The Giving Shade Tree

  • If you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home, those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent (Photo by Jessi Ziegler)

Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Economists looked at utility bills of homes in California on the hottest days
of the year.

Geoffrey Donovan is with the Forest Service Research Station.

He says, if you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home,
those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent.

“So putting a tree somewhere it’s going to cast shadows at the warmest time
of the day. The other thing you want to think about is winter sunshine.
Particularly on the south side of a house you may want to put a deciduous
tree as opposed to an evergreen tree so in wintertime you’ll get some
sunshine through that.”

Donovan says how close you put those trees to your house matters too. For
the most energy savings, shade trees should be within 40 to 60 feet of your
home.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Planting More Trees on Coffee Farms

  • Many coffee growers in Latin America are now replanting the shade trees. (Source: MarkSweep at Wikimedia Commons)

Songbirds on their way south might
find more trees at coffee plantations. Lester
Graham reports there’s a shift in thinking by
coffee growers. And a new study might encourage
more farmers to plant shade trees:

Transcript

Songbirds on their way south might
find more trees at coffee plantations. Lester
Graham reports there’s a shift in thinking by
coffee growers. And a new study might encourage
more farmers to plant shade trees:

A few decades ago, coffee growers in Latin America were given incentives to clear the
shade trees on their plantations. More sun equals more coffee beans. They also found
more sun meant more weeds. So they had to spray expensive herbicides.

Now a new study published in BioScience shows cutting down those shade trees has
also left the coffee plants more exposed to damage from bad weather. Ivette Perfecto
at the University of Michigan is one of the authors.

“The vulnerability of the farms are much higher if they eliminate the shade. The shade
trees provide like a buffer against extremes.”

Many coffee growers in Latin America are now replanting the shade trees. The added
benefit is the trees provide habitat for wildlife, including those migrating birds that spend
their summers here and travel south to that region.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Arctic Summer of Fire and Ice

  • NOAA satellite image, June 30, 2004, showing wildfire smoke blanketing Alaska. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

The Arctic is melting this summer.
But, that melting is not as severe as it
could be. Lester Graham reports a haze
filters out some of the sun’s rays:

Transcript

The Arctic is melting this summer.
But, that melting is not as severe as it
could be. Lester Graham reports a haze
filters out some of the sun’s rays:

Every year there are forest fires in Alaska, Canada and Siberia. Most of them are
started by lightning strikes. The smoke from the forest can be carried by the winds
across the Arctic. It slows the melting of the ice just a bit.

Bob Stone works with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It does act as a filter. It extinguishes some of the direct sunlight that would otherwise
impinge on the surface of the snow (and) ice.”

So the smoke shades the arctic from the sun. It’s still not really good news.

Yes, melting slows a bit – but scientists think as global warming continues, we’ll see
more forest fires. That means more of the greenhouse gas CO2 is released, and, fewer
trees soaking up CO2.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Target Drops Pvc

  • Target has finally agreed to stop using PVC in its products. (Photo by Lester Graham)

After a two year campaign against the retailer, Target says it will do what Wal-Mart and other retailers have already done. It will
stop using PVC plastic in its products. Lisa Ann Pinkerton Reports:

Transcript

After a two year campaign against the retailer, Target says it will do what Wal-Mart and other retailers have already done. It will
stop using PVC plastic in its products. Lisa Ann Pinkerton Reports:


Commonly known as vinyl, polyvinyl chloride, or PVC plastic contains phthalates, which are used to soften
hard plastic. But they are also believed to be toxic to humans, wildlife and the environment. Target says it
will phase out PVC in its products and ask its vendors to do the same.


Mike Shade with the Center for Health, Environment and Justice says large retailers are taking the lead on
PVC and that will influence the marketplace:


“By getting large manufacturers and large retailers to switching to safer materials that will drive costs down
and make it easier for smaller companies to do the same.”


Shade says many of Target’s baby accessories will be PVC free by January and most of toys by the fall of 2008. The next

step, he says, is to get retailers
like K-Mart, Sears, and Costco to do the same


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

Related Links

Romancing the American Chestnut

  • American chestnuts (left) are smaller than Chinese and European chestnuts. The Chinese and European varieties are also resistant to the blight, making the imports more desirable to growers. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one
traditional food has – for the most part – disappeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one traditional food has – for the most part – disapeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(Sound of Nat King Cole singing, “Chestnuts roasing on an open fire…”)


That old chestnut of a song romanticizes roasting chestnuts as a part of the holidays. But a lot of us have never even seen chestnuts, let alone roasted them on an open fire. Chestnuts used to be a major part of the Eastern hardwood forest. There were millions of them. In fact, 25 percent of all the mature trees were chestnuts. But a blight, imported with some Chinese chestnut trees, slowly wiped out the American chestnuts. Now, they’re gone.


Well… almost. Much of the root stock is still alive. Sprouts grow until the blight knocks them back again. A blight only hurts the standing tree where it branches out.


