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Where Mosses occur
Mosses grow in poorly drained and persistently
wet soils, In acidic soil conditions, in medium to dense shade conditions, in
compacted soils and in places where you cut the grass really short, like my
walking trail in the back of our property.
Some people consider moss as a pest in the
yard, but other people use the moss to make beautiful gardens and trails.
These mosses add a natural beauty to a garden or yard and the Forrest floor.
They grow in low light areas and are used to prevent erosion.
Even though moss is a very hardy plant, it
is also a very good indicator of poor air and water quality. Even though
they grow good in acid soils, mosses are very sensitive to acid rain and may
indicate a negative change in the environment. A good pH level for moss is
about 5.5 which is slightly acidic compared to a pH of 7 which is a salt.
I am now reading on the web and find that
herbicides containing Glyphosate can kill the grasses and weeds but not affect
the moss. Roundup is one of these herbicides which will kill the weeds and
leave the moss. I tried this myself on my moss covered walking
trails. The results varied, it seemed that the moss resisted the herbicide
best in the most wet areas, whereas in the drier areas the moss turned
yellow and almost died out. So use the herbicide sparingly and you should
have good results of the moss garden.
When I walked though a swampy area near Mt.
Slide on Alaska Hwy 1, I noticed that the moss grew to be very, very thick.
Some areas that I looked at were more than a foot thick and it broke off in big
chunks. I just wish that I had more time to do some deep exploration and
look at these mosses more closely. These were the most densely populated moss
colonies that I have ever seen.
There is one very interesting fact about
mosses, they are the simplest plants on the planet. These mosses can
withstand cold, heat and severe drought without the need for roots and complex
leaves. Scientist from the University of Leeds have unraveled the genome
for a moss called Physomitrella, which is the first of the non flowering plants
to be sequenced. These scientist say that the genes found in this type of
moss can be used to increase the yields of crops and help feed the hungry.
Type this into a search engine, "Moss is a Super Model for Feeding the Hungry"
After studying about the gene modifications
that we are doing to our plants and research into gene modifications I am
realizing that we are changing everything and moving everything around.
Beetles from Asia are killing the Ash trees in the eastern part of the united
states. Monsanto makes a wheat with a terminator gene which kills the
plant before the wheat can become fertile. Along with mans tampering with
nature and the climate changes that we will be seeing very soon, all of mankind
will have to change their way of life, or lose their life. Climate change
is real and many scientist are working really hard to prevent the effects of
climate change from destroying our entire culture. Are we going to see
Global Warming? The answer is NO, we are not going to see global
warming, we are seeing it now. |
