Crazy Suicide Trees Part II

Señor C refers to lodgepole pines as "Crazy Suicide Trees" because of their serotinous cones. The tree grows best on bare mineral soil with lots of sunlight and water, so the cones stay on the tree with the seeds shut tightly inside until they are exposed to heat- from forest fires. The trees also take any chance to turn a ground fire into a crown fire, because taking out every other tree in the forest is a great leap forward for the lodgepole population in general if not that tree in particular. The trees are basically made of oily rags and match heads. It's really awesome firewood.

Meadows in California are having a rough hundred years. First, the lovely people who burned them every couple of years were quietly encouraged not to do that. Also, they should start wearing shoes, goddammit. Then the grazing of federal lands became commonplace- and since forest floors covered with duff are not so tasty, herds congregate in grassy moist meadows and tear the shit out of them. Sometimes shepherds dug troughs so that cattle and sheep could drink. These troughs, cow paths, and ATV/truck ruts form ditches, the ditches cut deeper into the precious organic soil, the water level dropped, and bad things started to happen.

Areas with water tables very near the surface have very nice plants. (Scientific surface water table test. Stick your finger into the soil. Is it wet? Then it's a surface water table.) First, the soil is basically super rich compost, formed by four thousand years of grass quietly lying down and dying in water. In this situation, most plants would drown- the roots have to respire as well as the leaves. Adapted plants have spongey cells that funnel air down to the roots, or tiny rootlets that stick above the surface to gasp for air. It tends to be an area without a lot of invading plants. (Also, it's the home of three of the five plants that always lift my heart when I see them. Hypericum anagaliodes, I'm looking at you. )

Since the water levels on many of the meadows are lower, Lodgepole pine seeds in the soil are geminating, and lots of little pines are taking over the meadows. The instinct of Land Management Professionals is to set the meadows on fire. This is a fantastic idea.

Well, it is an okay idea, actually. Burning meadows is always good. But setting things on fire to prevent the spread of things that spread when there is fire? That's awesome logic there.

Man in my lab has a project that seeks to prove this with science. Since he couldn't get a federal grant to prove setting things on fire was a bad idea, he got one to prove setting things on fire is a good idea. (Yay USFS, encouraging latent pyromania.) He was all set to burn these meadows and prove that it wouldn't knock back the crazy suicide trees, but then it rained four inches. That's OK! He can totally afford an extra year of graduate school!

So, takehome lessons.
1.) You can help! If you are hanging out in a meadow and see a ditch forming on a cowpath or whatever, build a little dam. The water that backs up behind it will help the plants we all love. Sure, my mother (looking at you B) told you that you shouldn't dam creeks, that the natural environment was precious and delicate, but she didn't know that we'd already screwed things up.
2.) Wow, if only the FS would move away from logging and burning to restore meadows! If only someone would look at manually reconstructing the creek bed and excluding cows! If only someone had the spare time to measure vegetative bounceback over several years!
Excellent. (I has a secret project doing this. Mwahaha)
3.) Time, tide, winter rain wait for no man.