Faulty Weed Free Science

How often have you heard that some well known scientific fact was totally wrong? It seems that many of the scientific facts that we have been fed are accepted only because the outcome of a study is beneficial to someone or some group. It may be something like what foods are good or bad for. Remember when butter was bad and margarine was good? Remember when we needed to drink at least six glasses of water a day?

These days I am very skeptical in regards to global warming, especially since I’ve seen how it is related to solar irradiance which we are presently in a downward cycle. I have to question the objectivity of the researchers and those that are writing these papers.

Though I never ride my horses on US Forrest or BLM lands, I feel bad for those that do because the two aforementioned agencies have adopted laws against weed free hay based upon junk science. This means that anyone planning to ride their horses on their land must feed their horses certified weed free hay at least three days before venturing onto their trails and continually as long as the horses will be ridden there.

The claim was weed seeds were making it through the horse’s digestion process and when the horses pooped on the trail these weeds were growing out of their feces. What has actually been found is that there are few weed seeds in most hay and they are usually digested and that when a horse poops on a trail their manure fertilized weed seeds that are already there and usually brought in by birds. Pasture weeds are not being found in the forests. Invasive weeds from bird feeders and imported garden plants are what are being found.

The US Forrest Service and the BLM need to revisit the science used to make these costly decisions even though the certifiers, growers and sellers are having their hay day in profits.