[HN Gopher] Bradford pear trees banned in few states - More are ...
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Bradford pear trees banned in few states - More are looking to
eradicate them
Author : acdanger
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-04-02 03:51 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.usatoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.usatoday.com)
| brightball wrote:
| I'm in one of the states that banned them and I used to have 2 in
| my back yard. Never really understood the fuss.
| sarchertech wrote:
| They're invasive, they outcompete native trees, and they have
| many negative attributes. The wild descendants are particularly
| bad because they have thorns and grow in dense hard to remove
| thickets.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| They are also terribly brittle. Every single time there is a
| storm in my neighborhood, at least one person has a massive
| Bradford Pear split in half in their front yard (if we're
| lucky - if not, it's out in the road.) Builders plant them
| because they grow quickly, and, of course, they don't have to
| deal with the problems a few years down the road.
|
| Bradford's also smell really bad.
| happytiger wrote:
| Beyond the invasive mess they are making, there's this:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/23agnj/til_t...
| joe_guy wrote:
| > it's contributing to the spread of related invasive trees that
| are taking over some urban green spaces and pastureland and
| encroaching on forests.
|
| I'll save you from the auto playing view port locker video.
| Terr_ wrote:
| A few more key points:
|
| * At first the species being planted everywhere was considered
| sterile, but somehow cross-pollination with related varieties
| can make them produce viable fruit, then animals spread the
| seeds.
|
| * The fruit is not edible to humans.
|
| * Some varieties have nasty thorns on them, able to pop vehicle
| tires, and over time grow together into thickets.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > The fruit is not edible to humans.
|
| This is a feature, not a bug
| fervor wrote:
| They smell
| riffic wrote:
| blackcurrants were banned too (by federal united states gov) for
| some sort of complicated reason
| bigbillheck wrote:
| It's a host for white pine blister rust.
| chucksta wrote:
| man that's complicated
| bigbillheck wrote:
| Sure is! https://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/disandpath/fungalb
| asidio/pdl...
|
| > The white pine blister rust pathogen is a typical
| heteroecious, macrocyclic rust that produces five distinct
| spore stages on two different hosts to complete its life
| cycle. The pycnial stage consists of pycniospores, or
| spermatia, which are haploid spores that fertilize
| compatible receptive hyphae. The two sexes are not
| distinguishable and are simply designated plus and minus.
| This is the stage where genetic recombination can occur
| that may lead to development of races of the rust. However,
| the nuclear cycle (i.e., dikaryogamy, diploidization,
| meiosis) of the blister rust fungus has not been fully
| determined, but is assumed to be the same as for other
| better known rust fungi such as Puccinia graminis. The
| aecial stage develops in host tissue occupied by pycnia the
| previous season (Figure 6). The fungus is perennial in the
| pine host and aeciospores are produced annually as long as
| the host tissues remain alive. Aeciospores are disseminated
| by wind over long distances, and Ribes spp. as far as 480
| km (300 miles) from the nearest known white pines have been
| infected.
| kybishop wrote:
| To expand on this, many states have a large white pine lumber
| industry. The white pine is highly susceptible to a type of
| fungus harbored by currants.
|
| The fungus does not spread from white pine to white pine,
| only from currants to currant, or currant to white pine, so
| eliminating the nearby currants protects the white pine
| industry.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Does it go from white pine back to currants?
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Yes.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Great. I was hoping we could see alternating currants.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > alternating currants
|
| Except we know the hertz will harm local timbre, even if
| some are okay the the currant's whine.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| @dang get over here and do something about this.
| gmfawcett wrote:
| bravissimo
| QuercusMax wrote:
| In Europe they decided to get rid of the white pines (which
| are not native) in favor of the blackcurrants.
| euroderf wrote:
| Interesting! Citation?
| QuercusMax wrote:
| I believe I learned it in this video from "The History
| Guy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZAk1a0dqiM
| tycho-newman wrote:
| The Ribena lobby is strong
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Apparently this is no longer much of an issue. Quoting [0]:
|
| "The federal ban was lifted in 1966, though many states
| maintained their own bans. Research showed that
| blackcurrants could be safely grown some distance from
| white pines and this, together with the development of
| rust-immune varieties and new fungicides, led to most
| states lifting their bans by 2003. Blackcurrants are now
| grown commercially in the Northeastern United States and
| the Pacific Northwest. Because of the long period of
| restrictions, blackcurrants are not popular in the United
| States, and one researcher has estimated that only 0.1% of
| Americans have eaten one. [...] By 2003 restrictions on
| Ribes cultivation had been lifted across most of the
| states, though some bans remain, particularly on the
| blackcurrant. State laws are enforced with varying degrees
| of efficiency and enthusiasm; in some states, officials
| effectively ignore the ban."
