Tumbleweeds invade Clovis, NM...Do Americans even Know Tumbleweeds are an Exotic not Native to North America ?

[Ron Mastrogiuseppe]

Tumbleweed

Russian Thistle

"Tumbleweed," "Russian thistle" and "wind witch" are common names for this symbol of the American west. Russian thistle alludes to its Eurasian origin. Scientific names for tumbleweed include Salsola kali, S. pestifer, S. australis, S. iberica, and S. tragus. Salsolais derived from the Latin sallere, "to salt," in reference to the plant’s salt tolerance. There does not yet appear to be a consensus on the preferred scientific name, although S. tragus is the leading candidate for the inland variety of tumbleweed and S. kali, for the more coastal variety.

Description

Virtually everyone recognizes a mature Russian thistle, which looks like the skeleton of a normal shrub. Plants may be as small as a soccer ball or as large as a Volkswagen beetle. Most people, however, would fail to recognize the seedling and juvenile plant’s bright green, succulent, grass-like shoots, which are usually red or purple striped. Inconspicuous green flowers grow at axils (where leaf branches off of stem) of the upper leaves, each one accompanied by a pair of spiny bracts. Mice, bighorn sheep and pronghorn eat the tender shoots.

Habits/Habitats

As it rolls down a desert road, Russian thistle plants do what they do best, disperse seeds, which typically number 250,000 per plant. Seeds are unusual in that they lack any protective coat or stored food reserves. Instead, each seed is a coiled, embryonic plant wrapped in a thin membrane. To survive winter without a warm coat, the plant does not germinate until warm weather arrives.

When moisture falls, the plant is ready to uncoil and germinate. All that is required are temperatures between 28 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit. It then quickly sends up two needle-like leaves and begins to shoot skyward. By autumn the plant has reached maximum size, flowered and begun to dry out. A specialized layer of cells in the stem facilitates the easy break between plant and root, and the journey begins anew.

Like many invasive weeds, Russian thistle exploited the destruction of native ecosystems. When farmers removed prairie grasses, they created a perfect environment, smooth and flat, for a plant that could roll across the landscape dispersing seeds. Herbicides now control the spread of Russian thistle by disrupting the maturation process of the plant.

Range

Although tumbleweed is native to the arid steppes of the Ural Mountains in Russia, it is now ubiquitous throughout the western states, growing in disturbed soils such as agricultural fields, irrigation canals and roadside shoulders and ditches. Plants thrive in salty and alkaline soils but will generally be outcompeted by natives in undisturbed habitats. Elevation range is from below sea level in Death Valley to over 8500 feet.

Tumbleweeds were first reported in the United States around 1877 in Bon Homme County, South Dakota, apparently transported in flax seed imported by Ukrainian farmers. Within two decades the plant had tumbled into a dozen states, and by 1900, tumbleweed had reached the Pacific Coast.

The peregrinating (highly traveled) plant also grows abundantly in Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Greece, Hawaii, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa and Turkey.

Notes

The Sons of Pioneers made the song Tumbling Tumbleweeds popular in the 1940’s.

A severe drought in the 1930’s in Canada led farmers to use young tumbleweeds as hay and silage for livestock.

David B. Williams

 

Tumbleweeds invade Clovis, NM

Posted: Jan 27, 2014 8:53 PM PSTUpdated: Jan 27, 2014 8:53 PM PST

 

 

 

 

 

Clovis, NM - Mother Nature had quite the surprise for many Clovis residents when they woke-up this morning.

It wasn't snow which  temporarily trapped residents inside their homes this morning on the the North side of Clovis. It was something much different.....tumbleweeds.

"Last night it just started raining tumbleweeds we got tumbleweeded quite a bit," said Clovis Resident Robert Biller.

"They were high enough like I said to the roof lines, their garages were covered, their backyards are covered in them, so basically instead of being snowed in you are tumbleweeded in," Justin Howalt who is the City Engineer for the City of Clovis.

The City says a strong wind from the North began around 11 or 12 last night.

Many residents told us they had never seen anything like this before.

