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Alabama Wages War Against the Perfect Weed
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.'"
Here in British Columbia we don't wage war on it, it's our #1 export.
Nice.
I'll have to plant some of that inbetween the patches of kudzu.
Now I only need a face-eater and I'll finally have a respectable death-world themed garden.
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.
I am the lawn!
I had an entirely different thing in mind when I read "the perfect weed".
So, can one smoke it?
Genetically engineer a variante of that grass that is resistant to herbicides and infest your "favorite" competitor's/enemy's fields.
Criminials and terrorists these days are all about the quick short term damages. Nobody thinks about long term, sustainable damage these days. *sigh* Amateurs!
If it can be processed as fuel and ever spread to Michigan.. "Hey GM, fuel comes to you!"
Alternatively, an army of junk weed smoker could eradicate it better than goats.
Léa Gris
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...
Complexity is a measure of our ignorance...
Having seen goats chewing happily on pieces of clothing and other garbage, mutating goats to have no sense of taste sounds to me like mutating rabbits to have long ears. (I was planning to write something slightly different but less suited for small children and Americans here.)
Musicians don't die. They just decompose.
I totally read this as
"Congress, a.k.a. the perfect weed"
Having seen goats chewing happily on pieces of clothing and other garbage, mutating goats to have no sense of taste sounds to me like mutating rabbits to have long ears. (I was planning to write something slightly different but less suited for small children and Americans here.)
I... don't get it.
Can this voracious weed perhaps be turned into biofuel? It seems to grow fast, and almost anywhere.
Why not grind it up and compost it to make methane or something.
We have the same problem in the UK with Japanese Knot Weed. Nothing eats it, it can respawn from the smallest cutting. So you can't burn it, you can't throw it away, you can only poison it. And each stem has to be done individually, and the process needs to be repeated two or three times to kill the bloody thing. They're talking about introducing some japanese insects that feed on it, but then what's to say they wont prefer strawberries or wheat or something else?
The State of Alabama is spending millions of dollars in federal stimulus money to combat Congress?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The highway 80 strategy sounds good.
But to make it evenmore successfull, imagine what the combination of the highway 80 accessabillity, and a "scientific report" that states that the smoke from burning the plant, contains hallucinogens, would do to the plant...
In Evolution terms
biologic systems fight for survival and propagation
at this game
that weed definitively is a winner
which can also be problematic
for earth overwhole winner : man.
but don't panic
Monsanto and its friends will
surely find some genetic magic
to kill that weed
ooh by the way
you'll have to pay
not only to kill
but also
to protect from its return.
finally
genetic business is
probably the Evolution winner...
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
It's like mutating your usual Ford and GM SUV to have more low-fuel indicator lights.
It's the only way to be sure.
This sounds a lot like Kudzu - another plant brought over from Japan.
From TFA "For a while, government officials encouraged the use of cogongrass as a forage crop and as a way to stem soil erosion."
We did that with Kudzu too. What's with these agricultural guys promoting alien species they clearly know nothing about ?
Although, if nothing wants to eat it, why promote it as a forage crop ? That does suggest that some animal must like it. There must be some reason why the South of Japan is not one mass of Kudzu and cogongrass.
Thank god something living is willing to move back into Michigan. There is hope to save this state!
Aren't we supposed to all be about green energy these days? Pay someone to collect it. Shred and compress it into fuel pellets. Burn it to make heat or electricity.
Why not use it as a fuel then?
One man's grass is another mans treasure.
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.
The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt, that night, on this stuff.
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.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
Nope. This is a business trip of sorts. It's just coming back to deliver the death blow; after that it's out quicker than a fat kid in dodge ball.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Nuke it from space, it's the only way to be sure.... it's only Alabama.
yea...same here...for some reason, I thought of that one scene from one of the Road Trip movies...where the nerd develops the "perfect weed" that is undetectable....etc.
Why not just make it a Schedule 1 offense to posses or grow it?
I would bet that if it was smokable in a manner that would get one high that there would be no problem keeping it under control. People would harvest it for the sheer delight of it. But then we'd have a million more grow farms all over the place. ..... mmmm, i'm hungry now....
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
If it burns extremely hot, it's not a "weed" -- it's potentially "the perfect biofuel."
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?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
(I was planning to write something slightly different but less suited for small children and Americans here.)
Not all of us are looking to censor vulgar speech or freak out at the sight of a bare chested woman. Most of us actually are quite foul mouthed, and being on this website and even reading the comments probably means that the most of us aren't easily offended.
Also, fuck you.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Couple hundred gallons of arsenal will do the job nicely... http://www.cdms.net/LabelsMsds/LMDefault.aspx?pd=70&t=1,2,3,4
It's like mutating your usual Ford and GM SUV to have more low-fuel indicator lights.
I... am even more confused.
