The War on Weeds | Hacker News Reader

The War on Weeds

noemamag.com

49 pointsabscond45 comments

I view my lawn the same way as the author, in that I do want there to be a good amount of biodiversity there. I let everything grow in the yard sections and even have parts that I leave almost totally wild without even cutting. But I also don't want weeds growing in the cracks between my paving stones, or poison ivy growing anywhere, and there's not a whole lot that works on knotweed! So I don't use a ton of Roundup but I do use a bit here and there. In moderation is again key but doesn't seem to fit into anyone's ideological framework these days.

Some areas have farmers that will drop off a small herd of goats that will happily eat all of that poison ivy for a reasonable price. I've always wanted to do it, but only this year have we produced enough poison ivy where it may make sense.

I love clovers, I love some weeds. But there are weeds in Australia that stick to your shoes, your hair, your feet and are painfully hard to get rid of. There are also painful bindis that stick razer sharp spikes into your feet as you walk. There are itchy, hairy weeds that sting you.

Without these, it's just ugly. But obviously with these is a waste of a backyard.

> In moderation is again key but doesn't seem to fit into anyone's ideological framework these days.

Well phrased. Too much reasoning these days proceeds backwards from ideological tautology.

Needless overapplication of broadleaf herbicides in pursuit of perfect US lawns has harmed biodiversity. [0]

Herbicide use has also allowed agricultural yields that would have been inconceivable decades ago. [1]

Both of these things can simultaneously be true: there's no need to start from "all chemicals bad" or "all chemicals good" and only accept facts which fit those beliefs.

[0] For anyone who wants to peer into the mountains of madness, ask a Florida lawn company what their recommended annual plan is. There's fertilizer and artificial irrigation (to grow grass at all in sandy, nutrient-poor soil), herbicide, fungicide (in case it happens to be hot and wet at the same time), and then resodding every few years anyway because something goes awry.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/yields-vs-land-use-how-has-the-wo...

Here's what I want:

- take a soil sample and put it in a cup, add solvent/water and shake

- insert testing strip, or even drip into vials with reagents

- compare color to back of the box to determine what adulterants are in the soil

If I something like this were available locally, I'd see a price of 100 or less selling well for people interested in growing their own produce or simply gaining more insight into what's in their local dirt.

You can buy a soil test kit at your local hardware store. The analysis is not done by the kit though, it's just a collection kit that you send off to an analysis lab.

But this basic concept already exists. Farmers do this extensively.

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/a-gardeners-guide-to-soil-testi...

You can also look into your local State University's Extension department. Most of them offer soil testing, along with a wealth of other knowledge.

We’ve got free soil tests in Seattle, but they only test for nutrients, and I’m more interested in heavy metals.

Looks like it just depends on the lab. Heavy metals soil testing seems to be a thing that exists. Here's one such company: https://rxsoil.com/metals

This PDF about testing soils from urban farms in Baltimore also looks interesting: https://clf.jhsph.edu/sites/default/files/2019-03/suh-soil-t...

what exactly is a "weed" this seems like such a nefarious and ill-defined concept.

It's a colloquial term. A more precise term is volunteer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_(botany)

Also "non-endemic", "non-indigenous", "pest plant", "invasive".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endemism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species

No, invasive species are a type of weed; not all weeds are invasive (i.e. non indiginous)

> not all weeds are invasive (i.e. non indiginous)

I believe you are mistaken or confused. You also misspelled indigenous.

Invasive typically refers to the propensity of a non indigenous species (~= "plant that comes from somewhere else") to spread and replace or out-compete for resources such as light, nutrients, water, etc. other species that are indigenous species. At least in my travels, it is exceptionally rarely used in a broader sense to mean "any non-indigenous plant" (as adopting this sense would, for example, include pretty much every single garden plant ever, every food crop ever, etc. and thus be of dubious to zero utility).

An endemic (~="was always here and here only") species is not a weed, to a botanist, by definition, because it was always there and there only.

An indigenous (~="was always there") species is not a weed, to a botanist, by definition, because it was always there.

We often substitute the word "native" for indigenous in Australia and New Zealand, but in Australia this has an alternate meaning which is "comes from anywhere in Australia (not necessarily this specific area)" and therefore in an Australian context a "native" can be non-endemic, non-indigenous, and even invasive. An example of an invasive native would be Acacia longifolia when found in its non-indigenous range in Western Australia.

A weed in common use as a botanical pronoun by the general public most usually refers to any plant which is both invasive and non-indigenous. Any plant which is non-indigenous (but not significantly invasive) may also often be referred to as a weed by environmentalists, ecologists, and botanists (or anyone else), depending upon their mood, company and character.

I hope this helps clear up any confusion.

Sincerely, card carrying member, Australian Plant Society.

That's nice for the Australian Plant Society, but I assure you in the various parts of the US that I have lived in, native plants that people don't want in their sterile patches of grass are also definitely considered weeds.

It's a term used for anything smaller than a bush or tree that people don't want in their yards. Official definitions be damned.

Yes, the joke here too is that in common use "weed" just means "plant that is not wanted by the speaker", but it is considered both incorrect and unlearned to call an indigenous plant a weed and would be quickly corrected/retracted here if popularly used, for example in media.

Perhaps in Oz. In the States, however, this is the correct usage. Being native or even indigenous does not prevent it from being a weed.

Thanks for pointing out the speeling error.

I think we agree on the terms "invasive," "endemic," and "indigenous."