And, in a few isolated pockets in the Midwest, the blight hasn’t reached the trees. A few American chestnuts are alive and growing and some of them are free of the blight. At Nash Nursuries in central Michigan, owner Bill Nash is guiding us through a rare sight… a grove of American chestnuts.


“These are 20 years old and as you can see, they’re fairly good sized. The American chestnut is quite a rapid growing tree. It’s well-suited for our climate, so it doesn’t have any of the problems that some of the hybrids do as far as growing and cultural care you have to take care of them. The Americans, you get them started and they’re pretty much on their own.”


In a few places in Michigan and Wisconsin there are small groves of chestnuts. They’re prized trees. They’re great for shade. The hardwood is rot resistant and makes great furniture and fence posts. And the chestnuts are eaten by humans and wildlife alike. Bill Nash says the tree will be popular again if it ever overcomes the blight that’s hit it so hard.


“The American chestnut will make another big comeback in this country as a yard tree, as a timber tree, as a wildlife tree.”


That part about a wildlife tree is more important than just worrying about the squirrels and bunnies. Chestnuts were an important food source for all kinds of animals.


Andrew Jarosz is a plant biologist at Michigan State University. He says the loss of chestnuts has been hard on wildlife populations.


“Chestnuts shed nuts in a more regular pattern than oaks, which will have what are called mast years – where they’ll have major crops, massive crops one year and very small crops in other years – which means it’s either feast or famine if you’re depending on oaks.”


Since the blight first began hitting American chestnuts about a century ago, researchers have been looking into all kinds of ways to stop it. One way is to cross it with the Chinese chestnut which has a couple of genes that resist the blight. But it takes a long time to breed out the Chinese characteristics from the American chestnuts and still keep the resistant genes.


Another approach is genetic manipulation. Genetically modifying the American chestnut tree to make it disease resistant. Again, work is underway, but it takes a long time. And even after success, it’s likely some people won’t like the idea of releasing a genetically modified organism into the wild.


The final approach worked in Europe when the blight hit there. It seems there’s a naturally occuring virus that kills the blight. It spread naturally in Europe. There are a few groves in Michigan that have naturally acquired the virus and it’s working to keep the blight at bay. Andrew Jarosz is working on the research. He says the trick is figuring out how to get the virus to spread to other trees short of manually spreading it on cankers infected by the blight.


“If we’re literally talking about millions of trees across probably, you know, the eastern third of the country, we obviously can’t treat every canker on every tree. And we need to be able to figure out a way to deploy the virus in a way that it can spread.”


Even with all that hopeful research, it’ll be ten years at least before some practical solutions end up in the forests, and Jarosz believes a couple of centuries before the American chestnut holds the place it once did in the forests.


Bill Nash knows it’ll be a while before there are major changes, but he is optimistic about the American chestnut.


“Oh, I would think the tree has a bright future. There’s enough people working on that, enough programs going on now… So, I would suspect that in the not-too-distant future we should have some of this progress made. You know, Robert Frost in his poem predicted the comeback of the American chestnut, that something would arise to offset that blight. And we’re starting to see that.”


Frost put it this way: “Will the blight end the chestnut? The farmers rather guess not, It keeps smoldering at the roots And sending up new shoots Till another parasite Shall come to end the blight.”


Seems Frost was an optimist too.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Bugs Released to Munch on Invasive Plant

  • Purple loosestrife's looks are deceiving. It's a beautiful plant, but researchers say it has caused enormous damage in many parts of the country. An imported beetle has now shown significant signs of controlling the plant.

Purple loosestrife is a beautiful plant. It’s tall… and each cone-shaped stem produces hundreds of flowers. When the plants bloom in mid-summer they can create a sea of purple in wetlands throughout the region, but the ability of the plant to spread and reproduce in great numbers is what concerns scientists and land managers. Over the years they have been working to control it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush says one way they’re trying to control it is by releasing a bug to eat the plant:

Transcript

Purple Loosestrife is a beautiful plant. It’s tall… and each cone-shaped
stem produces hundreds of flowers. When the plants bloom
in mid-summer they can create a sea of purple in wetlands
throughout the region… but the ability of the plant to spread and
reproduce in great numbers is what concerns scientists and land
managers. Over the years, they have been working to control it.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush says one way
they’re trying to control it is by releasing a bug to eat the plant:


Roger Sutherland has lived next to this wetland for more than 35
years.

He helped build a boardwalk over the soggy marsh so that he can
get a close-up view of some of his favorite plants:


“You see that plant with the big green flower? Yep. That… and
there’s more along here… that’s a pitcher plant. These are insect
eating plants and there’s another one called sundew here… here’s
some right in here…”

(sound under)


But like many wetlands throughout the country, this wetland has
been invaded by a plant originally found in Europe and Asia.


Purple Loosestrife was introduced as an ornamental plant.
It was a
beautiful addition to gardens, but once it took
hold in the environment,
it out-competed native plants.

Frogs, birds, and insects have relied on these native plants for
thousands of years. Purple Loosestrife is crowding out their habitat.