Kudzu would put this crap to shame. You can burn and spray and kudzu still comes back.
It's OK. It is obvious that you are a product of the public school system.
--
All three will eventually be consumed by the Red Weed anyway.
Who the fuck are you calling "foul mouthed", you cock-sucking sonofabitch?!
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
If they were spending millions in Federal money to combat Congress.
Sent from my iPhone
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
That's an awesome sig, just so you know :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"Not all of us are looking to censor vulgar speech or freak out at the sight of a bare chested woman. Most of us actually are quite foul mouthed, and being on this website and even reading the comments probably means that the most of us aren't easily offended.
Also, fuck you, BITCH!"
FTFY
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Archie: How very interesting. You're a true vulgarian, aren't you?
Otto: You're the vulgarian, you fuck.
Perhaps what they meant is that it's not easy to burn, because you need to maintain a very high heat to get it to burn at all? Not sure, just guessing here.
Anyhow, even if it does burn well, as you posit, it still wouldn't make a great biofuel . . . if it's such an ecological threat that it'll spread from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, eradicating pretty much all other plant life, how do you contain it where you *want* it to grow (as a biofuel crop) without wiping everything else out, causing mass starvation, possible extinctions of lots of types of plants, and then the animals that depend upon those other plants as fuel?
This sounds more like a biological weapon - drop this stuff in the Opium Poppy fields in Afghanistan lol.
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.
The thing about invasive weeds is that they tend to outperform native plants in temperate climates where sun, rain, and nutrients are scarce. However, their native climates are often semi-tropical like Japan, and they get easily choked out by other plants that are better at taking advantage of abundant rain and nutrients.
To take another example, dandelions are an invasive species in North America, where they choke out native grasses and garden plants. But in Japan, where they are native (or have existed for a very long time), they are a somewhat uncommon sight, as other local plants tend to crowd them out after the spring rains.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
we then introduce gorilla, which will eat the lizard. The gorilla won't bwe a problem, they will die in winter. /I watch too much simpson.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
'it could spread all the way to Michigan.'
But frankly it will probably stop at the Michigan border. Even this weed has its limits...
Well we can chalk this up alongside: The termite colony in England that will soon devour the East Coast, the English Wallaby colony, The devouring rhododendron of Wales, the German Racoon Colony, and lets not forget all those other weeds busy clogging up the waterways of Europe nor the somewhat rampant (and delicious baked in a pie) American Grey Squirrel locked in a Star Wars type war with the Rebel Alliance of Red Squirrels - also in the UK.
Then there's the Florida Pythons (not a new comedy team), South American Fire ants and First Amongst Equals the Cane Toad in Oz.
However I do believe the English landed Gentry managed to finish off the last member of the Coypu Colony (sort of giant hamster) but have had no success with the now wild and thoroughly naturalised Mink which is doing an "Alien" along the clogged up waterways ripping everything with a heartbeat to shreds as it advances further and further North.
Thanks in most part to: Stupidity, Cack Science, well-meaning Animal Libbers, Globalisation and the simple fellow who thought it would be a great idea to have those charming racoons climbing in and out of German wheelie bins (a sort of Euro-dumpster)
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
I wonder how much text you have to add to avoid the filters...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Send a zillion seeds and drop them on Mars. Wait. Within years, the planet will be green. Oxygen abundant. Then we can burn half of it, and turn up the heat in the greenhouse~
Ignore the americans, everyone else does.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
The solution is clearly ice-nine.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
There are plenty of things that taste worse than clothing. In fact, haven't you seen all those little kids sucking and chewing on their shirts all the time? Wait a minute, I'm getting a HUGE clue... I know how to solve Alabama's problem!
* runs to his study to draw a plan on the walls *
--
Computer scientists don't die. They just disassemble.
weinersmith
It seems strangely appropriate that I misread the name of "the perfect weed" as Congress.
Ahhh! Car Analogy!
I reserve the right to have a physical object so I can sell it later, and recover my money.
/interest in topic plummets.
Hmm when I first read that phrase I was thinking something else LOL
its a simpsons reference when new lizards are introduced
From Wikipedia:
Since the town considered the pigeons to be a nuisance, they are delighted with the fact that the lizards have eaten all the pigeons. As a result, Bart is thanked and honored by Mayor Quimby with a loganberry scented candle. Lisa worries that the town will now become infested by lizards rather than the pigeons, but Skinner assures her that they will send in Chinese Needle Snakes, then snake-eating gorillas, and then "winter will take care of the rest."
Being a new home owner, I have to say I am starting to realize the effects of weeds on my lawn. I had lived in a condo before, and now I see how much work it is to keep that nasty stuff off my lawn. Another thing too, is that if you live enar a field that is unkept by the city, that has immense foliage of weeds growing, then all that pollen comes into your yard, you are fighting a losing battle.
