Do You Battle a Invasive Plant ? NY Ban Sale of Certain Plants

[seedcorn]

LIKE, LIKE, LIKE the part about making lemonade from lemons. If we would actually put an effort into that there would be no need to clear-cut thousands of acres of forest to make way for huge industrial-ag fields.

It's called harvesting the wood. They re-plant and manage the timber as most farmers do. There is more money in well managed forest than row crops. In mid-west they are hand cut, hauled out by trained teams of horses to do the least damage. Some scrub timber is cleared where the timber is of NO use, so that either good species can be grown or row crops. It's getting harder to do with government beuracrats as they are untrained, paper pushers...

 

[Nyboy]

That would be truly sad. I cannot think of the harm that a native swan could cause. They certainly aren't European starlings.

I looked into getting a pair of swans for my pond, they are a few thousand from a breeder.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Kudzu came to mind immediately. When visiting TN I saw it had arrived there, too.

We've ALREADY got a bit of a kudzu problem around MY part of Westchester. There's a patch of the stuff on a wall we drive by as we go around the Tarrytown Reservoir which gets bigger every year, since no one seems to be doing anything about it.
The problem as far as I understand is something like this; the patch is on one of the walls that surrounds some of the Rockefeller property, but is on the side that faces the road. The village won't touch it for fear of getting the Rockefellers mad. The Rockefellers won't touch it because growth on the road side of that wall is really the village's job to take care of. As each year goes by the patch gets bigger and bigger. At this point, frankly, I'm a little scared that no one will deal with the problem until it gets too big to solve, or worse that they will "deal with it" like they deal with normal roadside growth, by sending people out with weed whackers to what the above ground part i.e. the one thing they could do that is guaranteed to spew seed far and wide and make the problem INFINITELY worse. Especially given this patch seems to have a nasty anomaly. Some years ago I actually walked over and too a close up look at the patch and I noticed something disturbing. According to what I have read, because Kudzu is so good at propagating vegitatively, it normally doesn't make all that many seeds that are mature enough to be fertile (I think they said 2 per pod cluster is about normal). THIS one makes TONS (about 10-15 per POD) Maybe being on the edge makes it go into a more survivalist state (though technically we aren't the farthest north there is Kudzu growing around some lakes in Quebec by now) Maybe the new rules will galvanize one or the other of them.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about the whole list. While technically the list only prohibits intentional sale, planting or transport of the banned plants, given the way some lawmakers around here think it is probably only a year or two before some local ordinance is passed that requires property owners who have any of these plants on their property to actively eradicate them. Mostly I wouldn't care but I kind of like the Japanese wineberries (they're basically the only fruit we get off our property) and if we have to cut down the burning bushes and Russian olive, that basically leaves us with no road cover on several sides (and the local rules mean trying to PLANT trees is almost as hard to do as trying to get permission to take trees DOWN.

I don't

 

[Nyboy]

Wow I didn't think kudzu could over winter here. @Pulsegleaner you might want to send a email about it to the author.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I'm assuming you mean "author" (presumably, the author of the news feed) Yeah, I may do that. If you meant "authorities" I think they already know. Certianly, the mayor knows, My dad told him (back when my dad was on the village council) and I saw the email the mayor sent him back.

Actually it may be even worse than that. When the mayor DID respond, he mentioned that there were other patches he was aware of on the side of one or another of the highways (didn't say which, so I can't check)

Actually, we (and by "we" I mean you too, since you live so close to me) aren't all that far from the "kuzu line" (the line below which kudzu is a more or less universal problem) at this point it's in Patterson, New Jersey. And apparently the warm microclimate means there's quite a lot of it hiding in waste areas throughout the five boroughs)

Oh while I have everyone's attention one correction. Tecnically the Kudzu we have in this country is temperate kudzu, the same kind they eat in Japan (why given how much the Japanese will pay for it and how much they love it* we don't harvest and export it I have no idea.) The IS such a thing as tropical kudzu; Pueraria phraseoloides. I find seeds of it in the rice bean hunts from time to time (though less often now) But that can't survive in this country; even Florida doesn't have a long enough season of warmth for it (bear in mind though, that the varios Pueraria species are GREAT at interbreeding, so a more cold tolerant version may eventually inch it's way up.

*I used to have a Japanese children's picture book that was actually about PLANTING kudzu. There, it's a wholesome activity for kids.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

It's called harvesting the wood. They re-plant and manage the timber as most farmers do. There is more money in well managed forest than row crops. In mid-west they are hand cut, hauled out by trained teams of horses to do the least damage. Some scrub timber is cleared where the timber is of NO use, so that either good species can be grown or row crops. It's getting harder to do with government beuracrats as they are untrained, paper pushers...

I meant using invasive species for purposes such as food, medicine, crafting materials, etc and didn't have forestry in mind. Many of the invasive plants/weeds here were brought here for a reason other than ornamentation. Even the ones that were brought as ornamentals have potential.

Not in the part of the Midwest I'm in. I've got no problem against harvesting wood (there's no living without here) but the tree-cutters here do so irresponsibly. They don't use horses but large trucks and backhoes. They clear-cut hundreds of acres without even thinking about taking the trees that have fallen naturally or maybe leaving the occasional tree, no buffer zones. It's all clear-cut by men with chainsaws and the trees are drug out with huge machines. As a result the soil is severely compacted, depleted of beneficial bacteria from lack of anything growing there. Later frankensteined corn/soybeans are grown there, gallons are gallons of synthetic chemicals and fertilizers are poured over the landscape for these plants until the soil is rendered completely sterile and poisoned - then they move on to cut and destroy the next area. This has left my locality looking more and more like North Dakota - it shouldn't be that way. Erosion and insanely strong winds have become a problem here as a result of these actions.

I have to question the definitions that you attach to the words that you use.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

I guess that Mute Swans do a lot of damage to aquatic vegetation. To me it seems awfully stupid to keep a "pest" species like Mute Swans just because they look good, while you're trying to kill off other "pest" species.

I eat Russian Olive routinely, I like to dehydrate them. They have small seeds, and are kind of bland, but they're all over the place so I take advantage of them. The almost-glossy leaves also look good in wreaths or floral arrangements. I've considered planting them on purpose to select a strain with larger fruits.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I meant using invasive species for purposes such as food, medicine, crafting materials, etc and didn't have forestry in mind. Many of the invasive plants/weeds here were brought here for a reason other than ornamentation. Even the ones that were brought as ornamentals have potential.

Teasel (which I note is also on the list) being a classic example. Now it's a prickly weed of the edges of road (and potential threat to people who like to walk there). Back in the days when most people made their own cloth (or at least where most of your cloth was made in your own town) it was your best friend.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Teasel (which I note is also on the list) being a classic example. Now it's a prickly weed of the edges of road (and potential threat to people who like to walk there). Back in the days when most people made their own cloth (or at least where most of your cloth was made in your own town) it was your best friend.

Bindweed makes a good cordage (Who would have figured with a name like Bindweed?). Plantains were originally used as an early spring salad green and the seeds were ground into flour. A lot of people here know how dandelions can be used.

I'm not even going to bother all of the ones that I can think of right off of the top of my head, it would take an hour to type it all. I didn't know about the Teasel before, interesting. I do know that it's a medicinal.

 

[Nyboy]

Never tried it but plantains leaves rubbed on poison ivy suppose to help with itching.