Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 12:45:27 -0400 From: "Semanchuk, Phil J" <pjs20347@glaxowellcome.com> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2218$foo@default> Subject: RE: What's happening in Florida?
> While the number may be up this year, I was struck
> by the high number of forest fires that are normal.
> As I said, I don't remember the specific numbers but
> generally the number of fires each year is 100,000
> or 200,000. Maybe someone else has a better memory
> for the numbers.
I think I may have heard the same thing as you did on NPR this morning.
If I recall, they said 150,000-200,000 _acres_ burn in an average year.
This year, that many acres have already burned.
This spring Jeff Welch and I toured an area of the Green Swamp that had
undergone a controlled burn last year courtesy of the Nature
Conservancy. The CPs were prolific and in excellent health (except for
the one beautiful S. flava that someone had yanked out of the ground and
then left to die -- what a strange thing to do!). Of course, this was a
controlled burn area and controlled burns avoid the kind high-intesity
blazes that might kill CP rhizomes. I gather that one of the keys to
doing a proper controlled burn is to do it when the ground is wet so
that dead vegetation is removed, grasses are kept in check and non-fire
resistant hardwood saplings are killed but anything at or below the soil
level (like a CP rhizome) is protected by moisture. The fires in Florida
might be very intense or happening under conditions that are not
CP-friendly.
Good growing,
Philip
URL du Jour: http://www.geo.duke.edu/eno/festival.htm
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