The ashe juniper tree.
Oh, how I loathe the ashe juniper tree.
I've cleared it my whole life, knowing well its ability to stick you with its needles, make you sick with its pollen, grow anywhere even right out of rock, lay low to dull your chainsaw blade on limestone, and burn so hot and flare up so fast that it can take the hair right off your arm if you get too close.
However, in reacting to a recent study proclaiming advantages to cedar thickets, my research showed me I knew little about my foe of all these years.
Where cedar came from, how it's become what it is today and how we justify getting rid of it: Is cedar native? The common consensus seems to be that cedar is NOT native and was spread by cattle drives from Mexico.
However, cattle don't eat the berries and the berries couldn't get stuck in their hair because they are round and smooth.
Quashing the notion that cedar are not native are settlers' manuscripts, homesteads dating back hundreds of years being built with cedar and a 1995 study in the September 1995 issue of Quaternary Research, whereby researchers Stephen Hall and Salvatore Valastro found juniper pollens dating back to the Ice Age in the Friesenhan Cave in Northwestern Bexar County.
Has it always been this thick and prominent? By the many settlers' accounts on record, we can quash the notion held by many that the Hill Country was once only a large grassland, however, it was not as it is today.
Settlers describe Hill Country cedar thickets, open areas, hardwoods, etc.
However, while Indians let wildfires burn, the settlers did not, which has allowed (along with the cedar's amazing ability to survive under the driest conditions) for cedar to spread and thrive like never before.
According to LBJ historian Robert Caro in Path to Power, "When white men first came into the Hill Country, there was little cedar there.
Twenty years later, cedar covered whole areas of the country as far as the eye could see; by 1904, a single cedar brake reaching northwest from Austin covered 500 square miles- and was growing, faster and faster, every year.
" Can we villainize cedar as a water culprit? The common notion of cedar sucking up some 30 gallons of water a day, more than any hardwood, may overreach according to new research.
A 2008 A&M study concluded live oaks suck up more water than cedar and found cedar thickets beneficial to the environment for CO2 storage; specifically, that cedar brakes provide a "big gain in carbon storage for a relatively small increase in water use.
" Obviously, cedar thickets do suck up a good deal of water.
A&M's own 1997 study with the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board agrees, finding "juniper increase can have a major impact on rangeland hydrology.
" So truth be told, cedar is native, more prominent than ever and while it definitely takes a toll on water availability, disbelief of it knocking back 30 gallons of water a day may be warranted.
Make no mistake, it's no time to make friends and cultivate cedar; however, it appears our old foe is just that and may not being going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
Oh, how I loathe the ashe juniper tree.
I've cleared it my whole life, knowing well its ability to stick you with its needles, make you sick with its pollen, grow anywhere even right out of rock, lay low to dull your chainsaw blade on limestone, and burn so hot and flare up so fast that it can take the hair right off your arm if you get too close.
However, in reacting to a recent study proclaiming advantages to cedar thickets, my research showed me I knew little about my foe of all these years.
Where cedar came from, how it's become what it is today and how we justify getting rid of it: Is cedar native? The common consensus seems to be that cedar is NOT native and was spread by cattle drives from Mexico.
However, cattle don't eat the berries and the berries couldn't get stuck in their hair because they are round and smooth.
Quashing the notion that cedar are not native are settlers' manuscripts, homesteads dating back hundreds of years being built with cedar and a 1995 study in the September 1995 issue of Quaternary Research, whereby researchers Stephen Hall and Salvatore Valastro found juniper pollens dating back to the Ice Age in the Friesenhan Cave in Northwestern Bexar County.
Has it always been this thick and prominent? By the many settlers' accounts on record, we can quash the notion held by many that the Hill Country was once only a large grassland, however, it was not as it is today.
Settlers describe Hill Country cedar thickets, open areas, hardwoods, etc.
However, while Indians let wildfires burn, the settlers did not, which has allowed (along with the cedar's amazing ability to survive under the driest conditions) for cedar to spread and thrive like never before.
According to LBJ historian Robert Caro in Path to Power, "When white men first came into the Hill Country, there was little cedar there.
Twenty years later, cedar covered whole areas of the country as far as the eye could see; by 1904, a single cedar brake reaching northwest from Austin covered 500 square miles- and was growing, faster and faster, every year.
" Can we villainize cedar as a water culprit? The common notion of cedar sucking up some 30 gallons of water a day, more than any hardwood, may overreach according to new research.
A 2008 A&M study concluded live oaks suck up more water than cedar and found cedar thickets beneficial to the environment for CO2 storage; specifically, that cedar brakes provide a "big gain in carbon storage for a relatively small increase in water use.
" Obviously, cedar thickets do suck up a good deal of water.
A&M's own 1997 study with the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board agrees, finding "juniper increase can have a major impact on rangeland hydrology.
" So truth be told, cedar is native, more prominent than ever and while it definitely takes a toll on water availability, disbelief of it knocking back 30 gallons of water a day may be warranted.
Make no mistake, it's no time to make friends and cultivate cedar; however, it appears our old foe is just that and may not being going anywhere for the foreseeable future.