Interview with Mark Vande Pol (FReeper Carry_Okie)

Sunni's Salon ^ | July, 2005 | Sunni Maravillosa & Mark Vande Pol

[kidd]

Read about a third of it. Really interesting stuff.

Bump to finish reading later.

[Carry_Okie]

Would that be the stickers with the cork-screw tails? If so, that would be filaree. Filaree is very popular with people with grazing animals, as it has a very high protien content. It's a tough weed, resistant to a good many herbicides. You can spray it, it will burn off, and then it puts up a single flower with hardly any leaves which makes it hard to see. I've beaten it back with RoundUp, but only very slowly. SpeedZone Southern works, but requires a Pest Control Applicator's license to purchase. Timing is critical, you have to get the plant in active growth in the early season. Soil temperature is the critical indicator.

A combination of perrennial grasses and pre-emergence and selective herbicides (such as SpeedZone) should work, but I have never attacked a large infestation.

If you don't like burrs, keep your eyes open for the bedstraws and hedge parsley. Both are spreading rapidly in Santa Cruz, thanks to County mowers. If you need photos to help identify these plants, send me a FReepmail with your email address and I can provide them to you.

Finally, if the burrs look like little bananas, that would be tarweed, which is native and a good soil conditioner. The best long-term management against tarweeds is good perrenial groundcovers, as the seedling is relatively non-competitive. One reason so many tarweed species are endangered is that government "protects" them by precluding soil disturbance they need to get started.

[EggsAckley]

That corkscrew tail filaree sounds like it. The leaves also have stickers on them, kind of like nettle. There's even a third sticker-thingie that they produce before the corkscrews. I used to have them somewhat under control until this year. I think the heavy rains triggered a comeback of them.
Thanks for the info.

[Carry_Okie]

Last year was the toughest weed control year I have ever experienced. It was also the greatest opportunity to use up the weed seed bank in many years.

[EggsAckley]

I just googled filaree and sure enough, that's it. For the past 35 years we have referred to it as the "heinous weed." Glad to finally know its name. (but it's still heinous) ~<|;o)

[countrydummy]

PING!!! :)

[mountainfolk]

Bookmarking this for my non-Freeper husband. He is an engineer, chemist, etc. who has an intense interest in everything you have talked about. He will appreciate my thoughtfulness. LOL.

[Marine_Uncle]

Thanks for post, will FYI for later reading.

[little jeremiah]

Bump.

[Carry_Okie]

This might interest you.

[sauropod]

I've moved.

No phone or home ISP yet.

[HKMk23]

What I refer to by "political mechanics" is that entire circle-jerk that begins with the true-believeing environmentalist group going to government to craft regulation to protect something -- a valley, a mountain, a particular species. The government, in turn, because certain persons within its structure are susceptible to manipulation by various industrial players who offer them certain, uh, "incentives", too often ends up crafting the regulatory language in ways that favor these industries. So, lanholders have their land usage and disposition increasingly regulated, because environmentalist gropus clamor for such control to be imposed by government, which, in turn, is made up of morally flawed individuals, all too many of whom are on the take from industry to cut them breaks in these regulations. These loopholes and exception clauses pave the way for land to be dispositioned, ultimately, in exatcly the kinds of ways that the environmental groups originally set out to prevent. They get played for complete patsies by both government and industry, the landowners get screwed into becoming FORMER land owners and the land itself gets the shaft.

Conservatives have long been suspicious of the liason between government and environmentalists but, because conservatism generally has a pro-business bent, we haven't been good at delving adequately into just how business plays into the enviro-political regulatory picture, particulary focusing on the ways that it has been exploiting corrupt politicians to game the system.

The whole mechanism would be a supremely delicious irony but for the toll in environmental damage and violations of private property rights that are involved.

This is just about my complete grasp of the situation as I presently understand it. I defer, therefore, to our demonstrated resident expert to clarify or modify anything I've stated that may be slightly off-target.

[Carry_Okie]

Your description of the regulatory loop has a missing element: The environmental activists are often funded by the tax-exempt "charitable" foundations of industry stockholders. That perfidy is not just opportunistic, but is manipulated and has been for over sixty years.

Conservatives have long been suspicious of the liason between government and environmentalists but, because conservatism generally has a pro-business bent, we haven't been good at delving adequately into just how business plays into the enviro-political regulatory picture, particulary focusing on the ways that it has been exploiting corrupt politicians to game the system.

This post has a pretty good description of just such a game.

The whole mechanism would be a supremely delicious irony but for the toll in environmental damage and violations of private property rights that are involved.

Correct. The whole key to our case is moral authority, but unless we exercise that authority by superior stewardship, we have no basis for a claim.

This is just about my complete grasp of the situation as I presently understand it. I defer, therefore, to our demonstrated resident expert to clarify or modify anything I've stated that may be slightly off-target.

lmao

[Carry_Okie]

Ping list ping. :-)

[countrydummy]

OHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! :)

[Carry_Okie]

Incommunicato incognito est.

[HKMk23]

Thanks for the link to your other voluminous post.

I guess I'm not only going to have to read your book, but I'm going to have to take a speed-reading course; there's just too much information to reasonably ingest at a paltry 600wpm.

[Carry_Okie]

Thanks for the link to your other voluminous post.

It may be voluminous, but it's a lot of information to diget. One doesn't just ingest it, or your head will explode.

Take your time with the book. You can start it at the Natural Process Website.

[countrydummy]

http://www.rightalk.com/

1-866-884-Talk (8255)

[HKMk23]

Yes, I saw the link to chapter 1 on the page, but I'm at work... Tempting though it is, I'll refrain and wait for the postman to arrive. Oh, and I'll stop by the hardware store and pick up a fresh roll of duct tape, too.