Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/07/wild-video-of-utah-town-being-overtaken-by-tumbleweeds-burying-cars-and-blocking-homes.html
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Given that tumbleweeds are 90% thorns and spread seeds everywhere they roll, I suspect she won’t find them as charming in a year or two.
With a little vigilance, it’s not hard to uproot them from your yard while they’re young and the thorns are too soft to cause damage, but that won’t stop the fresh annual crop of tumbleweed surrounding your town from blowing in again.
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It is pretty amazing that it is an invasive species, even though we associate it with parts of the US.
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Maybe the “super pigs” will think they’re delicious!
If not, this artist will have plenty of material for her work:
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I honestly didn’t know that before the video. You can learn more on the 1 hour “behind the scenes” on that same video. It’s actually really interesting.
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I wonder if they could run them through a pellet mill and make fuel out of them.
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They absolutely do burn, but it’s horribly inefficient to do so in an organised way.
For starters, clearing and collecting them all is going to be a pain, quite literally. They’re made of thorns,so collecting them is a difficult job that needs heavy PPE.
Then, their structure is incredibly lightweight, so you’re not getting much fuel per volume. So if you do collect them, you also have to crush them before burning, lest they get blown away and start wildfires.
After that, wherever you have collected them from is now heavily contaminated with their seeds. Giving you the same problem next year as they grow where the last generation was collected from.
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You are right. Not enough biomass.
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How about bioengineering an existing species into something that eats tumbleweeds and gives milk or something? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
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