Invasion of the ‘ERC’

NO, not a new virus… ERC = Eastern Red Cedar trees, actually part of our native ecosystem. These trees provide benefits to wildlife, livestock, humans and the overall landscape. Then why would we associate a beneficial tree with the word “invasion”?

Is it a weed?

Most people have heard the word ‘weed’ defined as “a plant growing where it is not wanted.” When the same plant has the ability to spread fast, then I guess the plant changes from being a ‘weed’ to being an ‘invasive species!’ This is all kind of comical because usually ‘invasive’ is attached to novel plants that arrive into an ecosystem for the first time, but I digress.

Growing up in a “kill the weed culture,” it is often hard to recognize the benefits of a plant growing where “we don’t want it.” In a number of past posts we have pointed out that our cattle herd loves to munch on what other people call weeds! (Pollinators like weeds, Weeds heal land, Cows graze weeds)

What are the benefits of Eastern Red Cedars?

• Make excellent windbreaks!
• Cedar needles contain tannin, the cattle rub on cedars to help repel flies.
• Wildlife use the trees for cover and eat the berries.
• Berries and needles are used as essential oils.
• Beautiful wood products, chests etc.
• Probably others… when the tree is in the right place!

ERC Downside

The main problem with cedars is their ability to over take grasslands if left unchecked. Actually solid forest or cedars is not beneficial to wildlife or humans. Diversity is the key to ecosystem health. We are always striving for diversity in our pastures, so a few cedar trees along with other trees, brush, forbs and different grasses seems to be appropriate for our land and climate. A forest of cedar trees is not so good.

Keeping cedars in check

In the tall-grass prairie region, historically cedars were kept in check with fire. With windbreak cedar plantings in this region, humans introduced a large source of seeds that were previously confined to areas along streams and oak forests. With a reduction in fire and an explosion in seeds, birds literally began to “rain cedar berries” over the prairie.

One good thing about a cedar tree, once it is cut below the lowest branch, it will not re-sprout. But can you keep up with just cutting? Fire can control a large number of cedars over many acres in a short time. But the downside to fire, in our opinion is the loss of carbon. We feel the best way to control heavy grass/thatch build up is to let the cattle chew and stomp that carbon into the soil rather than use fire. When it comes to cedar control, fire is hard to beat.

Cutting (pulling) Option

With the right soil moisture, it is quite easy to pull a small cedar. Clipping a small cedar is also easy and good exercise. The challenge is taking the time to do it and spotting these smaller trees in the grass. It is easy to walk by a small cedar and think to yourself, “I’ll get that next time.” Then before you know it the cedars take over! Let’s just say over the past few years Doug has pulled and clipped his fair share of cedar trees. HOW MANY? Doug was curious how many he was actually pulling/clipping so he started keeping track. You can guess how many and try to find the baby cedar trees in the three photos below. Keep reading to find the answer to how many Doug pulled over the past year and where the cedars are in the photos.

Prescribed Fire Option

Personally Doug likes this option… but Sheila not so much. Again the downside is loss of soil cover/carbon and the risks involved. There isn’t much doubt that fire plays a significant roll in natural prairie ecosystems. We see fire as another tool in our toolbox to manage grasslands. We just completed a burn on a piece of land that has not had any management for 10 years with a number of small cedars encroaching.

In our next blog post we will go into more detail about our recent burn.

Preventing invasion is key

When it comes to ERC control, preventing the cedars from over taking our grasslands is priority one. Once an area becomes a cedar forest, there are massive inputs required to restore the land to a grassland. Below is a nice three minute video from RFD/UN-L that does a great job in summarizing the Eastern Red Cedar issue:

Doug first saw a presentation on the real concerns with ERC by Dirac a few years ago. His take home message was that large portions of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas are already lost to invasion of ERC and Nebraska is next. Learn more at the UN-L Eastern Red cedar Science Literacy Project.

Did you spot the baby cedars?

With our herd on the move across the pastures through the year, Doug has ample opportunity to spot and pull/clip cedars on about 150 acres of grassland. How many cedars do you think Doug has clipped/pulled over the past year?

Let’s just say he lost count after the first 750 in short order. His estimate for the year is at least 5,000 little cedar trees. That is just on 150 acres, sounds like an invasion to us.