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackcurrant_production_i
| n_the...
| davexunit wrote:
| Blackcurrant bans feel too heavy-handed to me. Currants are a
| wonderful berry, very easy to grow, and one of the easiest
| woody plants to propagate.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| There are plenty of other native berries in North America.
| White pines are rather majestic trees, particularly the old
| growth ones. [0]
|
| I'm happy with white pines and raspberries/blueberries,
| Europe can keep their blackcurrants.
|
| [0] https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/chippewa/recarea/?recid=2
| 667...
| beezle wrote:
| Was on HOA board where we had a road with quite a few of these
| trees. They were a fortune to prune because of the numerous small
| branches at higher reaches. As a board, we actually hoped they
| would come down in storms so we could replace with something more
| appropriate without the take down cost (and resident complaints).
|
| Another unqiue thing is during the summer it was not uncommon for
| a branch to suddenly explode - apparently some type of
| moisture/vapor build up in the interior.
| cafard wrote:
| Where was this? In Maryland they would break, a lot, but I
| never heard of them exploding. I don't think the people in our
| development loved them. Certainly I had seen a few too many
| across somebody's lawn or walk.
| beezle wrote:
| Southern CT near the sound. Yes it would happen with some of
| the wide, low branches. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't like
| popcorn, maybe once every other year.
| flutas wrote:
| They also smell like someone took a rotting fish, dunked it in
| sewage and decided to roast it in the sun for a few days.
|
| They're everywhere where I live, and it's so bad.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| We had one in front of our house at one point, and the first
| year it bloomed we thought there was a dead animal under the
| house.
|
| Some people say they smell like bleach and/or semen as well.
| I'd rather have Durian than Bradford pear.
| dvirsky wrote:
| These are the same trees known as Cum Trees, right?
|
| My neighbors have a couple, I didn't know these before moving
| to the US, and the first time I smelled them was...
| something.
| LambdaComplex wrote:
| They sure are
| neilv wrote:
| At least one street here got lined with those. A witty
| lesbian friend I was walking with identified the scent
| immediately, so at least the trees were good for some
| jokes.
| akira2501 wrote:
| I thought that was the Linden tree.[0]
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m-8l3V38Ps
| FredPret wrote:
| Always the first thing that come to mind when smelly
| trees "come up"
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Linden trees have a unique scent, but I never thought it
| was repulsive or even remotely associated with the kinds
| of things people associate it with.
| davemp wrote:
| That reminds me of when I asked an arborist why the tree
| they were taking down was called a "Piss Oak". They said
| wait until we drop it and you won't have to ask. Sure
| enough the entire area smelled like urine for a couple hrs
| after they felled the tree.
| Loughla wrote:
| Do you mean Piss Elm? I've never heard of an oak with
| that quality.
| silisili wrote:
| My high school had a bunch of these. All the kids called them
| CumDrop trees, for good reason.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Common Pear trees have also this fish smell. Everything
| pollinated by flies has an offensive smell in one or other
| way. This is bad but can be desirable at the same time (no
| wasps or bees in the narrow streets).
| echelon wrote:
| Bradford pears were all the rage in the 1990s to 2000s. At one
| point HOAs thought these were the _best tree_. Local gardens
| and nurseries would sell lots of them to landscapers and
| homeowners.
|
| To this day, they're all over my home state of Georgia. And
| they're still selected for new landscaping.
|
| They did have a few pros:
|
| - Look great in the spring
|
| - Huge, lush, thick canopy in the summer
|
| - Fast growing
|
| But there are way too many problems:
|
| - Kills all the grass underneath them from shade and root
| structure
|
| - Seedlings and root offshoots are pervasive pests
|
| - Produces a lot of fruit, and it's toxic to humans and dogs.
| It smells bad and can smear if you step on it
|
| - Trees only live 7 - 15 years, and they leave a gnarly root
| system to deal with.
|
| - Extremely prone to falling over during winds or tornadoes.
| Can easily damage fences, housing, etc. We had to replace our
| fence once because of one. Even small storms can bring down the
| older trees.
