
Surely natural selection would just mean that the weaker versions of the weed would be selected against and so their genes would be eliminated from the gene pool again, leaving just the toughest varieties?
Re:Sounds a lot like Kudzu (Score:1, Insightful)
There must be some reason why the South of Japan is not one mass of Kudzu and cogongrass.
Both kudzu and cogongrass grow wildly from the northern tip to the southern end of Japan. (I live near the northern tip.) Find an open field, and there's cogongrass. It used to be used for the roofs of houses, so you needed lots and lots of it, which was quite convenient. Right now it just grows wild in whatever unattended plot there is. Mostly along rivers.
I think the difference is that there are other species that fight for space. A lot of Japanese weeds spread through root systems. As a result, there's a bit of a balance, which is lacking in the South U.S. Just don't try introducing ANOTHER alien species to try and achieve balance, it will just lead to other problems that disturb the ecosystem. We've got plenty of that too. A European bumble bee brought to pollinate tomatoes has gone wild and is now crowding out the native type, American cray fish are crowding out natives in certain areas (I say just eat 'em!), and so on so forth...
Burns extremely hot? (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, what's the problem here? A sustainable biofuel crop that produces heat very efficiently, and grows rapidly? Isn't that exactly what the greendroids have been looking for all this time?
Re:Killing is so 1940's (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not how it works. Just because the gene is dominant, doesn't mean that it will spread.
Re:Killing is so 1940's (Score:2, Insightful)
Genetic alteration to make inedible things food (oh, sorry, got that backwards -- make food inedible) is so 1970s.
We've got to figure out how to turn this stuff into biodiesel.
Ah but you didn't let me finish. Here, let me explain by using this simple profit flow chart:
1. Mutate weed to create new and tasty weed, with dominant genes.
2. Spread it and wait until all bases are belong to them.
3. Commence operation goat rollout.
4. Turn goat into biodiesel.
5. Profit!
Re:Energy crops for green fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds a lot like Kudzu (Score:5, Insightful)
Just don't try introducing ANOTHER alien species to try and achieve balance, it will just lead to other problems that disturb the ecosystem
I'm not sure what this "balance" thing is that people keep on talking about. It's as if they believe that ecosystems without humans are in some kind of stable equilibrium, which is bizarre and counter-factual. Not only do new species show up now and then without human intervention, environmental conditions change, and species-interactions occur, that prevent anything remotely resembling stability beyond the very basic level required for the moderately long-term persistance of life.
It is certainly the case that any analysis of ecosystems that assumes general equilibrium as a starting point is going to miss almost everything important, like the pre-Darwinian gradualists who didn't understand that sudden, violent change was an important driver of geologic history.
From a human, economic, point of view this weed is a pain. From nature's point of view--assuming it had one--this weed is a success, and the more rapidly it extends its range the more successful it will be. If you value ecosystemic "balance" then you should be rooting for the weed (as it were) because the sooner humans stop interfering with its spread the sooner a new quasi-equilibrium will be established. If, on the other hand, you are simply a conservative, and value the world as it is because that is the world you know, you should say so and argue on that basis, and not impute your conservative beliefs to some equilibrium principle that is false to fact.
Re:Killing is so 1940's (Score:2, Insightful)
"Excuse me sir/ma'am: can we get a sample of your DNA? We're collecting specimens to breed a goat that has no taste, and clearly, your genes would be of use to us."
Re:Sounds a lot like Kudzu (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutes destroy reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what this "balance" thing is that people keep on talking about. It's as if they believe that ecosystems without humans are in some kind of stable equilibrium, which is bizarre and counter-factual. Not only do new species show up now and then without human intervention, environmental conditions change, and species-interactions occur, that prevent anything remotely resembling stability beyond the very basic level required for the moderately long-term persistance of life.
And it seems that you believe that because absolute statism is impossible, all changes are equal.
No there's no such thing as "balance" as some kind of permanent thing. Yes ecosystems change without human intervention. But when stated as such absolutes, these statements are essentially meaningless. You are quite deliberately not drawing a distinction between the mountains eventually eroding, and them being bulldozed into the ocean in a week.
If you don't take a literal absolutist definition of "balance" as "statism", then it's obvious that there is a balance in our ecosystems. Yes they change, borders between ecosystems move, species adapt, yet these things all happen together, maintaining over time a balance despite change. Because they aren't mutually exclusive opposites in the real world of shades of gray. The whole reason why these introduced plants are a problem is because they didn't evolve here. Thus their impact in this ecosystem clearly differs from that of any organism that did evolve here, or with their impact in the ecosystem they did evolve in.
That is the kind of balance we're talking about. Not an absolutist balance, but the natural kind where species co-evolve. No you can't maintain anything like this over the long term in the face of ice ages and other geologic/climate changes, no you can't prevent any species from ever being introduced to an environment where it did not evolve and has a disruptive effect, but that's fine, nobody is saying we must. But there's a reason the last major extinction event occurred after humans arrived, with millennia of relative stability before even in the face of advancing or retreating glaciers.
So just because change is inevitable, that does not mean we humans should not try, nor be concerned with, avoiding being the instrument of rapid and destructive change. That's a foolish, irresponsible view which is what absolutism always is.
If you value ecosystemic "balance" then you should be rooting for the weed (as it were) because the sooner humans stop interfering with its spread the sooner a new quasi-equilibrium will be established.
Ridiculous, as the shortest path to "quasi-equilibrium" is to return to the one that the introduction of this weed by humans disturbed. Introduce an invasive species, then don't "interfere" with it -- this is exactly the kind of thing this strawman-based absolutist "logic" leads to.
If, on the other hand, you are simply a conservative, and value the world as it is because that is the world you know, you should say so and argue on that basis, and not impute your conservative beliefs to some equilibrium principle that is false to fact.
Oh please. If you can't see any consequences to destroying the ecosystems that evolved on this continent in the blink of an eye beyond economic inconvenience and sentimentality, then you have no business lecturing others as if you understand the issues here.
Re:Sounds a lot like Kudzu (Score:4, Insightful)
You raise a good point--that ecosystems are not static--but you're overlooking the amount of drastic change that can be introduced by humans. "Stable" is not "static" and need not be followed by "equilibrium." There are such things as "stable growth" and "stable markets," both of which imply some level of change.
New species do colonize ecosystems without human intervention, but their introduction is generally gradual, through slow geographical expansion which results in their introduction to ecosystems related to the original. What we have here is much more akin to the sudden, violent change you mentioned, and that kind of change is the biggest threat to our species.
If you value ecosystems' stability, you should be fighting the weed tooth and nail because to allow it to expand will quite possibly result in a violent change to the ecosystem that is bad for us. Saying, "Well it's already here, best to stop fighting it so it'll stabilize into a new ecosystem" is akin to saying, "Well, yes, we know we're causing climate change, but we should just go full steam ahead so the planet gets used to its new atmosphere."