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- [00:00]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Scott Bertram
From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored, this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.
- [00:26]
Max Primorak
Many of these countries are endowed with amazing amount of oil and gas reserves, but under the Biden administration, they actually blocked investments into these sectors which would allow countries to invest in their own social services needs. So lifting that up, promoting fossil fuel investment, they're going to generate the wealth that they need in order to finance their own needs.
- [00:48]
Scott Bertram
This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was Max Primorak. He is senior research fellow in the Margaret Thatcher center for Freedom at the Heritage foundation here on Hillsdale's campus. As part of our CCA lecture series on issues in international relations, we talk with Max today about how to think about foreign aid. Max, thanks so much for joining us.
- [01:17]
Max Primorak
Thank you for inviting me.
- [01:18]
Scott Bertram
Talking today about the topic of your lecture here on Hillsdale's campus. You're here as part of our CCA lecture series, how to think about U.S. foreign aid. We'll start at the start. When did the United States first get into the business of foreign aid? What was the original nature purpose of various foreign aid programs?
- [01:38]
Max Primorak
Well, it started after the Second World War and in response to the Soviet threat, especially when the Soviet Union was trying to support Marxist Leninist insurgencies throughout Africa, Latin America, in Asia. The response was to create the U.S. agency for International Development in 1961. And what we did was respond to a lot of humanitarian disasters that occurred there, disasters such as floods, droughts, epidemics, things of that sort. It was the belief that if we could respond to these crises, that we would diminish the attraction that the Soviet model had for these countries. And it did a fairly good job. And after the Soviet Union collapsed, it helped integrate the former vassal states of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe into Euro Atlantic structures, particularly NATO. And today they're very strong allies of ours. And so in that regard it was very successful. Unfortunately, thereafter it went south.
- [02:42]
Scott Bertram
Let's talk about thereafter. How does it evolve, change at that point and maybe in particular over the past decade or so?
- [02:50]
Max Primorak
Well, at that time in the 1990s, for, for those of us who, who remember, that was the we had the emergence of what was called multiculturalism. It was an attack on our Judeo Christian ethics that began during the Clinton administration, especially with Hillary Clinton in one of these UN forums where she, for the first time, an American official declared that sexual and reproductive rights or abortions were international rights. And that broke with the global consensus at the time that our rights come from natural law. And so that was a significant thing. With Obama came all of the climate DEI transgender issues for eight years. And you can imagine they used foreign aid as a global platform to promote these crazy ideas. And then under Joe Biden, he accelerated things and removed any possibility for even faith based people to say no.
- [03:46]
Scott Bertram
We hear earlier this year about some of the problems inside US Aid where some of this foreign aid is handed out. Is that a direct consequence of changing priorities inside the foreign aid program under the Biden administration?
- [04:02]
Max Primorak
It basically the foreign aid complex was used as a global platform to push the ideas, not the other way around. And as a result, we were doing crazy things such as forcing transgender manuals on people starving. Even our humanitarian aid was infected by it. But keep in mind, we're talking about tens of billions of dollars, half of it staying at home through very high overhead charges. And this created a big blob of politically charged activists in Washington D.C. who used it for political purposes. So here you have the US taxpayer supporting something that they thought was promoting American interests abroad and reflecting American generosity. In fact, it was being weaponized against them here in the United States.
- [04:49]
Scott Bertram
You were a USAID official, first Trump administration, correct?
- [04:54]
Max Primorak
Yeah, I actually ended up as the chief operating Officer, the number two at USAID after about 30 years of working with them or even being a grantee back in the 1990s.
- [05:06]
Scott Bertram
Our colleague here at Hillsdale College, Mark Moyer, was part of USAID during that time. We've talked about his book previously here on this program. What did you see from inside usaid? How difficult was it to root out some of the activities that were occurring?
- [05:21]
Max Primorak
It was very hard. For instance, one of my jobs there, I served as the Vice President Mike Pence's envoy for counter genocide programs in Iraq. And that was a time when ISIS tried to commit genocide against the Christian, the Yazidis and others. And the first response we got from officials was, no, no, no, it's against the law, it's against the Constitution. To help Christians, I asked, even if they are victims of genocide, specifically because they are Christians. And the response was yes, there was such a hostility towards Christianity and seeing Christianity as a block towards the progress rev that they were trying to promote both at home and abroad, that there was incredible resistance. I worked with Mark and he has laid out in his book very well just how deep and extensive was the effort to sabotage the Trump administration. We got a lot of things done, but we needed a second bite at the apple in order to continue with our reforms. But President Trump is getting his second bite at the apple and we're seeing what's happening.
