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Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

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Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#131

Post by paavokoya »

gricardo99 wrote: post #76
stevecalifornia wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not plant related, but equally fascinating: There used to be a lake bigger than Lake Tahoe in California between Fresno and Bakersfield. It It was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (by surface area). It was drained for agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

I discovered this historical trivia myself by chance not long ago. While stopping in Kettleman City off of I-5, there's a retail complex called Bravo Farms. Inside, near the restrooms there's a map on the wall showing a massive "Tulare Lake". I could hardly believe such a large lake existed in this area not too long ago and it's mostly forgotten. Google image search, and I found someone else posted a pic of the map:…

Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#132

Post by 13of40 »

stevecalifornia wrote: post #30
whyenot wrote: post #20

Five hundred years ago, Spaniards spread the seeds of european annual grasses as they traveled between missions in California. Within a century or two, a large part of the California landscape had changed. Annual grasses crowded out native perennial grasses, and we got our "golden hills." Nobody knows exactly what California looked like before the Spanish arrived or how many species may have gone extinct, but you can…

Not plant related, but equally fascinating: There used to be a lake bigger than Lake Tahoe in California between Fresno and Bakersfield. It It was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (by surface area). It was drained for agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

Wow - that's actually pretty mindblowing. I lived in Porterville (on the east side of the lake, apparently) when I was a teenager, and my dad was an archaeologist, so he must have known about it but I don't recall him mentioning it. Explains why that whole drive north from there is so flat, though.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#133

Post by ashitlerferad »

kingmanaz wrote: post #38
stevecalifornia wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not plant related, but equally fascinating: There used to be a lake bigger than Lake Tahoe in California between Fresno and Bakersfield. It It was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (by surface area). It was drained for agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

For a good read on what happened to Lake Tulare, read "The King of California". The world's largest cotton plantation now sits in the lakebed and holds primary water rights. Pink sheet stock. Ticker BWEL.

Sell sell sell

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#134

Post by halugalugh »

kafkaesq wrote: post #110
stevecalifornia wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not plant related, but equally fascinating: There used to be a lake bigger than Lake Tahoe in California between Fresno and Bakersfield. It It was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (by surface area). It was drained for agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

There used to be a fairly sizable indigenous community (referred to by English-speaking settlers as the Yokuts) in the vicinity of that lake. Some 70,000 strong at their pre-contact height (one of the highest regional populations in North America): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokuts_people As a people they were apparently "drained" nearly out of existence, also, through the combined efforts of Mexican and European…

I got a contact high reading this

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#135

Post by shaftway »

MikeHolman wrote: post #113
mathattack wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same - eventually resistance develops.

Maybe, but we've seen some plant diseases pretty much eradicate the original species without them developing resistance. For example, the Panama disease (despite the massive resources of the banana industry) devastated the Gros Michel, and is now killing off the Cavendish. Another example is phylloxera, which plagued Vitis vinifera (European grape) vines in the 1800s. And to this day, the only solution is to hybridiz…

But that's because there is zero genetic diversity in the Gros Michel and Cavendish plants. None. They're all clones. You need some form of diversity to develop resistance.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#136

Post by brazzy »

jp555 wrote: post #117
samstave wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often thought about this. I've wondered; if we built a huge trench from the ocean into the Sahara desert, what would the environmental impact be??

I can imagine it would quickly be filled in by sand. The Sahara is a slow moving ocean of sand particles.

Actually, most of the Sahara is rocky, not sandy.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#137

Post by hvidgaard »

harlanlewis wrote: post #72
jqm wrote: post #6

The prevention to this type of problem is probably the same measure needed to fix many forestry problems. Regular fires. But now we have homes right up to the forest and no one wants to look at charred land for two decades. So I suppose it's still a no go. The thing about fire though is eventually it probably happens anyway.

For SOD, there's actually a fairly simple preventative step everyone could take that is poorly publicized. It wasn't until I happened to be out with someone who does environmental impact studies for the army corp of engineers that I learned how easily SOD can be transported from place to place through the soil that collects on clothing. Most of us wash after a trip outside, but we should be bleaching our shoes. The p…

While simple, it's a tall order to get every single outdoors person to use powerful disinfectant agents on their shoes every time they've been out.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#138

Post by Wildgoose »

masklinn wrote: post #75
ubernostrum wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what happened (slight oversimplification, but you can read up on it) was: * English people owned the land and the produce of the land in Ireland. * Irish people had little choice but to work for English people, and were allowed tiny plots of often-horrendous land on which to grow their own food. Potatoes were one of the few things that could grow on the land the Irish were allowed to use. When disease affected th…

> * English people owned the land and the produce of the land in Ireland. Of note, the english landlords didn't own the land out of any deservedness. The english crown had passed a number of penal laws fully intended to — and very successful at — transferring irish land from catholic owners to anglican owners. Amongst these: * catholics were mostly barred from education * catholics were barred from buying or inheriti…

No, Irish people owned the land - typically absentee landlords, (albeit Protestant as you rightly point out).

The Government imported millet from India to help feed people, but Irish radicals called it "Peel's Brimstone" (it's yellow remember) and said those who ate it endangered their immortal souls. They preferred the propaganda value of dead children.

As for the "English", we were thrown off our lands by the Enclosure Acts, and forced into the factories as the only way to avoid starvation - by the same Norman-British upper classes that were abusing Ireland as well. But for some reason, although we are fellow victims, we are the ones that always get the abuse for acts not of our doing.

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#139

Post by [deleted] »

kafkaesq wrote: post #110
stevecalifornia wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not plant related, but equally fascinating: There used to be a lake bigger than Lake Tahoe in California between Fresno and Bakersfield. It It was the largest fresh water lake west of the Great Lakes (by surface area). It was drained for agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

There used to be a fairly sizable indigenous community (referred to by English-speaking settlers as the Yokuts) in the vicinity of that lake. Some 70,000 strong at their pre-contact height (one of the highest regional populations in North America): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokuts_people As a people they were apparently "drained" nearly out of existence, also, through the combined efforts of Mexican and European…

[deleted]

Re: Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

#140

Post by ijk »

samstave wrote: post #108
losteric wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how all these lost lakes impacted the regional climate

I've often thought about this. I've wondered; if we built a huge trench from the ocean into the Sahara desert, what would the environmental impact be??

The Amazon rainforest would die. [1]

How much of it actually would die is obviously depends on factors like how big the replacement lake is and how much it affects the phosphorus, but I'm constantly amazed by how seemly separate systems are actually intimately interconnected.

[1] http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-h...

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