Accidental Woodland Habitat Restoration

This is a bit of positive news on inadvertent habitat restoration. There is ample evidence that woodlands are all naturally designed around the presence of periodic fires that clean out the surplus fuel and undegraded organic material. We certainly know this to be true in the West and now this note shows the same for the South East.

It would be quite easy to establish a woodland maintenance program consisting of operating a proscribed burn on designated refugia combined with some soil disturbance. This was formerly called slash and burn. It can be designed to be labor efficient and the recovery will be supported by increased productivity.

And while we are at it establish a buffalo herd to do what the forest needs naturally. The recycling of green surplus into manure is surely able to prolong the burn cycle time period. In fact it may make such burns largely unnecessary if we also collect the waste wood from time to time.

Such buffalo herds will still need access to winter fodder but they will open up the forests and trample waste wood while rough browsing the vegetation. This will surely lead to much more productive woodlands needing far less human input.

Such terrain will also support large herds of deer as they are already. They all need to be simply owned and well managed unless we want to leave it in the hands of the wolves.

The original eastern forests were lightly burned every year by the original occupiers and this was abandoned as populations collapsed and its importance never understood.

Gone But Not Forgotten?

posted Wednesday, February 2, 2009 by lynda mills\

http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/ssrs/story?id=4304

http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/ssrs/attachments/4304.jpg

First-year running buffalo clover seedlings emerge following prescribed burn on MTNF.

Endangered plants re-appear on Mark Twain National Forest following prescribed burn

It is said that for people to thrive in their environment, sometimes all they need is a little stimulation and encouragement. The Mark Twain National Forest has found that the same could be said for running buffalo clover.

Running buffalo clover (Trifolium stoloniferum) is a federally endangered plant that was listed in 1987. It looks a lot like the clover in your backyard, but unlike cultivated clovers, it is native to North America. It derives its name from the theory that historically, it was dependent upon bison or other large ungulates to scarify and spread its seed, and to provide the moderate soil disturbance necessary for its proliferation and spreading.

In 1994-95, the Mark Twain National Forest entered into a Challenge Cost Share Agreement with Missouri Botanical Garden and Northeast Missouri University to introduce populations of running buffalo clover to eleven sites on the National Forest. At each site, seedlings were planted and monitored. Within a few years, the plants at seven of the sites had disappeared, and by 2000, none of the sites had evidence of any running buffalo clover survival. Soon after, monitoring of the sites was discontinued.

However, before the plants disappeared at the introduction sites, some of them had done quite well and not only flowered, but produced seed. There were many theories regarding why the plants had disappeared at the sites, but the most prevalent theory was that the conditions at the introduction sites had deteriorated due to a lack of management.

Most of the research on running buffalo clover indicated that, for long-term survival, the plants require filtered sunlight and periodic moderate soil disturbance. However, the introduction sites on the Mark Twain National Forest had not been disturbed and most were heavily shaded.

Acting on a suspicion that seeds at one of the introduction sites may still be viable, the Potosi District of the Mark Twain National Forest decided to conduct a burn at one of the introduction sites. It had been over 8 years since running buffalo clover had been observed at the site, but it was hoped that a prescribed burn may stimulate dormant seeds still in the soil and encourage them to germinate.

In March 2008, a small five-acre burn was conducted on the site. Prior to this burn, no active management (e.g. burning, thinning, etc.) had occurred at the site. Then, biologists waited. Finally, after the spring burn followed by a growing season of record rainfall, it was time to go check the site.

On September 17, 2008, biologists returned to the site, and to their pleasant surprise, were greeted by healthy, vibrant and growing running buffalo clover seedlings. The prescribed burn had worked! Biologists counted several seedlings growing in many of the introduction plots in the burned area.

Although this was a very small burn on the Mark Twain National Forest, in had a very large impact upon the biodiversity of the National Forest and Missouri. With the re-appearance of running buffalo clover at this site, the number of populations of this endangered plant on the Mark Twain National Forest now equals one, and it represents one-eighth of the statewide population.

Managers of the Mark Twain National Forest are now discussing options regarding how to best manage this site, and are considering burns at some of the other historic introduction sites to see if this good luck can be repeated. Stay tuned!

Roots of Agriculture

When I wrote my manuscript Paradigms Shift, the one difficulty that I had was explaining the reasons for the abrupt introduction of Global agriculture without any obvious prior development that mirrored the real antiquity of man that clearly spans 40,000 years and possibly a more likely 70,000 years. In short, the capability existed for that time span. The execution apparently commenced wherever possible throughout the globe only with the onset of the Holocene.

And this has to be appreciated. Since the Pleistocene Nonconformity, our global climate has varied by around one degree at most per century which has allowed the existence of temperate agriculture in the Northern Hemisphere. It also helped that the Ice Cap disappeared opening up vast woodland plains.