- [06:27]
Scott Bertram
Max Primorak is with us, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Heritage. So we talked about the USAID issues. Corruption inside. Where are there areas, perhaps even now, in which there is an effective use of U.S. foreign aid?
- [06:44]
Max Primorak
Well, we've seen the President has dismantled USAID and he has slashed foreign aid and he's cut off UN agencies. And I think that's very important because we can't make any reforms unless we change the political sociology of the industry. There are going to be things like responding to humanitarian disasters, which we have to do. There's issue of migration. And many of these countries, their economies don't work. We're at war, they're at war. And that prompts millions of people to leave. I think the President Trump's effort to be a powerful peacemaker, I think ends these wars. I think that's important. But there's a range of reforms that we can take. First and foremost, we don't need to work with the middlemen, the UN agencies, the contractors, the Washington D.C. based contractors, or the international NGOs that are the carriers of this corrupt ideology. And they're expensive. We can work directly with the churches, especially in Africa, because they have the, they have the hospitals, they have the schools, they have many important civic social institutions that do a lot of this work. We can work directly with them. They're half the cost. And they represent an important bulwark against any other future efforts to misuse foreign aid. As a, as a colonial neo Marxist.
- [08:09]
Scott Bertram
Effort, are we at all an outlier.
- [08:11]
In terms of how the country, at least historically, has used and thought of foreign aid? We look at China or Russia or other countries, how do they see their use of foreign aid?
- [08:23]
Max Primorak
Well, we see our national interest through the lens of a Judeo Christian ethic. Love thy neighbor. And so the way that we defined our national interests is going to be informed by that. And so in many regards, the work that we have historically done reflects the work that churches have been doing all over the world. These charitable efforts through our missionaries, church activities, volunteers. And so there's a natural correspondence between what we do abroad and who we are as a people. That's not Communist China, that's not dictatorial Russia. Their concept of national interest has nothing to do with the Judeo Christian ethic. It's atheist. It's all about power. It's about exploitation. And if they have to kill as many people as possible, they will do that. So it's very different.
- [09:12]
Scott Bertram
That's Max Primerak of the Heritage foundation as we talk about how to think about U.S. foreign aid. More with him in a moment. But first, I want to make sure you're aware there is a new Larry Arn show now available from the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. On these shows, Dr. Arn welcomes a guest, usually here on our Hillsdale campus to have deep and meaningful conversations. This time it's United States education secretary Linda McMahon. On the show, the two talk about dismantling the Department of Education, returning education to the states, and the importance of school choice. Two extremely knowledgeable and passionate school reformers have a great discussion this week on the Larry Arn Show. Find it at podcast hillsdale.edu. you can also find it on YouTube and of course via Spotify, Apple Podcasts and elsewhere. Subscribe so you never miss an episode of the Larry Arn show, this time with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. We continue now with Max Primerak of the Heritage foundation on Hillsdale's campus for our CCA lecture series. He's senior research fellow in the Margaret Thatcher center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. Max, let's talk a bit about China.
- [10:30]
Specifically their efforts to leverage their aid and infrastructure projects in the developing world to sort of broaden influence. How successful has China been in those areas?
- [10:42]
Max Primorak
Well, keep in mind it's not aid, it's loans. What we provide is free money. We're not asking people to pay us back when we provide them emergency food, when response to their epidemics, when they need help from a variety of issues. The Chinese give loans and loans that in many instances are not going to be paid back. And they leverage that in order to gain geostrategic advantage, such as we financed this port. You can't pay back the loan. We're going to use it as a port for the Communist Chinese navy. And so it's very different. I think initially the developing countries were very responsive to it. It was money. They needed money for infrastructure. But now they've seen the way that these loans have been exploited, especially Africans have seen how the Chinese are rabidly racist. They see how they corrupt their, their officials. They don't observe any kind of international labor standards, environmental standards, and the quality of the work that they do on these mega projects is very poor. So I think their stature around the world has dropped. But it's an opportunity for the United States to change the way that we do things. And instead of relying on foreign aid, and as we know, international welfare is going to work as effectively as domestic welfare does, it's by mobilizing the billions and billions of, if not trillions of capital that we have available here in America and in our allies to find ways to build up these countries economies. Welfare doesn't create wealth investment and increased trade does. So that's really an opportunity for us with the Trump administration and they're actually moving in that direction.
- [12:28]
Scott Bertram
Talking with Max Primorak. He is senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. Heritage Speaking about how to think about U.S. foreign aid. When some of the USAID programs were ended earlier this year, we heard a lot of people, some people saying, well, it doesn't cost much. We can save lives if we spend pennies a day on X or Y. And the response in some quarters was, well, are we the only country on earth who can do this? Will someone else step up and not help if it only costs pennies a day to do X, Y or Z? So has our approach to foreign aid, our generosity dissuaded other countries with wealth from offering their own formats of assistance in these areas?
