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-: People will often ask, like,
how can I control Eastern redcedar spread
in abundance mechanically.
And it's a great challenge,
because mechanical is so expensive.
So, if we start the question on
how do we use mechanical control,
it ignores that there's challenges of it working
in the first place.
Heavy machinery for high-density Eastern redcedar
is so expensive, it only works on small areas.
If you use hand shears or hand cutting,
when trees are establishing,
you're seeing an increase in landowner investment
of time and effort,
which of course time is money.
So they're having to reduce their profit margins
by managing something they didn't have to before.
When we ask the question of
how can mechanical equipment be used
to control Eastern redcedar,
the challenge is that science
is now establishing that it's not as successful
as it's been touted for 50 years.
It's not working and performing up to expectations.
There's new science that's coming out
that shows how fire differs from mechanical control.
If you have a fire that occurs in the system,
it can consume seeds that were spread,
it can consume seedlings
that are hidden in the herbaceous layer,
it can consume taller plants.
It can consume multiple plants clustered together.
So it can do everything from a seed
to larger clusters of stands all together.
No other technique does that, which explains why
we were so sensitive to fire historically.
Mechanical targets one of those.
We often use mechanical on stands, so you clear a stand.
And we don't do it on individual trees.
Well, then seed sources are coming back in
where there used to be a stand, and it rapidly recovers.
We might cut individual trees with chainsaws,
but it takes a lot more time
and investment of money to do a stand.
Haying actually works for seedlings,
but they're often doing it, not knowing it controls cedar,
but it's an added component.
So, if you're actually gonna have a mechanically-based
management strategy, you have to have hand cutting
for seedlings, you might have patches that you can hay,
but you can't get everywhere.
You might use chainsaws,
you might use heavy machinery that clears it.
They only focus on one step of the process.
Mechanical is much more dangerous given the data
to practitioners and users, which is surprising to people.
But even looking at US Bureau of Labor statistics,
being a wildfire fighter has lower rates of fatal injuries
than being a forester,
being an agricultural producer or a rancher.
And most of the fatal injuries are tied to heavy machinery.
It's more dangerous to users.
We know that a lot of people that
do mechanical removal of cedar,
have started to express the dangers to them as the operator.
Now, fire, while safer to the operator,
and much lower risks than even a wildfire fighter,
much lower risks than what agriculture producers
and ranchers do every day with heavy machinery,
given the data, the perception of risk
is tied to neighbors, is tied to other groups.
So, those data are associated with rates of escape.
So, rates of escape for prescribed fires
in the private sector and with agencies
are less than one percent of all prescribed fires,
given the data that's out there, and the science.
Prescribed fires are generally conducted
in very low range of conditions
that are meant to be controlled.
So, even those escapes that get out,
it's not like typical wildfire conditions of drought,
high wind speeds.
Prescribed fires are rarely done ever in a drought,
and they explicitly today avoid high wind speeds.
So, mechanical, more dangerous to operators,
of course it's not going to pose a risk, typically,
to your neighbors.
Prescribed fire, safer for operators, but of course
there's a greater risk of escape than mechanical.
So, that's what groups are trying to balance here.
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