However, Biller says he remembers this happening a few times many years ago.

"About 7 1/2 years ago we had this happen, three times in one summer, so we had a nice break from it," Biller explained.

Many people came out to help residents dig out of the overwhelming mess.

"Our crews have been out there since this morning, we started to receive calls, so we sent crews out, all of our available man power is out there and we have assistance from Cannon AFB as well as from private citizens," said Howalt.

Howalt tells us they are gathering up all the tumbleweeds and taking them to the landfill.

The City hopes to have the tumbleweeds cleared by the end of the week.

Until then residents will be digging out and driving cautiously down their street.

"Hopefully we'll get it cleaned up soon," Biller said.

[Jerry Rogers]

From a cultural resource perspective a few other things can be said about tumbleweeds.

·       I have seen tumbleweeds spray-painted white, decorated with gumdrops, and used as Christmas trees.  I have heard of their being whitened with flour for this purpose before spray paint became generally available.

·       Not only mice, bighorn sheep, and pronghorn eat the tender shoots, but also cows, horses, and humans.  Trouble is that the shoots are only tender for a short time before they become too tough to eat, but for fifteen days or so they are nice in salads or boiled with butter, salt, and pepper.  I make it a practice to eat them at least one meal every year, except for some years when even they do not thrive, so I can claim they are not weeds.  (Homeowners associations hold people responsible for preventing the growth of weeds).

·       I have always heard that tumbleweeds arrived in the United States in shipments of seed for Ukrainian hard winter wheat.  This article says flax, but the winter wheat made agriculture viable on the Great Plains and it spread far and fast by humans.  I am betting that there were many introductions in many places and that bags of wheat seed were among the common vectors.

·       In a few places where the farming frontier went farther West than it should have you can still see long low dunes in straight lines.  These result from the barbed wire fences of homesteaders in the 1920s.  Tumbleweeds piled up against  the fences (as they did against houses in Clovis) and then caught blowing dust of the Dust Bowl era.  The homesteaders moved away, the rains eventually returned, and grass stabilized the dirt.  In northeastern New Mexico linear dunes and dead or dying locust trees where houses once stood make up one of the strangest cultural landscapes in the country.

·       I once worked for a farmer who said he was going to try to grow tumbleweeds, using reverse psychology in the hope that wheat would choke them out.

·       Apparently they are also souvenirs.  Living alongside Rt 66 in my youth I have seen giant tumbleweeds tied to the tops of cars of homeward bound easterners.

·       I hope those folks in Clovis get rid of the weeds before someone drops a lighted cigarette butt.

Jerry

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[Tom Vaughan]

Thanks, as always, Jerry. A fine modern example of tumbleweed fencelines is along the road north from Ganado to Chinle, AZ, in the Navajo Nation. Miles and miles.

Tom

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Tom Vaughan
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[Ron Mastrogiuseppe]

Amazing how some of our younger minded friends perceive tumbleweeds as "natural"...hey, Lewis & Clark never encountered them !  Probably because of The 'tumbling tumbleweed' of Western fame

Russian thistle
Salsola tragus (Salsola iberica, Salsola kali)

Did you know?

The 'tumbling tumbleweed' of Western fame is none other than the invasive weed Russian thistle!

How did Russian thistle get here?
Western novelists, artists, and movie producers depict tumbleweeds as symbolic of the American West almost as much as cowboys. This seemingly historic icon is actually an invasive weed. Contaminated flax seed, brought by Russian immigrants to South Dakota in 1873, is thought to be the source of Russian thistle invasion. After its introduction, it became one of the most common weeds in the drier regions of the West. It spread by contaminated seed, threshing crews, railroad cars, and by windblown tumbleweeds. Ironically, Russian-thistle hay saved the beef cattle industry during the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, when no other feed was available for starving animals.

http://www.usu.edu/weeds/plant_species/weedspecies/russianthis.html

[Doug Troutman]

took me a couple days, and half a tank of propane to burn the bloody things off my property couple months ago. Fighting with Med sage as well! WEEDS! Bah humbug!

Doug T.

Sent from my iPad