I spoke to Karan Rawlins of the
Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health
(bugwood.org)
at the
SoGa Growing Local & Sustainable Conference
in Tattnall County 26 January 2013 (coming to Lowndes County next year).
At the mention of
Chaste Tree, she picked up a copy of
A Homeowner’s Guide to Preventing the Introduction and Spread of Invasive Plants in Georgia,
and turned to page 6, which says:
The Valdosta Tree Commission is offering Chaste trees
“to citizens at wholesale prices with the hopes of planting 100 trees in the city limits”, but this may actually be a bad idea, since this
species is exotic, does not support local insects and birds,
and in Texas has become invasive.
The Tree Commission’s writeup says this tree:
“has no serious pest problems and attract butterflies to the garden.”
That first phrase is a red flag after reading
Dr. Douglas Tallamy’s book, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants.
Local insects mostly cannot eat exotic plants,
and local birds eat local insects, so planting exotic trees
may look good, but is not helpful to native insects and birds.
Yes, Chaste trees may attract some butterflies,
but how many, compared to native trees?
And “no serious pest problems” means not many native insects munching
on the leaves or stems of the tree.
So what to plant instead? See next post.
The City of Valdosta posted PR 3 January 2013, VTC Offers Chaste Trees at Wholesale Prices to Encourage Tree Planting,
Continue reading
As
Steve’s Forestry Blog noted last summer:
ArborGen made a request to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to plant 260,000 flowering genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees over 330 acres in seven states. USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is processing this request. Several plantations already exist in Florida and Alabama.Paul Voosen writes in Scientific American that
The tree is Eucalyptus grandis x urophylla. The plant is a cold-hardy eucalyptus that ArborGen is developing for future commercial purposes, mainly pulp for paper.
Even given government incentives and a price on carbon, however, ArborGen must satisfy concerns from regulators and environmental groups that its engineered trees will not, especially when gifted with the ability to resist cold, spread untrammeled through forests.It’s easy to see pollen from such trees blowing onto neighboring land and new trees growing. And, given the tactics of a certain other GM plant producer, it’s easy to see the patent owner sueing the adjacent landowner for patent theft, even though the patented plant trespassed. This is the level of assurance that that won’t happen:
“When you talk about trees, storms happen, wind blows,” he said. “The containment is not absolute. There is the chance of some spread. Is it likely to become an invasive weed? Seems unlikely to me.”Not very reassuring. Meanwhile, the test stations continue to spread: Continue reading