Prior to the Pleistocene nonconformity, the temperature variation was at least five times greater. This meant temperature swings of several degrees in a century. The only possible response was for human tribes to follow the herds.

With the northern hemisphere eliminated as viable cropping land, we are forced to look to the tropics in particular where this violent climate variation was moderated. There we have Africa acting as a climatic cradle and also South East Asia. The Amazon was prospective but there is as yet no convincing evidence that it was even inhabited.

That agriculture could exist is made plain in the New Guinea highlands. Taro toot cultivation is at least 10,000 years old and may actually have a far greater antiquity. I think that this is a great place to discover the earliest foundation of agriculture anywhere.

We also have little understanding of the antiquity of cattle culture. The Masai show us that a cattle culture does not need established homesteads to manage their herds. In fact, actual village life may have come late to societies relying on cattle. They would have first followed the natural migration cycle of the herds themselves.

Remember the Buffalo herds. The tribes kept themselves mobile and did nothing to hinder the movement of the herds through their grazing lands. That life way could have been maintained for thousands of years before anyone thought to actually tame a buffalo and keep it fenced.

In fact it almost begs the question of why we bothered. Certainly food security would be improved if the animal was tamed and part of the household. But is was a lot of work, and the usage of the milk needed to evolve. Maybe they started as pets and we simply got better at the husbandry. All of a sudden we had herds and they became a source of wealth and the implied need for stable land holdings. Maybe it was the milking that settled us down.

This type of culture was quite capable of handling the violent swings of the pre Holocene climate in the temperate zone. what is more, I suspect that Archeology would have difficulty recognizing the difference between herd management and pure hunting until the advent of villages.

I suspect that the idea of settled agriculture has an antiquity that is vastly more than 10,000 years and was tentatively practiced where possible. The advent of stable climatic conditions finally made it easy after the Pleistocene Nonconformity

Buffalo and Industrial Biochar

I got to take a long weekend attending a wedding party in Edmonton for a niece. Good times by all. I chatted up a couple of my favorite subjects and picked up a few tidbits and clarified an idea or two.

The first is that buffalo herds are becoming very visible in Northern Alberta. this suggests that the critical mass exists for a huge herd expansion. More importantly, if they were not economic and easy to ranch, this would not be happening. I am told that they are commonly mixed with beef and have obviously become very fence trained. This was the big concern at the very beginning.

What this tells me is that buffalo have been completely accepted into our animal husbandry culture and that there are plenty of farmers moving into the business. We will all live to see millions of animals from the current 500,000 stock. I also know that a number of plains Indian reservations are actively building herds. There is a certain irony in having the descendants of those icons of the great plains take a leading role in buffalo husbandry.

I also got to talking about biochar and terra preta.. I realized that my hesitancy over using a small ten to twenty ton shipping container as a biochar kiln on the farm is misplaced.

A smaller metal kiln would need a daily charge of 10 to 20 tons of plant waste. If the plant waste is corn stover or bagasse, we are processing one hectare's waste on a daily basis. This should, with normal crop management, draw from a one mile radius which is very typical of the large modern farm. This could be operated on a continuous basis throughout the year.

It would be necessary to store the waste in a convenient form next to the kiln and it would be necessary to also store the biochar product until the time for putting it back into the soil. Once the waste is harvested though, the actual production process could be made into a simple daily chore with a little equipment or even just a large front end shovel.

The oven itself (you may wish to review my earlier postings on shipping container incinerator design) been of two lung design will not leak and all the volatiles driven off go directly back into the heat production cycle. It may be possible at some added expense to capture a part of the volatiles as a byproduct.

Because the container is a sealed device, the packing ratio is not nearly so critical as in the earthen kiln design needed by pre-industrial farmers. In fact it would be convenient to chop the stover as is done anyway, and then to blow the material into wagons and holding bins from which it can be then blown into the kiln. There is a good chance that fairly simple modification of existing equipment will solve the technical problems.

Any such dedicated system is also ideal for disposing of unwanted straw bales and any other agricultural waste.

The important concern, is that we are now describing a system that can be made as automatic as your washer dryer and as time saving. The actual burn process itself is easily monitored and controlled with a little in the way of electrical control systems. It should no longer matter even if you are burning a partial load, as long as the space itself is filled to prevent too many hot spots of full combustion.

The capital cost of such a system is potentially very low with the nasty wild card been the very high temperature bricks needed for the small second lung. The rest can be assembled by any backyard mechanic once the design is tested and shaken out.

Cattle Methane Production

The news is alive today with an report by some chap who has chosen to warn the world that the large global herd of cattle are on the way to distorting the global climate through the greenhouse effect of methane. I have already pointed out that this concern is at best rubbish in other posts and is like been concerned that the excessive production of rainfall will increase the sea level.