I am getting myself astro turf everywhere, and getting rid of my lawn mower...!
All i read was, "blah blah blah, multiple application of herbicide all over Alabama, blah blah blah cancer"
"... the State of Alabama is spending millions of dollars in federal stimulus money to combat Congress, 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.'
Congress (Imperialista corruptivus) is considered one of the 10 worst weeds in the world. 'It can take over farms and factories, ruining cops, destroying Native Americans, upsetting the economic system,' writes Berry. 'It is very difficult to kill.' But the weed is so resilient that you can't kill it with one election, you have to return two years later and do it again. Left unchecked, Pecot says 'it could spread all the way to Europe.'"
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
I don't use foul language, I don't drink, and I'm respectful of women. Now get me a fucking beer, bitch!
Free Martian Whores!
I just love the Wikipedia page on this stuff. It's pretty clinical and detached, until you get to the bottom and see where it's listed as a 'native' species:
Categories: Poaceae | Invasive plant species | Flora of the Canary Islands | Flora of Algeria | Flora of Egypt | Flora of Morocco | Flora of Ethiopia | Flora of Kenya | Flora of Tanzania | Flora of Uganda | Flora of Burundi | Flora of Cameroon | Flora of Gabon | Flora of Rwanda | Flora of Benin | Flora of Burkina Faso | Flora of Ghana | Flora of Guinea | Flora of Liberia | Flora of Mali | Flora of Nigeria | Flora of Senegal | Flora of Sierra Leone | Flora of Togo | Flora of Malawi | Flora of Mozambique | Flora of Zambia | Flora of Zimbabwe | Flora of Botswana | Flora of Lesotho | Flora of Namibia | Flora of South Africa | Flora of Swaziland | Flora of Oman | Flora of Yemen | Flora of Afghanistan | Flora of Cyprus | Flora of Iran | Flora of Iraq | Flora of Israel | Flora of Turkey | Flora of Armenia | Flora of Azerbaijan | Flora of Georgia (country) | Flora of Russia | Flora of China | Flora of Japan | Flora of Korea | Flora of Bhutan | Grasses of India | Flora of Nepal | Flora of Pakistan | Flora of Sri Lanka | Flora of Cambodia | Flora of Laos | Flora of Burma | Flora of Thailand | Flora of Vietnam | Flora of Indonesia | Flora of Malaysia | Flora of Papua New Guinea | Flora of the Philippines | Poales of Australia | Flora of Queensland | Flora of Victoria (Australia) | Flora of Tasmania | Angiosperms of Western Australia | Flora of South Australia | Flora of the Northern Territory | Flora of Greece | Flora of Italy | Flora of France | Flora of Portugal | Flora of Spain
I, for one, welcome our silica-edged (!) sawtooth grass overlords.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Nothing can survive in Michigan, see graph
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=state:ST260000&tdim=true
When I was working on a biology degree, the big topic du jour was Chinese honeysuckle and how it was taking over large sections of American forests, choking out native species, etc. It had the advantage of being able to start growing earlier in the spring and remain green later in the fall than most other plants (driving through Ohio, you'll see it as all the green stuff growing on hillsides along highways). It was originally introduced to help stop erosion but eventually grew out of control, just like this stuff apparently was introduced for the same reason. All the morons in the state highway departments don't seem to understand that the reasons a plant is good for erosion control is because it grows quickly and has no natural brakes on its growth and spread, unlike native species that are "balanced" with the environment. I suppose eventually you'll see an equilibrium reached, but it'll be a shame to see all the native species go extinct because of introduction of non-native species.
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.
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.
Bearded Dragon
It never rains but it pours :-(
Not only do we have the oil fields drying up so alternative fuels are needed to run power stations but now we have this useless, oily, hot-burning plant that grows like crazy anywhere and nobody knows how to get rid of it.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Most Mexican stores carry goat meat ...they call it Chivo.
Also find a Jamaican restaurant and try some goat curry
"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.'
Wow. At first I read "...spending millions of dollars in federal stimulus money to combat Congress..." and I thought, it's about time somebody fought Congress! Those guys really do seem like weeds.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Isn't this just typical of the American South and Bible Belt?
Here we have a very visible proof of evolution in action (one species moving into a new area and out competing everything else), and what does the Alabama state government do? They try to eradicate that proof in a foolish attempt to show that an intelligently designed ecosystem is better, especially when it's helped by God's chosen: man.
I say to the silent majority of Americans who aren't buying into intelligent design, that you should rise up and fight this atrocity. Go out there and plant Cogongrass in your nears gardens, parks, forests and wildlife areas! Viva la Evolutión!
</joke>
Having seen goats chewing happily on pieces of clothing and other garbage, mutating goats to have no sense of taste sounds to me like mutating rabbits to have long ears. (I was planning to write something slightly different but less suited for small children and Americans here.)