We part ways on the meaning of "weed." To my understanding, a weed is simply a plant that is growing where we did not isn't it and where we do not want it. Especially if it outcompetes what we do want there. Merriam-Webster's definition of "weed": http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weed and "A weed is defined as a plant out of place and in pastures they may be toxic or unpalatable, compete for light, moisture, and nutrients, and take up space needed for desirable species. However, some weeds at certain growth stages can be nutritious." (pdf) https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/cmis_proxy/https/ecm.nrcs.usda...

> both invasive and non-indigenous.

As you pointed out, all invasive species are non-indigenous. That's criterion 1 at https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/invasives/index.shtml

And not all invasives are weeds, surprisingly.

I recently learned that people commonly use privets as a bush or hedgerow around me in North Texas, but they are invasive in wooded areas. DFW has the largest urban forest in the US but 40% (and counting) contains privets.

Pretty much everybody accepts that there's no precise definition. It's whatever you don't want. What you define as a weed is up to you, as is what you do about it.

Any plant, whether "desirable" or not, that's in a place you don't want it. An apple tree is a weed in a pear orchard.

Two definitions. 1) A plant that you don’t like 2) a plant that rapidly proliferates, especially in disturbed habitat

Interesting if perhaps a little over simplified, however I can't take anyone seriously who self describes as "a member of the East Coast liberal elite"

Yikes

> My father was a Vietnam veteran and a lifelong Republican. He liked to say that women belong in the kitchen. I had become an environmental studies professor, a member of the East Coast liberal elite, a daughter he was ashamed to introduce to his friends at the Post.

It's pretty clear from the context that it's a "badge of shame" label from the point of view of her father, applied since she went down the path of academia instead of becoming a housewife.

It might be a badge of shame from his perspective but it's still how she describes herself, it's not attributed to him.

HN, where every idea comes to get shit on for the most pedantic reasons.

I'd hate to be this author's neighbor. Her insistence on letting invasive species propagate her lawn and then spread their seeds across the neighbourhood is downright disrespectful.

There's a horseshoe theory with academics. Mid curving is thinking that bumblebees need Dandelions instead of perennials.

i would hate to be your neighbor, with all the rhizome grass from your monoculture lawn forcing itself into my yard

> My father was a Vietnam veteran and a lifelong Republican. He liked to say that women belong in the kitchen.

> Until the end, he was convinced that being exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam had caused the disease. He had lived half a century longer than many of the young men he’d served with, and he felt ashamed, I think, of the extra time.

> In the weeks after his death, I looked up the logbooks of his aircraft carrier, hoping to piece together whether he would have been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Exactly zero adults have perfect parents. Publicly berating your own father like this is shameful, a sign of a petulant adult stuck in permanent adolescence.

I find it pretty lame that there are more comments in the HN discussion section upset about these few lines in the backstory intro than comments about the actual content of this article.

The article is bad both as a scientific piece (more name-dropping than detail) and an argumentative essay (thesis and recommended course of action are muddled and all over the place).

If the author writes a whiny diatribe on what could be a slam dunk topic, they're to blame when people take issue with needlessly vitriolic inclusions.

And yet we have multiple comment threads on those "needless inclusions" and none actually trying to refute it on either a scientific or a rhetorical basis, so pardon me if I consider this to be an obvious attempt at retroactive justification based on an emotional response.

They're objectively rhetorically bad paragraphs, and they weaken the piece by including them.

If the author had just left out the 3rd, 4th, and 5th paragraphs, their argument would have been more pursuasive.

Specifically, because it would have had broader appeal to those who might disagree with the author on a political basis.

Yes. She should have just left if politically neutral. If anything she is making an assertion that republicans are hostile towards "naturalizing" cityscapes and liberals are not, which is just not true. I think all people want to live in beautiful areas and have song birds and butterflies roaming and shit. She deliberately politized this topic for no reason and has potentially done more harm than good because of it.

Yes. I wanted to like the piece, and wanted to share it with my dad who is getting super into natural local landscaping, but I couldn't because he'd be completely turned off by her implication that conservatives are the source of America's fixation on green lawns.

Me too. Like others, I found the way she "shamed" her father and self identified both tastless and unnecessary to the point of the article. Nevertheless I looked past that tidbit and tried to learn something and came to the comments hoping to see some insightful comments but many are too distracted bu this. I guess this is could be a good example of _bad_ writing.

That being said, I have in recent years embraced a "nature scape" philosophy and am in the process of getting my property habitat certified. I think people can still have beautiful yards that aren't so hostile to the environment. Something I've learned in the process is that it is important to use vegetation natuve to the area, becausr that's what the local wildlife evolved with and has instinct to utilize. Some species adapt better, but I know (for example) we have a local bat species that basically refuses to live in anything but a tall and local pine tree. Bat boxes be damned.

It has also be interesting to learn a lot of the plants that I thought were native are actually introduced and invasive, and co tinually sold at places like home depot/lowes. It is a sad state of affairs in my opinion but I seem to be the only one concerned about it my area, which funniky enough is basically just "Liberal Elite".

Maybe there are more comments about the inflammatory content than the substance because most of us had trouble getting to the substance. I'm here because the topic is fascinating to me and I'm very interested in more natural approaches to landscaping, but I gave up midway through because the tone was way too outrageously aggrieved.

If a highly motivated audience that's sympathetic to your argument has trouble getting past your tone, that's a problem with the piece, not the comment section.

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