|
| - And of course, everyone knows how awful they smell in the
| spring
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I think this takes the cake for "first invasive species I've
| seen populate over my lifespan."
|
| Just moved back to GA after 3 years away and asked folks what
| all the white-blossoming trees in meadows are this spring, as
| don't remember seeing so many blossoms previously.
|
| Cherries (closest blossom I know) aren't that fruitful /
| clustering. Dogwoods look completely different.
|
| > _Extremely prone to falling over during winds or
| tornadoes._
|
| Also kids climbing on them, from childhood experience. Weak
| wood.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Marmarated beetles for me.
| pvaldes wrote:
| A few observations:
|
| Japanese Cherries can be much more packed with flowers than
| this pear (It depends on the cultivar). Both Cherries and
| Dogwoods are royalty on gardens, but both deploy to much
| wider structures that can be low branched and tend to hang
| searching the floor, so this Pyrus is still pretty much
| unbeatable for narrow streets. Palms have their own
| problems, like thorns, but are "designed" for streets with
| extremely windy areas. The problem is that palms don't
| survive the same frost than pears can.
|
| There are maybe five or ten trees so narrow in their
| category that, unlike conifers, bring blossoms, clean
| relatively dry fruits, and excellent fall colour in snowy
| areas. Some are among the most alien things that you can
| have in a garden.
|
| And all that grows in such acute angles is prone to
| catastrophic cracks for wind damage. It comes in the
| package.
|
| Having a Dogwood that would grow fastigiate retaining the
| "dog wood" part, would be a revolution, but is not
| available at this moment (and probably will never be).
| Dogwoods love the 90 degrees angle. I have a maple 'Tsukasa
| Silhouette' that would look great, but is too small, too
| expensive and too delicate to be used as that.
|
| Pears are still one of the tastier fruits in a garden, not
| ornamental royalty, but food royalty for sure. I just
| ignore the short interval of smell as a necessary tax to
| pay.
| xp84 wrote:
| Wow, that's pretty wild that those cons didn't dissuade
| people from propagating them deliberately!
| olliej wrote:
| IIRC they were introduced aggressively as being a non-
| propagating, non fruiting tree or something, both of which
| turned out to be false, but by the time people realized
| this it was far too late :-/
|
| Reminds me of SF planting Pohutakawas everywhere - an NZ
| native tree that requires little water, don't fall over,
| don't fruit, etc. Except as any NZer could tell you, the
| reason they don't fall over is that they're evolved to grow
| on/around cliffs and loose earth, so they go all in on
| strong roots. Which mean constantly breaking roads and
| sidewalks. yay!
|
| Also while they don't fruit they produce a tonne of flowers
| that produce a tonne of cruft on the ground :-/
| bombcar wrote:
| Eucalyptus in southern California; railroads thought
| they'd be great for building ties out of, they're not,
| and they're extremely flammable and explode.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Local gardens and nurseries would sell lots of them to
| landscapers and homeowners.
|
| They still do. It's the cheapest bang for the buck tree for
| large scale developers across the entire US.
| beezle wrote:
| From earlier response, the HOA I mentioned was along Long
| Island Sound so much more northerly. Our trees were a good
| 30+ years old. They were somewhat sheltered from high winds,
| especially when younger, by the nature of the buildings (two
| story row houses). It wasn't until the canopy reached a fair
| bit over the rooflines that they really started coming down
| in thunderstorms. That no parked cars were crushed was pretty
| much a miracle.
|
| And spot on with the no grass underneath...and the homeowner
| complaints about dirt in front of their units ("if you pay to
| take it down and replace, we'll let you!")
| datavirtue wrote:
| I have some type of pear tree in my front yard that look
| identical but they don't have any of these drawbacks.
| GenerWork wrote:
| I love reading about this kind of stuff. My neighbor has a bunch
| of Brazilian pepper trees, and let me tell you, those things are
| a nightmare. Incredibly invasive, grows extremely well in our
| climate, no natural predators here, and they outcompete almost
| every other tree. I cut a branch from one that was deforming a
| palm tree due to the way the branch had grown.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| This is good news. In my area the only thing worse than Bradford
| pears are the Mimosas. It took me ~3 years of consistent work to
| clear off the Mimosas from our 1 acre lot in town. And I still
| have to spray or hand pull hundreds of the tiny ones each season
| because none of my neighbors have been as diligent.
| stass wrote:
| What's wrong with Mimosas? They smell so nice in spring!