I... don't get it.
Of course not - you're on Slashdot.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
Here in Virginia, Japanese Stiltgrass is becoming a major problem. I believe it is an annual that can be controlled by cutting before it goes to seed in September.
I, for one, welcome our glowing radioactive plant overlords.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
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.
The enemies of Democracy are
I got it! Let's draw a line across the state at Highway 80! That oughta take care of it! Only in Alabama...
It is obvious that you are a product of the public school system.
Is that public school in the British or American sense?
> " 'They don't understand that cogongrass can replace an entire ecosystem.'
> Left unchecked, Pecot says 'it could spread all the way to Michigan.'"
where it will be stopped at the border, killed by the trampling feet of people moving out of that sorry state.
I can say that since I live here.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
http://centripetalnotion.com/2006/09/04/15:57:58/
http://www.jjanthony.com/kudzu/houses.html
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_jan2009/TailgateCoyote.htm
http://www.aces.edu/department/extcomm/npa/newsline/archives/002890.php
http://www.northalabamamushroomsociety.org/
Apparently, in private schools they give out the inside scoop on humor and pop culture all day, so that you'll never need to be left out of a joke for the rest of your life.
Forgive we poor public school graduates for letting all that learning get in our way.
If the great ZuZu didn't want us to eat people, why did He make them out of meat?
That's it, all you can do now, when and if you see it. If it takes out pasture to the side, or row crops to the side, you still have to do that. And ya, sprays are toxic, but there's a few really nasty things growing out there that could seriously bork the food supply, so it's a tradeoff, and sometimes there are areas where that sort of spray is the only credible solution.
The option of letting it grow unchecked is really the worse of several evils now, and it could go from just being sucky to a catastrophe. Do some googling and look for images, and see what it does unchecked, it creeps into forests even and crowds stuff out, let alone open areas. I've been hip to this stuff for some time now, that's why I keep an eyeball out for it, even when I am driving around, because if I see it, and I don't care who's property it is, I'll sure as hell report it to the extension service.
When *nothing* will eat the thing, including goats, and it can spread underground, along with billions of teeny tiny seeds that can be blown around or carried around, and it chokes everything else out eventually, that makes it a grade A emergency and drastic measures will have to be used to eradicate it.
One of the most effective ways to deal with an out of control forest fire is to burn a backfire. Sometimes you just have to sacrifice for the larger good.
Ya, it sucks and I don't like using it myself, but it's the only cheap* thing we got to do that chore with now.
* for some values of cheap. It's still real expensive, but since it fell out of patent you can save a few bucks.
The next potentially less sucky approach would be that "terminator gene" thing I mentioned, which I think is dangerous as all get out to introduce into food crops, and I am totally against the production of such a plant or seed there, but might be useful as an alternative to control species like this.
Just like (well, it would be kinda sorta) one of the more effective ways they have found to control nasty insects (example, med fruit fly) is to introduce billions of sterile males in the targeted infested area, instead of toxic spraying everything.
The shit holiest cities in the USA list.
They each have a unique smell (even worse then Cincinnati.)
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
To save you looking at the slideshow, yes, of course it's a Toyota.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
$6 million? That's only $1 of funds for every 5.6 acres of land area. The idea that you could make any sort of impact with only $6 million is ludicrous, and just goes to show the complete ignorance of the public about "large" numbers. $6 billion would probably be closer to what you'd need.
OK, if ever we needed Moore's law to hit AI and create smart eco-bots that could get out there and harvest all these weeds, now seems to be it. Imagine ecosystems managed and assisted by smart, solar powered ecobots of various shapes, sizes, and functionality. What else could they do? Harvest the weeds and drag them to local biochar plants, generating biochar and fuel? Harvest Australian outback camels, freezing the meat and then shipping the meat to poorer African nations? (For some reason that one sounds a bit non-pc... not sure what camel meat tastes like.) Collect all the plastic in the North Pacific Gyre on automated solar powered ships? It seems that for the sake of our ecosystems we really need to create various autonomous robots for these mundane, repetitive, constant jobs, because I can't see which nation will really devote the money for people to do them....
palagay ko lang dala nang pinoy yan dyan, useful yan cogon
hmm... that's interesting. In the Philippines, cogongrass is not really a problem. It is being harvested and used as roofing for beach cottages or even shall houses. Though from my personal experience I haven't seen one that have really caused that much damage to the ecosystem. I haven't seen the extent on the case of Alabama though but I hope it would be manageable.
There's an aerial photo section which is kind of creepy. It depicts outbreaks of the stuff which occur as circles dotting the landscape. It really does resemble an alien invasion. cogongrass.org
If your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
On the upside, we're hoping it will kill off the kudzu.
I was halfway through the article before I realized they were talking about a real weed and not smokeable Pot.