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.'"
Turn in into advantage ! (Score:5, Interesting)
If it is that resilient and fast growing, you will not be able to control it anyhow. Many, many examples of invasive species throughout the world show this. So, just learn how to harvest it and make biodiesel/biogas/electricity out of it. No intensive agriculture, ferilizers or herbicides needed. Plus, this might piss off the corn/ethanol lobby enough to actually start taking action against the grass. Ether way, we win. Oh yeah, biodiversity losses, but that is shafted anyway...
Perhaps Useful? Biomass to fuel? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not grind it up and compost it to make methane or something.
Re:Perfect crime/terrorism (Score:3, Interesting)
Grass meet vehicle undercarriage, boots, wheels etc. Equipment, meet grass.
If there's any soldier from Alabama over there in Afghanistan - and I bet there's more than one or two, I guess - then the weed will already be there.
Afghanistan is still busy eradicating several other pests, so that weed is not on the priority list yet. After all, it helps against soil erosion, is pretty durable and could make Afghanistan look much greener than today. Maybe it's not so bad when the current status is naked soil everywhere beyond the horizon...
Re:Turn in into advantage ! (Score:2, Interesting)
Didn't TFS say that this weed burns unusually hot? Sounds perfect for a fuel source.
The basis is sound. (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
- start building up cultures of creatures that can (potentially) see the weed as a source of dinner, breed these to make them more voracious, and ultimately spread them at the same time that the weakened next generation of the weed from step 1 takes hold. This should ensure a successful startup of the weed killer.
This way you can change it from a curse into a blessing for the bugs, and from there on for many sections of the food chain. Bugs are the plankton of the land. You might even be able to apply such evolutionary abuse to many different scenario's: bullfrogs in australia, or the heaping of plastic particles in the Pacific by breeding plankton, for example. An this way, you're following a perfectly natural course; you're just helping it along a little by speeding the implementation of a counterbalance.
Re:Japanese Knot Weed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Killing is so 1940's (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:The perfect weed? (Score:4, Interesting)
> Out here on the opposite coast, another kind of weed is flourishing.
> Japanese Knotweed.
True that. Have seen it take over miles and miles of banks on the Delaware
river. Nothing else survives!
AFAIK you have to cut it carefully and then actually burn it. This stuff will
sprout even on a compost where you threw the cut-off plants. Any ideas to
prevent regrowth at the original site...salt on the roots perhaps?
Re:Turn in into advantage ! (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.mininggazette.com/page/content.detail/id/502473.html [mininggazette.com] I wonder how it would work for this?
Re:The perfect weed? (Score:1, Interesting)
burning (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't even need to be pelletized. They have outside furnaces now that are designed to take big round bales. And I imagine any coal burning plant has the means to take the stuff in bulk as well. But then harvesting it and moving it around would just spread the seeds further.
With that said, there probably isn't any chemical control that would work, although that monsanto "terminator" gene tech might. Still risky though.
Invasive species are a PITA, I am always having to deal with them here. For example I have gradually started turning tide on multiflora rose, after five years of a lot of effort, spraying, mowing and physically yanking the big clumps out by the roots with chains and the tractor. They get to be like freeking little trees almost. One interesting thing I found out though, this rose also attracts another invasive species, Japanese beetles, that munch on it. So sometimes I get a good "twofer" opportunity for eradication.
I haven't seen that cogongrass yet on the property, but IF I do, I'll make it a point to nail that stuff daily if that is what it takes.
SEED MARS! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The basis is sound. (Score:1, Interesting)
" It burns extremely hot. " Harvest it and use it for fuel. free heat in the winter
Re:The perfect weed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kudzu makes decent forage. Kudzu hay typically has a 15-18% crude protein content and over 60% total digestible nutrient value, slightly lower on longer vines. Unfortunately it's hard to bale and store.
Since it stores a lot of starch in the roots, they can regenerate for a long time. My goats will eat anything that doesn't break off in the ground, including the seed pods. If they're still around, kudzu won't be able to get started again. They'll eat any vines that start. That includes kudzu, but also wild grape vines, poison ivy, and just about anything else that grows on a vine.
If we could cultivate the market for goat meat in the US, those vast areas overgrown by kudzu would immediately turn into potential grazing land. Of course, in an environmentally sensitive area, the goats would be almost as hard on native plants as the kudzu. So there are trade offs both ways. But since goat is a red meat with roughly the same caloric value and 1/2 the fat of skinless chicken, 50% lower fat than beef, and 1/3 the calories of pork you'd think we'd be eating more goat.
I live in Alabama (Score:3, Interesting)
If the spread of Cogongrass means fewer bugs to annoy us, fewer trees to topple over and kill people, fewer birds who block vents with their nests, fewer deer to ruin cars, I don't think any locals would care. We have too much nature as it is. Alabama turns into a black river of roaches at night, a yellow fog of meat bees during the day, a green carpet of fallen leaves and trees during storms. Every shoe, dark corner in the house is inhabited by aggressive scorpions who come at us. Our walkway is a highway for the local population of leprosy-carrying armadillos. We keep our house very clean, and all food (including crackers) is immediately put in the refrigerator, but every morning, we wake up to a mass grave of dead beetles on the pesticide-treated carpet. Birds have figured out how to break into vent grills and build nests inside. We avoid the woods because the grass carries a black fog of disease-carrying ticks. If you think I'm making this up, you haven't lived here. We live in Alabama's biggest city, and in the countryside it's worse. Every rainstorm means the roads turn into an obstacle course of fallen trees, and it's extremely dangerous. A lot of cows, horses, boars, armadillos, dogs, deer, and other animals threaten drivers. Street lights that work are scarce, so at night everything becomes as dark as a cave. Driving is considered a man's job in the countryside.
Environmentalism is valued by people who live in big cities, for whom forests appear to be a scarce resource.
Biomass for Electricity? (Score:3, Interesting)
Grows anywhere? Doesn't need to be watered or fertilized? Sounds like a possible biomass for electricity production to me, and a cheap one. Maybe this plant could also be used to hinder desertification.
Re:The perfect weed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I live in Alabama (Score:3, Interesting)
With the recent torrential rains we've had, we do check the door before opening, since there is about a 50% chance of seeing a roach or yellowjacket outside the door. The other night, my relative's porch was overrun with palmettos, we couldn't count them all. Their roof awning is abuzz with the sounds of dozens of carpenter bees drilling holes. Every time I come back from my relative's house on top of a mountain at night, it turns into an odyssey of mysterious blobs of kudzu, and cat faces, coyote faces that flash in and out of peripheral vision. I've experienced spatial disorientation before, when I travelled to the arctic and faraway mountains looked close; you can experience them in Alabama with the kudzu blobs. Earlier in the summer, we went shooting in the woods and man, everyone was covered in ticks. The red clay soil was rock-hard, so I found an ant hill of soft ground to plant the target sign. The place turned into a geyser of black ants. Recently, we saw a white coyote the size of a fawn just walking down the street in broad daylight. They are supposed to be nocturnal and afraid of people.
I've been in downtown Birmingham after 5pm, when it turns into a ghost town. I had to stay there late once when my car broke down. Every car that drove by stared at me, marvelling at the sight of human life. There was an abandoned car showroom with a forest of tall trees growing indoors. When the tow truck took me away, I saw a pack of dogs trot into the building.
Re:The perfect weed? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pound for pound, goats also produce milk more efficiently than dairy cattle. That reminds me, I've got some goat ribs in the freezer I've been meaning to cook up.