I had no idea how my name got on the mailing list, but I was offered an opportunity to be a volunteer today. So with a little rearranging, I went out into the wilds of Marion County and planted native grasses for several hours. It was not at all what I had envisioned, but it was quite educational.
I must have misread, or misunderstood the email when it first came several weeks ago. I thought they were telling me that we would be planting long-leaf pines, which I know had originally pretty much covered most of the states in the southeast: before men with dollar signs gleaming in their eyes appeared in North America. Who apparently thought the First Families who had been living here for hundreds of years were idiots for choosing to live a subsistence life style, harvesting game, planting crops for a season, then moving on. Including clear cutting forests as far as the eye can see, and then over the next hill as well.
But what the volunteers did and will be doing through next Monday was planting 'weeds'. That as you know are actually wildflowers and native grasses, just growing in places humans don't approve. There were three of us, plus the supervisor/employee of the Nature Conservancy. Out there on a cold, windy, overcast morning, planting little plugs of native grasses to provide an understory for seventy acres of the long-leaf pines that were planted back in March. I think I remember it takes about seventy years for this type pine to mature - about three times a long as the yellow and slash pine farmers plant for selling to sawmills and and as pulp wood to the mills that make cardboard and paper products. So you definitely would not plant this slow growers as a cash crop, unless you were intending to leave it to your grandchildren. And they would probably look so magnificent a hundred years after they were mature, no one would want to cut them down to make houses and furniture.
The grasses, two different kinds, were planted in rows, lined up across an acre, in between the rows of pine seedlings, that survived the summer's heat/drought. The land we were working on is owned by the Conservancy. It is in full, over 1700 acres, with about 900 that was clear cut and burned in recent years, the rest in trash pine and volunteer undergrowth. We got a full acre planted, and the Conservancy Field Service hopes to get several more in the ground with various volunteers to come in the next several days. One group being a Botany class from CSU, who will come Monday afternoon to do 'lab work' (putting the grass plugs in the ground.) The grasses were grown in south GA. by a company that goes out and harvests seeds, germinates and grows until they are big enough to sell - so I guess there are lots more native-type seedlings available than what we were planting. I hope I can come back in seventy or a hundred years and see the results!?!
It was either a very successful day or completely non-productive, depending on which way you choose to look at forestry programs, ecological balance, and environment restoration. I'm choosing having spent my time driving to get lost in the wilds of Marion County as being a vital part of restoration.
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