All methane departs for the vast ocean of the troposphere were it is vigorously consumed, well outside the working atmosphere. That any remains for any length of time at all is only due to strong continual point sources. The methane map over the oceans show an unchanging barrenness, which confirms the rapid rise of methane through the atmosphere.

I am growing rather weary of scientists acting like stock promoters hustling the new theory of the day. At least stock promoters make no claim to intellectual authority. Yes Virginia, I is a stock promoter in other lives and fully appreciate the application of nuanced presentation to keep the boys out of jail.

At least cows are not producing a like amount of CO2. An appropriate question to ask is if the original ecology maintained the same level of ruminants. This certainly was true on the buffalo commons of the great plains. It must have been also true in all of Asia and Europe. There are huge tracts there that would clearly benefit from the reintroduction of bison.

The reforestation of the Sahara will go hand in hand with the introduction of cattle to process and refertilize the ground cover that will be reestablishing itself. This will be the first major step in terra forming the earth as all hot dry lands are retimbered with the technical assist of atmospheric water harvesting.

Off course, I am quite sure that that fine gentleman also subscribes to the argument that the global population needs to be sharply reduced. At least his argument for the sharp reduction in cattle herds is leading there. None have yet shown the required leadership to show the rest of us the required method.

Readers may wish to go back and read my early posts on the use of atmospheric water recovery.

Herd Management

Since we are talking about the arid lands, perhaps we need to discuss something that has never been properly addressed. Throughout the globe, we have huge populations of game animals that could benefit from management by ourselves.

All these wild stocks are now been managed by a grossly inefficient prey predator ecosystem boom and bust cycle. In the meantime, we have not been able to come to grips with the political reality and the responsibility of been the top predator. Yes, the responsibility!

The job of top predator entails proficient culling of herds to keep then in proper balance with their ecology. This is not even a difficult task. It just needs to be done. And the surest way to having it done is to establish herd ownership and management rights and let nature take its course.

Let us recall that humanity has done an astounding job in extending the range and habitat of the cow. Yet no one in his right mind gets into the paddock with a friendly bull. Yet there are no unowned animals. My last post shows us that we have begun the same process with the buffalo.

The point I want to make is that herd management begins with ownership, not taming. The caribou herds are clear examples of stocks crying out for a modicum of management. Establish legal ownership for the locals already relying on the caribou and have them take full responsibility. We will end up with a major sustainable industry and a very healthy ecosystem.

The same has to be done with the elephant herds of Africa and India. An owner will cull the excess males and collect ivory as it becomes available. The only technical difficulty is to create a device that inhibits a herd leader from leaving its range or penetrating farmland. I do not think that this is that difficult to do.

This needs to become a universal practice. There is certainly enough global market to economically support the ownership model. It also means that predator control can be carefully planned in order to minimize the inherent risk. Rebuilding the buffalo herds makes excellent sense. Rebuilding the plains grizzly and wolf population is just stupid.

Buffalo Commons

We have seen the future for woodland soils and well watered tropical soils. If corn can be grown, then carbonization and woodlot management can work together to sequester huge amounts of carbon while enriching the soils.

This is not the future for the semi arid lands that are are grasslands. Here woodland agriculture has struggled and is slowly been defeated. Farmers cannot afford outright crop failure because they are tied to an annual economic cycle. Yet the dry lands deliver such failure with historic predictability.

For most of these lands, water security can never be made available except for a marginal fraction for which irrigation is sustainable.

Some years back the Poppers coined the metaphor of the buffalo commons - see their site in my links. They did the analysis and recognized that the great plains agricultural economy was slowly eroding away. They pointed out that this was clearly a result of an agricultural system at its limits.

More importantly they observed that the original ecology was much more successful at sustaining itself and clearly more productive. The short grass and long grass prairies were remarkably deep rooted and able to readily survive drought and fire. A direct result of this was the huge carrying capacity for browsers.

The real clincher for myself was to learn that buffalo were at least a third more effective at converting grass into meat than the traditional beef cow. No wonder the wild herds numbered in the tens of millions.

Not only will a restored prairie contain contain two to five times as much carbon as currently contained, it will sustain an intensive buffalo husbandry clearly superior to beef husbandry. It is noteworthy that the land owners are now slowly implementing this regime. We are witnessing the very beginnings of a huge new industry.

It is slow, of course, because the herds themselves are still rather small. But we have learned that the animals take well to fencing and a minimum level of management. They are actually far less trouble than beef cattle that need to be coddled more in the severe conditions of the plains.

This same protocol can be applied on grasslands throughout the world. We all forget that the wild grassers of Eurasia were hunted out thousands of years ago. Reestablishing such wild grassing herds is largely a matter of fencing and good herd management and perhaps judicious introduction of appropriate animals.

The buffalo commons is showing us the way.