Salt Cedar

[Lewis Moon]

Well...that really sucked.
I'm a desert stream ecologist and I have always known (in some esoteric section of my memory where I file science schite) that tamarisk exuded salt from it's leaves, but it didn't really hit home until I cleaned my Ritchey Swiss Cross after my ride yesterday.
I was doing a bit of CX railing on single track in Papago park when I caught a rill with my front tire and was forced do do an extra-trail excursion. I get the bike back in control just in time to look up and catch a salt cedar head on. I rode through just fine but immediately tasted salt where it had slapped me in the face. To my horror, the first place my brain went was that some dog had peed on the tree, and that was the wetness and salt. I talked myself down from that...hacking and spitting..when I realized it would have to be a VERY tall dog. So, I rode another couple of laps and rolled home and hung the bike up, intending to wipe it down after de-chamois-ing...but I didn't get to it until this AM.
Salt crust...everywhere on the bike. Crap that was hard to get off.

[rnhood]

Are people encouraged to call the state (ecology dept or whatever) when they see one of these trees so that they can register it (location) and/or come try to kill it? Or does the state merely try to control the spread via other means, knowing the general locations of these type trees?

[Lewis Moon]

Originally Posted by rnhood

Are people encouraged to call the state (ecology dept or whatever) when they see one of these trees so that they can register it (location) and/or come try to kill it? Or does the state merely try to control the spread via other means, knowing the general locations of these type trees?

Heh...AZ is overrun with salt cedar. So much so that the Sierra Club actively lobbied to keep a dam from being raised (as opposed to razed) because it would kill salt cedar...adopted habitat of he endangered willow flycatcher.
...and then an old colleague/friend of mine goes and releases a Siberian beetle (Diorhabda) that kills tamarisk.
Deep in the tamarisk wars.

[Jad]

Really interesting--I hadn't heard of Salt Cedar. Of course, I haven't spent any time where they abound, but still.

Also, interesting initial thinking! Beware tall dogs.

[dbnm]

Salt Cedars are horrible plants. The consume/absorb insane amounts of water. We had them removed from the ranch and a dead well came back to live.

[thwart]

Originally Posted by Lewis Moon

Salt crust...everywhere on the bike. Crap that was hard to get off.

Sounds like the curses of many cold weather bike commuters living in the upper Midwest and most Northeastern states.

[zacstanley]

Quite possibly my favorite thread on Paceline ever.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by zacstanley

Quite possibly my favorite thread on Paceline ever.

Except for the PSA link to the guy selling salt cedar seeds...

[Drmojo]

yes Tamarisk street
plus it is the name of an assisted living facility back East.
Go figure
btw I love this kind of thread

[GScot]

Ha. Hate those things. Shared an office when I worked for the TAMU Experiment Station with a grad student/new PhD working on mapping and control of infestations.

[jr59]

Learn something new every day

[Tickdoc]

my brain read this post as salt peter....glad you didn't get a bunch of that.

[RFC]

Great post! Thanks. Both of my sons are biologists and I recall one of them doing a field study using Salt Cedars as a focal point of soil conditions.