HONORING OUR ELDERS -- Who are the people who invented
the tools and processes that we utilize for exotic management
and ecological restoration?
(in chronological order)
Fire as an Ecosystem management tool -- Unknown - Prehistory.
Environmental Consciousness -- Unknown - Prehistory.
Agricultural techniques -- Unknown - Prehistory.
Tools - Hoe, Shovel, Pickax, Sickle, Scythe -- Unknown -
Prehistory.
Plant taxonomy - a process to name, classify and to identify
a plant scientifically, using binomial nomenclature -- Carl
Linnaeus (1707-1778) also called Carl von Linné or
Carolus Linnaeus.
Plant Genetics --
Common Garden studies -- 1880
Discovery of symbiotic relationship between legumes and
Rhizobia bacteria -- Hellriegel & Wilfarth - Germany - 1886
Discovery of advantage of inoculating legume seeds with pure Rhizobia
bacteria, starting the commercial inoculant industry - Friedrich
Nobbe & Lorenz Hiltner - Germany - 1890.
Plant Ecology --
The concept of an "Ecosystem" -
Ecosystem Transects --
Growing native plants in nurseries --
Concept of "Ecotypes" - Göte Turesson (Sweden)
- 1921-1930
Native seed, bulk reproductions --
Herbicides - "Round-up" -
The concept of "Ecology" -
The concept of "Ecological Restoration" -
First Ecological Restoration project in United States -
Tool - Weed wrench™ - Walter M. Camp (Holly Springs, GA) US Patent 4,547,010 "Mechanical Weed Remover" - October 15, 1985; Charles R. Venables, South Africa US Patent "Plant Extractor" Feb. 17, 1987 No. 4,642,918; and the latest patent was issued to Thomas O. Ness (San Francisco) and the trademarked "Weed Wrench™" is sold by New Tribe Inc., Grants Pass, OR., U.S. Patent No. 4,856,759 - A tool for grasping the stem of a woody shrub or small tree and uprooting same - March 31, 1989. Concept of the tool is based in part, on US patents dating back to April 1883, Higinbotham et al, No. 287677, and February 1885, Stocking, No. 332169, which are listed as prior art in No. 4,642,918.
Tool - Land Imprinter - A method and apparatus for treatment
of land surfaces, where the soil is imprinted by means of imprint
patterns of alternating geometries--one being a water-runoff-directing
geometry; the other, a water-infiltration-enhancing geometry.
The method prevents water runoff and enhances water infiltration
into the soil, considered important in restoring native plants
in arid regions - Robert M. Dixon (Tucson, AZ), U.S. Patent
No. 4,195,695, April 1, 1980, assigned to the U.S. Government.
Prior art listed in this patent, dates back to Schumacher,
Jan. 1890, No. 419892 and Hammett, Sept. 1891, No. 460012.