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Scientists say sudden oak death epidemic is no longer stoppable

washingtonpost.com

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

#121

Post by spqr0a1 »

acomjean wrote: post #82
jagger27 wrote: post #34

Is anyone aware of any pre-industrial epidemics of a similar scale?

The American Chestnut. It was pretty much wiped out by a disease that infects its cousin, the Chinese Chestnut, which has defenses against it. "The American chestnut tree reigned over 200 million acres of eastern woodlands from Maine to Florida, and from the Piedmont plateau in the Carolinas west to the Ohio Valley, until succumbing to a lethal fungus infestation, known as the chestnut blight, during the first half o…

The american chestnut has been successfully genetically engineered with an oxalate oxidase gene for blight resistance. testing and out-crossing with wild-type chestnuts is ongoing. Wider availability should be possible in the next few years.

http://www.esf.edu/chestnut/

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

#122

Post by danieltillett »

caf wrote: post #118
callmeed wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it can work as firewood for heat if its thoroughly dried (1+ year). You have to split it before it dries. I guess I should clarify my previous post. Most people in CA don't burn wood for heat. I was specifically referring to burning wood for cooking (aka Santa Maria Style BBQ). For that, oak is superior and eucalyptus is a no-go.

I have long experience as a teenager splitting yellowbox eucalyptus for firewood - it splits considerably better when seasoned.

Yes as long as it is not knotted.

My favourite was logs that had the core eaten out by termites - now they were nice and easy to split :)

Talking of arthropods did you ever have the fun of chainsawing through a bull ant nest while collecting seasoned logs? They are not happy and do they hurt when they bite.

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

#123

Post by blackbagboys »

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??

People have been making plans about how to flood parts of the Sahara for about 100 years. Some of the more colorful options involved using buried nuclear warheads as trench-digging tools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Sea

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

#124

Post by hinkley »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #119
ArtDev wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving up is a very poor plan. Dead trees make wildfires much much worse. California wildfires are terrible as it is.

Forest fires are a natural part of the cycle. In fact, it's forest fire "prevention" that causes even bigger forest fires than normal. If they simply let fires burn, it would naturally cleanse the forests of brush and dead trees and create much smaller forest fires.

It's more that the specific type of forests that John Muir was so fond of were the result of intensive agroforestry by the tribes of California. They used fire as part of a fairly large toolbox, and you don't get that sort of forest without it.

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

#125

Post by hinkley »

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.

Did you know there's a group trying to create rice that doesn't absorb arsenic?

It turns out one of the only things that can grow on depleted cotton land is rice, but the pesticides used against weevils contain arsenic, and for some weird reason people don't like to eat rice full of arsenic!

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

#126

Post by ascotan »

justratsinacoat wrote: post #3

>while there may once have been a chance to stop the spread of $ARTICLE_TOPIC — around the year $CURRENT_DATE_MINUS_FIFTEEN_YEARS — that opportunity has since passed. Forces didn’t mobilize fast enough or spend enough money FTA, with minor edits; I think we'll see a lot more language like this in the coming ten years. The consequence, which absolutely no one would be against ("what do you mean, there's 90% fewer oak…

It looks like in 2002 California enacted a task force to control the spread of the disease. see "Sudden Oak Death Management Act of 2002". However, this was subject to appropriations in the California state budget. The author is implying the act was hampered by not having the budget to do the work (apparently $60 million a year according the article).

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

#127

Post by dredmorbius »

hyperbovine wrote: post #84
callmeed wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also: the eucalyptus tree which was brought to CA in the 1800s and spread rapidly before everyone realized that young trees are useless for timber [0][1] Here on the Central Coast, there are eucalyptus groves everywhere (some are massive). They are messy, a fire hazard, and useless for firewood. 0. http://www.independent.com/news/2011/jan/15/how-eucalyptus-c... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus#North_Am…

Slowly they are being eradicated. People in the East Bay are going apeshit over FEMA's plans to knock down ~10,000 eucalyptus in order to restore native vegetation and prevent a(nother) disastrous fire in the Oakland hills. On the other hand they seem to be very popular in Napa and along the 101 as windbreaks. Maybe we'll never get rid of them.

"Widowmakers". The last thing you want next to a highway in a strong wind is a eucalyptus tree.

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

#128

Post by dredmorbius »

jagger27 wrote: post #34

Is anyone aware of any pre-industrial epidemics of a similar scale?

Smallpox against virtually all non-European populations.

I'm trying to think of specific instances of pathogen based flora destruction, and don't know if I could mention many offhand. In California specifically, the replacement of wild bunchgrasses with European annuals (the "Golden Hills" are very much a modern phenomenon) would be one.

More generally, though, the motto "forest preceed us, deserts follow" has applied to human settlement for millennia. The Cedars of Lebanon and Pines of Rome aren't just allegorical. The former are where the Egyptians secured their lumber (painfully scarce along the Nile), the latter previously surrounded the Eternal City.

I'd be interested to know the history of forests in India, Persia, and China, other great centers of ancient civilisation.

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

#129

Post by dredmorbius »

emodendroket wrote: post #17

It's disappointing to see serious reporting like this saddled with a clickbait title like "This disease has killed a million trees in California, and scientists say it’s basically unstoppable."

This is, sadly, completely typical for Chris Mooney.

His writing is usually decent. His headlines are pathetic. I've been hoping he'd stop for years. He hasn't.

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

#130

Post by has2k1 »

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.

The sand only moves if it is light. When the weather and climate changes, the make up of the sand changes and so does the way it moves. It is a complicated process and it would definitely have some surprises.
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