| hammock wrote:
| They are invasive, take hold and hard to eradicate/control,
| the flowers make a mess, and they are easily damaged in
| storms
| astura wrote:
| They are invasive (in the US) and grow like weeds completely
| taking over and crowding out native species. Having many of
| them screws up the nitrogen level of the soil further
| crowding out/killing native plants.
|
| This alters the ecosystem.
| sarchertech wrote:
| In addition to what everyone else said, they are nitrogen
| fixing, so their leaf litter creates too much nitrogen for
| most native plants to grow.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| Other commenters have covered most of the reasons why they
| are awful, but my main complaint is that they will completely
| take over your garden beds and wooded areas if left
| undisturbed.
| deciplex wrote:
| Like anything else they're fine - the problem is when you
| drink too many of them.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| In PNW, they look dead in the spring. The leaves don't even
| appear until late May, and flowers bloom in late July at
| earliest.
| hammock wrote:
| Important note: There are now hybrid species that don't have the
| same downsides as the original true Bradford pear. Most of what
| are planted now are these hybrids.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I think those are what I have in my yard as I was not seeing
| any issues with them. No weird smell, shoots, or lifespan
| problems.
| pkaye wrote:
| When we bought our house we had 3 city trees which were Bradford
| pear trees. We lots two of them during rainy season. One lost a
| major branch. The other got uprooted. I've read Bradford tree
|
| I'm in California. Our city doesn't allow Bradford pear trees
| anymore. When we bought our hour we had three Bradford pear
| trees. Over time we lost two of them during rainy seasons. One
| got uprooted and the other broke off a major branch. Both times
| it was fortunate that nobody was injured or property got damaged.
| Ended up replacing them all.
| tycho-newman wrote:
| I thought these were linden trees this whole time.
| bagels wrote:
| They need a better name that conveys their vile nature. I love
| pears. Why are people so upset about a pear tree I initially
| thought?
| bitbckt wrote:
| "Cum tree" doesn't do it for you?
| bagels wrote:
| The title of the article is "Bradford pear trees..." which
| seems to be the accepted name.
| aendruk wrote:
| I really wish submissions could be tagged to warn about auto-
| playing video.
| autokad wrote:
| This answers a lot for me, I always wanted why they planted this
| tree everywhere when it smells so awful.
| skeledrew wrote:
| Ah, typical. Nature taking its course and, once again, humans
| decide they know what's better and is going in to "correct"
| things. Then a few years in there's the cry about the disruption
| that was caused, and yet even more attempts at rectification. A
| never-ending cycle, because we can't learn to be hands off. Well
| I guess the cycle will eventually end given things are always
| somewhat worse with every swing of the correction pendulum, so at
| some point it'll all just... crash.
| bungeonsBaggins wrote:
| I don't mean to blow your mind, but humans are a part of
| nature. One advantage we have over other species is that we can
| spot patterns and work collectively to fix undesirable
| situations or circumstances. And if our fix causes further
| problems, we can fix those too!
|
| We're flawed creatures so it's not ideal, but it sure beats
| being at the mercy of the forces nature uses to correct things
| on its own, like diseases and famine.
| bcatanzaro wrote:
| Yes! Is a beaver dam artificial or natural? I believe
| everything humans do is part of nature.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| I would submit that the very idea of "nature", as used
| informally, is ill-defined and frankly incoherent, and
| should not be used, or at least should only be used loosely
| within specific contexts where it does make sense (a
| healthy ecosystem in which human beings also thrive, which
| is no doubt a range), like "I love taking walks in nature".
| What is natural under this definition? If water from a
| stream natural, but is water synthesized from hydrogen and
| oxygen unnatural?
|
| The only sensible definition I know of of "natural" is
| "according to the nature of a thing". Thus, human beings
| have a nature, and that nature is what determines what is
| good or bad for us. Arsenic isn't poisonous _as such_ , but
| it is poisonous to us by virtue of our nature. We are
| rational animals by nature. And so, unnatural are things
| which depart from that nature, like the desire to eat glass
| or having a sexual interest in oak trees and so on. It is
| the nature of a thing that is the reference point that
| allows pathologies to be defined. By nature, we should have
| two arms, hence to lose or lack an arm is a defect.
| Similarly, psychological disorders only make sense with
| reference to the normative, which is defined by human
| nature. To say "everything is natural" renders the word
| meaningless, annihilating all justifiable and objectively
| normative statements, which is absurd. If everything is
| "natural", then nothing is unnatural, because natural is
| simply identical with everything.
