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[RC] Non-native plants (was: Nature Conservancy) - k s swigart

Dyane Smith said:


In fact that's not true.  There has been research
done to show that horse manure does not introduce
non-native plants.


Well....it may be that there has been research done to show
that horse manure does not spread noxious weeds (I don't
know that for sure), but certainly horse manure can spread
non-native plants.  The most common of which is....

.... you guessed it....

oats.

And oats (source middle-east/mediterranean) are most
definitely considered a non-native.  And the naturalist
purist (of which I am not one) would like to see them
erradicated.

However, on the Santa Rosa Plateau the chances of that
happening are exactly zero (the golden hillsides seen up and
down the coast of California are predominantly oats), and
unless/until they came up with an AGRESSIVE (and fruitless)
eradication/ replacement program, the number of oat plants a
horse might leave behind it its manure is totally
irrelevant.

However, oats are a prolific producer (which is why man
domesticated them in the first place, and why Europeans
imported them into the Americas when they came), so IF you
happened to be in a place that didn't already have them
(which is nowhere in California), and you didn't want them,
then keeping horses out in order to keep the oats out would
be something to consider.

Horse manure can also introduce Bermuda Grass, which is also
not a problem on the Santa Rosa Plateau, because the Santa
Rosa Plateau doesn't get enough water in the summer time for
it to survive the annual summer "drought."

However, that does not mean that my brother doesn't try to
keep it out of his back garden, since, once bermuda grass is
established in a place where there is sufficient water (and
it doesn't require very much), it is virtually impossible to
get rid of.

In a place where there are not already oats and/or bermuda
grass, horse manure most definitely CAN introduce non-native
plants.

kat
Orange County, Calif.




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