This report was produced by KQEDs Science. That’s one way of making sure tumbleweeds no longer tumble. He packed them into rectangular bales and told Verayo he planned to use the bales for bow and arrow target practice. One alfalfa farmer earlier this year found a creative use for tumbleweeds after clearing them off his field. Alfalfa is cattle feed, and cows won’t eat prickly tumbleweeds, Verayo said. Tumbleweeds blow into alfalfa fields and need to be cleared out before the alfalfa is harvested. In the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster, tumbleweeds are such a big problem that Los Angeles County spends $100,000 to $150,000 yearly mowing and chipping dried-out Russian thistle in vacant lots and abandoned agricultural fields before they can tumble away, said Ariel Verayo, deputy agricultural commissioner at the county’s weed abatement division in Lancaster.
“They pierce the soft parts of the plant - the leaves - and suck the juice out.”
They lay eggs inside the plant tissue,” said Jennifer Willems, an environmental scientist at the Department of Food and Agriculture in Fresno. When it’s green, a Russian thistle plant, like this one in Woodland, California, can harbor the beet leafhopper, which carries a virus that damages sugar beets, tomatoes, peppers and other crops. And they also harbor agricultural pests when they’re green. In California, tumbleweeds clog sprinklers and irrigation canals. That’s a bigger concern in Oregon, Washington and Idaho than in California, said Pitcairn. In many western states, Russian thistle is an agricultural weed and farmers have to spray it when it grows among their crops. It took 36 city workers well into the night to clear them out. Tumbleweeds piled up so high that they reached the second floors and blocked the entrances to about 100 homes, and also covered the baseball diamond at a nearby park, she said. “It happened very quickly,” said Sue Jones, public information officer for the city. That’s what happened the morning of April 16 in Victorville, northeast of Los Angeles, when 60 mph winds pushed hundreds of them into a neighborhood that borders undeveloped land in the Mojave Desert. Tumbleweeds can also pile up against buildings and become a fire hazard. To prevent this from happening, California Department of Transportation crews use pitchforks to pluck tumbleweeds from the ground and toss them into large compactor trash trucks, said Cathryne Bruce-Johnson, Caltrans public information officer in San Diego. “Unsuspecting motorists tend to swerve when a 6-foot plant comes tumbling across the road,” he said, “and many times end up in an accident.” In places like the southern San Joaquin Valley they can grow to be more than 6 feet tall, said Pitcairn. Tumbleweeds cause a host of problems in California, where they’re found throughout the state. When it gets a little water, the embryo will uncoil and grow into the soil. “It has been known in Russia many years,” Dewey wrote, “and has quite as bad a reputation in the wheat regions there as it has in the Dakotas.” This is where the name Russian thistle originates, said Ayres, although tumbleweeds aren’t really thistles.Įach tumbleweed seed contains an embryo like this one. through South Dakota in flaxseed imported from Europe in the 1870s. Dewey, wrote in 1893 that Russian thistle had arrived in the U.S.
Genetic tests have shown that California’s most common tumbleweed, known as Russian thistle, likely came from Ukraine, said retired plant population biologist Debra Ayres, who studied tumbleweeds at the University of California, Davis.Ī U.S. “But its common name is Russian thistle.” You think it must be native,” said Pitcairn. “They pile up against fences and homes.”Īnd tumbleweeds aren’t even originally from California, or the West for that matter. “They tumble across highways and can cause accidents,” said Mike Pitcairn, who tracks tumbleweeds at the California Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento.
#Rolling tumbleweed gif drivers#
As they roll and bounce, pushed by gusts of wind, they can overwhelm entire neighborhoods, as happened recently in Victorville, California, or become a threat for drivers and an expensive nuisance for farmers. But in real life, they’re not only a noxious weed, but one that moves around. Tumbleweeds might be the iconic props of classic Westerns.
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