- [13:15]
Max Primorak
Well, it begs the question, spending money on what and what the results have been. So it seems the more that we spend on foreign aid, the more poverty there is. That's not a successful approach. We see that in our cities, the same kind of left wing approach to poverty reduction. But what it does do is that it dissuades governments of the developing countries from reforming themselves. In actuality, we've been financing corruption, we've been financing socialism, we've been financing bad governance. And I think the sudden cut in foreign aid that the President has, has, has done, has forced these countries to get real and start looking at policies that actually create wealth instead of stealing it.
- [13:57]
Scott Bertram
So what, what measure should we use to determine if our foreign aid is working, is effective? What does success look like?
- [14:06]
Max Primorak
I think the President and especially our Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has laid out clear markers. When we spend foreign aid and do programs, they must be in our national interest and they must reflect our American values. And I think those are very simple. For instance, some of the largest recipients of foreign aid have been providing access to the Chinese navy and conducting joint military exercises. There's been a lot of people saying, oh, if we don't continue doing this, China's going to win. But 19 of the top 20 members of the brick and road, Belt and Road initiative of Communist China received US aid, so it's irrelevant. And some of the biggest recipients of aid, like South Africa, have been hosting Chinese naval forces and joint military exercises that do extreme strategic harm to our global interests. So the way that we've been doing it simply is not working. We need another approach.
- [15:07]
Scott Bertram
Is there an opportunity here to reset US Foreign aid in a way that can't necessarily be immediately reversed by a subsequent administration?
- [15:18]
Max Primorak
I think this points to the issue of political sociology as I mentioned earlier. And where do we recruit the next generations of people working in this industry? If we continue to recruit them from these elite universities are all captured by the left. We're simply going to get more people to do the same thing. It's time to change our recruiting. We have thousands and thousands of people who have international experience in the very foreign aid areas that we're financing with their churches. We need to recruit from those places. We need to recruit from universities that actually believe, believe in the American project, such as here at Hillsdale College. So I think it's going to be very important that we immediately focus on changing the political sociology of the industry. But at the same time we cut out this, this woke middle, we defund the left. It will be very hard for them to reconstitute afterwards.
- [16:14]
Scott Bertram
Are there two or three particular areas, countries where you think an effective use of United States foreign aid can make a real difference and be a benefit not just to the receiving country entity, but also to America?
- [16:30]
Max Primorak
There are countries in Africa, for instance, Kenya. I've been there. They're some of the most impressive people you'll ever meet. All of them speak multiple languages, they work so hard because the situation is very tough. And you see the Africans who come here to the United States as immigrants. They are the best performing groups in America, immigrant or not. So I think there are countries like, like Kenya and others that need encouragement to change the policies of their government that simply don't work. Socialism doesn't work, whether it's here or elsewhere. I think that this, this holding back of investment in fossil fuel investments. So many of these countries are endowed with amazing amount of oil and gas reserves, but under the Biden administration, they actually blocked investments into these sectors which would allow countries to invest in their own social services needs. So lifting that up, promoting fossil fuel investment, they're going to generate the wealth that they need in order to finance.
- [17:33]
Scott Bertram
Their own needs because money is flowing outward from the country. There might be some who sort of conflate this sort of aid that we're talking about with military aid that goes outside of our borders, is there a need to have different strategies and sort of a different way of evaluating those two types of aid, those two types of money to flow out of our country?
- [17:57]
Max Primorak
Those are two different kinds of aid. And when you look at the biggest recipients, Israel comes to mind. And as we're seeing, they are at the center of a coordinated Islamist effort to describe destroy them. They are a bedrock of freedom and democracy in the Middle east and they're the best ally that America has. And so continuing that support is critical. Taiwan is another country that the communist Chinese want to take over. Should communist China take it over, it would be a geostrategic disaster for the United States. China would control all of the major sea lanes, not only for the United States, for Europe, where most of trade passes through. So there are countries like that. I think, I think the last NATO meeting, President Trump was so successful in finally getting our allies in Europe to start ponying up for their own self defense. He got them to 5%. And they seem to be quite serious. If they believe that Russia is an existential threat to their freedom, which I believe then you're going to spend for your, for military, your military needs. Now, countries like the Baltic states, in Poland have done so, but you have some backsliders and in Germany and in France and especially Spain. But I'm hopeful with Germany, they have a new conservative chancellor. So yeah, military aid is a completely different animal. We need to continue it. It's in our direct strategic interests.
- [19:22]
Scott Bertram
And what it comes back to is again, what is also in our interest. Right. Whether it is military, whether it is the foreign aid we've talked mostly about today, the ability to leverage that source of our power into benefits not just for the recipient, but also for us.
