What is native?

Our bacon and eggs breakfast comes to us thanks to “invasive species.” Pigs, cows, chickens, honeybees, wheat, and apples (Johnny Appleseed was a wholesale purveyor of invasive species) all came from somewhere else and displaced natives. The problem with invasives comes when they disrupt long-established relationships in ways we find harmful. Our tree farms are full of invasive species, wanted and unwanted. Maybe we plant clover to protect soil after a harvest. That same clover is invasive in other circumstances. We fight invasive species like kudzu, multiflora rose and ailanthus, but recall that they came with the enthusiastic support of experts and often through government programs.

We need to develop a more nuanced view of invasive and native. Native is not always better or even really native. Much of the loblolly that we plant in Virginia, for example, comes from genetic stock “native” farther south, modified by select breeding and scarcely resembling the multi-branched, twisted natives of times past. Human activity has changed the game. Virginia’s environment today is far different from 1607. Natives exquisitely adapted to old Virginia may be less appropriate in the future.

This does not imply that we should be unconcerned about invasive species. Their proliferation is the single biggest threat to our forests. Global commerce is increasingly bringing species long-separated into intimate contact, sometimes with catastrophic results. We must be vigilant against the introduction of pests, but know that nasties like longhorn beetles, emerald ash borers, Formosan termites and wooly adelgids will continue to slip through. The rate of natural adaptation is too slow to cope with the rapid introduction of exotic species and altered environments. Humans will need to step in to move some species to new “native” range and work with breeding, even genetic modifications, to protect important species from threats unknown in their earlier evolution. A good example is an American chestnut resistant to the blight that killed whole forests early in the 20th Century; we can restore the tree in its former glory with minimal modification, rather than wait thousands of years for natural selection to produce something else.

Let’s talk options. “Natural and native” is not an option except in isolated areas maintained – ironically – by extraordinary human intervention. “Letting nature take its course” will result in a mess of invasive species in unsustainable and often harmful relationships. Conversely, overactive human management will quickly demonstrate the limits of our wisdom. Recall the kudzu and multiflora rose are with us today because of somebody’s big ideas. There is no single plan. The best choice is what good land managers do: work with natural processes but recognize that the very nature of our work changes them. It’s an iterative, adaptive learning process with a goal of dynamic sustainability that strives not to avoid change but to make it reasonably predictable and benign – simple to say; hard to do. It requires patience, persistence and humility. Details are unknowable in advance, since information is discovered only through experience and often has only local or temporary applicability. It is more a process than a plan, one that relies the intelligence, imagination and innovation of landowners, firms, researchers and government agencies, knowing that none of them will have the answer, but that the many answers will sustain our beloved Virginia ecosystems. Some will not be native.

Cheap gas at Loves

We drove down to the farms, as I mentioned in an earlier post. I always stop at the Loves station at exit 104 on I95. Gas prices south of the Rappahannock are much lower than in Northern Virginia.

 

September 2015 Forest Visit Brunswick County

We went down to the farms to plant clover on the new cut over, especially on near the trails, where there is more bare dirt. I was surprised how much had grown up by itself since the land was cut in July. Some is hardwoods sprouted from roots, but other plants are coming up from long-dormant seeds. The clover will hold the soil, provide nitrogen and be good wildlife forage. We will plant new trees in spring, about 400 per acre, thirty acres loblolly and fifteen longleaf and one acre of bald cypress. Loblolly will also seed in from the neighboring trees. In fact, left to their own devices, the loblolly would fill in by itself. It would take a little longer and we would not have the same quality trees, however.

Espen, Alex and Colin helped throw the seed. We did it by hand mostly as a form of performance art. I wanted them to be a part of the regeneration. Probably by the next time we do it, drones will handle much of the job.

I also did some work on our longleaf pine experimental plot. We have about five acres planted in 2012. The trees are doing okay. They have moved out of the grass stage (longleaf look like tufts of grass sometimes for a couple years before the bolt out) and some are now around eight feet high. They did a very good job o site preparation, so there is not too much competing hardwood. I did have to take down a couple dozen volunteer loblolly, however. It is kind of sad for me. If those same trees were growing a little distance away I would be delighted to have them.

It is hard work and I am getting a little too old and weak. The next day there were few places on my body that didn’t hurt. I still do the work with hand tools. I suppose I could succumb to modernity and get tools powered by something other than my aging and now aching muscles.

The first picture shows the little longleaf, now in their third year on site. Next is the new clear cut, 46 acres that we will plant next spring. After that are 19-year-old loblolly across from the longleaf. They were thinned in winter 2010-2011 and I think we will do a second thinning in 2017. The first thinning did them a lot of good and the forest is very robust. The last picture is our place on SR 623. The wildlife meadow has quail. Those tree are 11-years-old loblolly. When we got the place, it looks a lot like that clear cut. You can see the forest evolution in the pictures.

Forest visits September 2015

We went down to the farms to plant clover on the new cut over, especially on near the trails, where there is more bare dirt. I was surprised how much had grown up by itself since the land was cut in July. Some is hardwoods sprouted from roots, but other plants are coming up from long-dormant seeds. The clover will hold the soil, provide nitrogen and be good wildlife forage. We will plant new trees in spring, about 400 per acre, thirty acres loblolly and fifteen longleaf and one acre of bald cypress. Loblolly will also seed in from the neighboring trees. In fact, left to their own devices, the loblolly would fill in by itself. It would take a little longer and we would not have the same quality trees, however.

Espen, Alex and Colin helped throw the seed. We did it by hand mostly as a form of performance art. I wanted them to be a part of the regeneration. Probably by the next time we do it, drones will handle much of the job.

I also did some work on our longleaf pine experimental plot. We have about five acres planted in 2012. The trees are doing okay. They have moved out of the grass stage (longleaf look like tufts of grass sometimes for a couple years before the bolt out) and some are now around eight feet high. They did a very good job o site preparation, so there is not too much competing hardwood. I did have to take down a couple dozen volunteer loblolly, however. It is kind of sad for me. If those same trees were growing a little distance away I would be delighted to have them.

It is hard work and I am getting a little too old and weak. The next day there were few places on my body that didn’t hurt. I still do the work with hand tools. I suppose I could succumb to modernity and get tools powered by something other than my aging and now aching muscles.

The first picture shows the little longleaf, now in their third year on site. Next is the new clear cut, 46 acres that we will plant next spring. After that are 19-year-old loblolly across from the longleaf. They were thinned in winter 2010-2011 and I think we will do a second thinning in 2017. The first thinning did them a lot of good and the forest is very robust. The last picture is our place on SR 623. The wildlife meadow has quail. Those tree are 11-years-old loblolly. When we got the place, it looks a lot like that clear cut. You can see the forest evolution in the pictures.