I spent a large portion of my day today clearing French Mulberry trees from my mother's land.
As I was cutting and disposing of them and cursing the <epithet> who introduced this species to Florida the thought came to mind about using these cursed things for something productive. The trees themselves grow obscenely fast, and a summer's growth will produce a trunk the size of a man's leg and twenty feet tall. They spread by the roots, and if allowed to they will quickly take over an area. They will grow back out of cut stumps. Cut pieces will take root and grow. They grow faster than any of our native species, and will outcompete them and displace them fairly quickly. Among mulberries, cat tails, and kudzu they're the plants that ate Florida! They grow without need of fertilizer. They provide their own pesticide in the form of a species of tiny black ants which seem to be symbiotic with them. While the wood is very soft, brittle, and breaks easily, the bark contains long, straight, and very strong fibers. These fibers are strong enough that if you break a stick the bark will usually just split lengthwise and let the broken ends of the stick poke through. It is then possible to pull the wood right out of the bark leaving the bark almost completely intact. Might these fibers be useful in textiles or paper? The only use I can think of for the wood is biomass fuel, because it is too soft and brittle for anything else. The wood is so soft they can be cut down easily with just loppers, and several of the trees I cut today were nearly 3 inches in diameter, the limit of what my loppers would cut. The worst thing about them is the even though they're called "mulberry" trees they don't produce any edible fruit that I am aware of. Alan -- Aviation is more than a hobby. It is more than a job. It is more than a career. Aviation is a way of life. A second language for the world: www.esperanto.org Processor cycles are a terrible thing to waste. www.distributed.net Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