| skeledrew wrote:
| And look at the state of the world with all our
| interventions. We may be "a part of nature", but the things
| we do to it are definitely not natural. We're the only ones
| doing collectively irreparable harm, so as not to be at its
| mercy.
| hollywood_court wrote:
| If we were 'hands off', the Bradford Pear would have never made
| it to North America in the first place.
| skeledrew wrote:
| We don't know that for sure though. All it takes is a single
| seed in an ideal condition. And that condition could've
| probably happened in a way that the pear wouldn't have the
| advantage that's caused some to name it "invasive".
|
| But also, left alone, nature tends to rebalance on its own.
| Any species with a dominant advantage will eventually lose
| that advantage, given a few generations. Well, except for
| humans, who continually fight the natural rebalancing, and
| are only succeeding in increasingly destroying that which
| sustains life on this planet.
| oasisbob wrote:
| The Bradford pear is a cultivar of an imported species from
| Asia.
|
| Nothing about this tree growing in North America is "nature
| taking its course".
|
| Humans decided to cultivate it here, and we can choose to stop.
| Cycles of correction, sure, but attempting to fix problems due
| to introduced species seems like a worthwhile effort.
| skeledrew wrote:
| We will consider intervening in nature to be a "worthwhile
| effort" right up to the moment we finally make the planet
| 100% uninhabitable.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Nature taking its course
|
| Lawns and backyards.
| skeledrew wrote:
| Unnaturally created and maintained.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The company that I worked for, had a row of these across the
| primo parking spaces.
|
| During the fall months, these parking spaces were always
| available.
|
| I found out why.
|
| If you park under one of these things in November, you come out
| in the evening, and it looks like every incontinent buzzard on
| Earth sat over your car.
| pandemic_region wrote:
| Does 'sat over' imply 'shat on'?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Pretty much.
|
| "Sitting Over" + "Incontinent" == "Shat On"
| tomohawk wrote:
| I thought you were going to say something about how large
| branches will just pop off and crush anything beneath them at
| random times. This is due to how multiple branches will come
| from the trunk at the same point, and are weakly attached.
|
| EDIT:
|
| Having finally eradicated all of the ones from our land, the
| best method is to immediately pour herbicide onto the trunk
| after cutting it down. The herbicide will get sucked down into
| the roots this way. If you don't do this, you'll get new
| suckers all over the place for a few years.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This is true. Same with Ailanthus.
|
| I was talking about the pears, which are small, round things,
| and rot on the branch; finally plopping off. They make this
| nasty, sticky brown mess, filled with seeds. Looks exactly
| like [large] bird shit, but is actually a lot more difficult
| to clean.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| What herbicide do you use? I have a tree growing under my
| roofline that keeps growing back. I tried glyphosate last
| time, but it came back.
| Terr_ wrote:
| That makes me think of some bamboo eradication advice: You
| allow new growth to progress so that it consumes energy
| from the tricky root system, then cut it before the fresh
| sections can provide much in photosynthetic return-on-
| investment. After a few years of losing calories with each
| attempt, the plant runs out.
|
| That might only work for plants with "bursty" regrowth
| though.
| devmor wrote:
| I spent 3 years combating bamboo in a similar fashion and
| it certainly didn't work for me. I've never experienced a
| more frustratingly invasive plant in my life. Even wild
| blackberries are easier to deal with.
| adestefan wrote:
| Glyphosate is only absorbed through foliage. I have had
| good luck with brush killer.
| landr0id wrote:
| relevant: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7x4zza/heres-why-the-
| trees-o...
| delichon wrote:
| The original Bradford pear tree was ideal for planting because it
| was thought to be sterile in that it could not reproduce. -- TFA
| John Hammond: There you are. There. They imprint on the first
| creature they come in contact with. Helps them to trust me. I've
| been present for the birth of every creature on this island.
| Ian Malcolm: Well, surely not the ones that have bred in the
| wild. Henry Wu: Actually, they can't breed in the wild.
| Population control is one of our security precautions. There is
| no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park. Ian Malcolm: Uh,
| and how do you know they can't breed? Henry Wu: Well that's
| because all the animals in Jurassic Park are female. We've
| engineered them that way.
| razeh wrote:
| When the article got to the part where the trees were thought to
| be sterile, did anyone else hear Jeff Goldblum saying "Life finds
| a way"?
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