“We’re going to get a lot more shade with this loosestrife.. and so
these plants that are on these hummocks here…
these little insect
eating plants and so on… just can’t tolerate that shade, so we’ll
probably lose ’em unless I can keep it open here… and I am trying
to keep some of it open.”


The plant spreads quickly… that’s because one plant can produce
more than two million seeds that spread with the wind, like dust.

So when it moves into an area, it often takes over creating a thicket
of purple with a dense root system.

Land managers have seen populations of ducks, and turtles
disappear when loosestrife takes over…

And research has shown that the plant can reduce some frog and
salamander populations by as much as half.


So land managers wondered what to do to stop the spread of this
weed.

They initially tried to control the plant by digging it up… or by
applying herbicide to each plant.

Trying to kill the plants one by one is hard work… especially
considering how abundant purple loosestrife is.

But researchers have hope because of a bug.


(Sound of volunteers planting loosestrife)

Volunteers have gathered here in Ann Arbor, Michigan to plant
purple loosestrife.

They’re putting dormant loosestrife roots into potting containers and
adding fertilizer.


(more sound)


When the plants leaf out they’ll be covered with a fine mesh net and
become home to a leaf-eating beetle known as galerucella.

And galerucella loves to munch on purple loosestrife.

The volunteers are creating a nursery to raise more beetles.

Once they’ve got a bunch of beetles growing on the plant… they’ll
take it to a nearby wetland… and the bugs will be released into the
wild…


(sound up)


Linda Coughenour is a member of the Audubon Society.

Her group is working with state and local agencies to raise and
release these beetles.

She says tackling purple loosestrife invasions is a big task – and
governments need help from volunteers to deal with the problem:


“This is a serious problem throughout the entire Great Lakes
wetlands… it has migrated from the East Coast to the Midwest…
so, uh.. the problem’s just too big – so they thought up doing this
volunteer project and they’ve enlisted people all over the state… and
we’re just one of those.”


Volunteers have have been releasing their beetles into this wetland
for few years now and they’re beginning to see progress:


“It’s going really well… for a while we got off to a slow start, but for two
years now we’ve found evidence that the beetles are reproducing on their
own. We see little egg masses, we see larva that are starting to eat
the plants, we see adult beetles on the plants that have wintered
over. And that’s the thing, to get them to do it on their own.”


But releasing a foreign species into the wild is always a concern.

There are a number of examples of bugs released into the wild to
eliminate a pest, but ended up causing a problem themselves.

But before importing a bug that will prey on plants – the federal
government requires testing to make sure it won’t eat other plants.


The tests have been done.


And researchers feel that this is an extremely finicky bug…


Berndt Blossey is a specialist on invasive plants and ways to control
them.

He says the beetles were tested on native plants before they were
allowed to import the bugs:


“And it was shown there that they will not be able to feed and
develop on the plants. They will occasionally nibble on them, but
they will not be able to develop on them and they usually move off
after they have taken a bite, and they move off to other plants.”


The leaf beetle is not the only bug researchers are importing.

They’re also importing two other beetles known as “weevils.”

One that feeds on loosestrife flowers, and one that feeds on its root
system.

Blossey says more than one bug is needed to keep the plant from
growing back:


“Loosestrife will rebound from resources in the root stock. If you
have the root feeder in the system as well, these fluctuations will be
dampened, so loosestrife will not be allowed to comeback to higher
levels.”


(sound of wetland up)


People who admire the diversity of plants and animals in wetlands
like the idea of keeping purple loosestrife in check.


Roger Sutherland welcomes the bugs.

He believes they’ll help him keep this wetland open for the plants,
birds, and insects he’s come to know over the years:


“We know that the purple loosestrife will probably always be here.
But if we can bring it down to a manageable level, where you’re going
to have a pocket here and a pocket there… and you can kind of
maintain the integrity of this wetland system… then you can’t ask for
anything more than that.”


And researchers say that’s the goal.

To help these wetlands reach a balance… so that plants and animals
that have evolved to rely on these wetlands for thousands of years…
can continue to do so.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Tree Planting Branches Across Country

This Thursday (November 21st), trees will be planted in every state capitol in all 50 states. The non-profit group, the National Tree Trust, is organizing the coordinated planting. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:

Transcript

This Thursday (November 21st), trees will be planted in every
state capitol in all 50 states. The non-profit group, the National Tree
Trust, is organizing the coordinated planting. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:


The National Tree Trust is celebrating the fact that they’ve planted 10
million trees since the organization was founded in 1990. That works out to
be almost two trees per minute. The tree trust helps local communities
plant trees and educates people about the benefits of trees.


Paul Rosenthal is with the National Tree Trust. He says this coast to coast
tree planting event will draw attention to the importance of trees in our
communities.


“It’s the trees that are planted in the urban areas and suburban areas of the
United States… are the ones which really go very far in helping to clean the
air where we live, clean the soil where we live, provide cooling shade where
we live, to help bring down energy costs in the summer and winter time.”


He says according to their calculations, one urban tree provides over
57-thousand dollars worth of benefits over its 50-year life span.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.