Welcome to the AppalachianTrailCafe.net!
Take a moment and register and then join the conversation

This was a wasteland

    This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy.

    • meat wrote:

      Caesar eaters time lapse video


      There's an ongoing discussion in Texas regarding the proliferation of salt cedar. One side maintains the tree holds soil in place during drought and serves as shelter to wildlife. Others claim the tree is a prodigious user of underground water to the detriment of other plant life. Additionally cedar crowds out other trees and plants thereby reducing food sources for wildlife.

      I'm interested in knowing how the cleared land is put to use after cedar removal.

      Another tree some folks consider as invasive is mesquite. Written accounts of Texas plant life in the early 1800 describe a variety of grasses. With the onset of cattle drives, mesquite was carried northward out of Mexico displacing prairie grasses.

      Lest we forget.....



      SSgt Ray Rangel - USAF
      SrA Elizabeth Loncki - USAF
      PFC Adam Harris - USA
      MSgt Eden Pearl - USMC
    • Dan76 wrote:

      There's an ongoing discussion in Texas regarding the proliferation of salt cedar. One side maintains the tree holds soil in place during drought and serves as shelter to wildlife. Others claim the tree is a prodigious user of underground water to the detriment of other plant life. Additionally cedar crowds out other trees and plants thereby reducing food sources for wildlife.
      Yeah.

      It's complicated.

      The stands of cedar in sheltered hollows belong there, particularly if they intermingle with oak.

      What's happened in a lot of other places is areas that are naturally upland prairie have been overgrazed, and cedar has moved in, pretty much being the only landcover. The grazing beasts don't eat it. That does create a water imbalance, and an erosion problem as well.

      What simplistic presentations like the one Rasty posted miss is that even as Bamberger was eradicating cedar on the uplands, he was planting it where stands of cedar had historically stood. He was starting from damaged, overgrazed and erosion-prone ranchland and trying to restore it to a more balanced - and biodiverse - condition.

      Is that restoring it to its 'original' condition? The question may have no meaning. Nature is in a constant state of flux. He was restoring the land to a condition more attractive to us humans, and supporting a greater diversity of species. Some of the lack of diversity had resulted from earlier human activity.

      Given that diverse systems are more likely to be robust, and that species preservation is important even from a narrow human perspective (we never know what obscure species may turn out to be important to us), I think Bamberger has done a good thing. His solution may not apply to any other site than his - as he's the first to point out.

      It's a lot more complicated than, "Ashe cedar sucks the water out of the land."
      I'm not lost. I know where I am. I'm right here.
    • Cotton wood along creeks. With oak trees where I grew up. Except for China berry trees I do remember what else grew there.

      Outside of town was oak, squat cedar trees, and some others. Mesquite was not far west of town. About 20 miles. Out by ft. Hood it was a few oak and cedar with lots of mesquite and areas of prickly pear cacti. Prickly pear could take over a yard or field rather quicker than I ever saw cedar take over any area. This is between Waco and Austin, Texas.
      --
      "What do you mean its sunrise already ?!", me.