- [19:38]
Max Primorak
Yeah, it is enlightened interest because of who we are as a Christian people, but it's in our interest. We have we can't we live in the real world. Heaven is afterwards.
- [19:50]
Scott Bertram
Max Primorak is senior research fellow at the Margaret Thatcher center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation. Heritage.org his lecture here on Hillsdale's campus. You'll be able to to see that at the Freedom Library page at hillsdalecollegehillsdale. Edu Search for Freedom Library. Max, thanks so much for joining us here today on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [20:10]
Max Primorak
Thank you.
- [20:11]
Scott Bertram
Up next, Christopher Haeckel from Hillsdale's biology department joins us. We'll discuss all kinds of invasive plant species found across the country. I'm Scott Bertram this is the Radio Free hillsdigel.
- [20:30]
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- [21:10]
Larry Arne
Great books, great people, great ideas. Learning about these things is critical to being a well educated human being and we can help with the Hillsdale Dialogues. Each week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arne joins radio veteran Hugh Hewitt to discuss topics of enduring relevance. And from time to time they also talk about current events, but always with an eye toward more fundamental truths. And they want you to tune in to a conversation like no other. The Hillsdale Dialogues are posted every Monday on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at Podcast Hillsdale Hillsdale. Edu. That's Podcast Hillsdale Edu or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your audio.
- [22:00]
Scott Bertram
Welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [22:04]
I'm Scott Bertram.
- [22:05]
Be sure to check out the Hillsdale College Podcast Network at Podcast Hillsdale Edu or wherever you find your audio, find your new favorite show and be sure to subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We're joined by Dr. Christopher Haeckel. He is associate professor of biology here at Hillsdale College. Dr. Haeckel, thanks for joining us.
- [22:27]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Thanks for having me here.
- [22:28]
Scott Bertram
Talking today about invasive plants in the United States and a little about the damage, the consequences, maybe what we should know about them, what qualifies a plant as invasive and not just non native to an area?
- [22:43]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Right. So you know, the terms kind of go together the, the idea of non native invasive, although other things could be invasive. So the idea of being invasive comes from is that plant or is that organism. We're talking about plants today. But is that plant going to do ecological harm, economic harm, or even be a harm to human health in some way? So various weeds that might you find in crops for farmers that are not native to North America, those would be considered invasive. Often there's a, there's a component of spread as well the ability of that organism to kind of just take over an area through being able to spread, make more of itself really quickly compared to the, compared to the, to the natives. And, and it's not just being from somewhere else. So there Are there are plenty of non native plants that have been naturalized, you know, that exist kind of, I guess in harmony with the ecosystem that they've been inserted into and don't really cause those harms. So that's the big thing. Florida is a great example of finding non native plants there. You know, that kind of subtropical area in Florida is great for growing plants. They have their state lists about 1500 non native naturalized plants or just I guess should say non native plants. About 150 of those are actually considered invasive. Right. So there's a, there's a real big difference on whether it's invasive or you know, can be non native and friendly.
- [24:18]
Scott Bertram
Yeah, we're going to talk about a number of invasive plants here. Maybe what we should know why they're harmful. It'll vary by species. I'm sure we are going to start with oriental bittersweet. What's the story of oriental bittersweet in its introduction to North America?
- [24:35]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
So, you know, oriental bittersweet was introduced. It's, it has these beautiful fruits. And so it's one of these plants that was actually intentionally brought to North America way back in the late 1800s, I think, because for growing in gardens, it has this beautiful kind of green foliage. It's a, it's a twining vine, It's a woody vine. It actually kind of just wraps itself around things and then in the fall it produces these really just beautiful fruits where the fruit pops open and you see this red component inside surrounded by these four, usually just bright yellow, red and yellow things. And so florists still would like to put them or would use them for displays. That's the reason it's really aesthetic. But then it escaped and now we have it throughout, really the eastern part of North America as this, where it takes hold. It's, it's a pretty devastating vine.
- [25:33]
Scott Bertram
Talking to Dr. Christopher Haeckel about invasive plants in the United States. Garlic mustard. Why is garlic mustard such a threat to woodland ecosystems?
- [25:42]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Garlic mustard is a threat just because of how pervasive it is. And it's really, I don't know, it's really caught hold I think in the Midwest especially where, where it's especially abundant. But it's one of those things because it gets into the forested areas, those places where people like to go on trail walks and things. So it's right kind of front and center for people who like to enjoy nature, I think. And so it's, you know, I feel like it's one of the poster children of the invasive species because it's been studied a lot as well. Just because it's an herbal, that's why it was brought to North America. It's actually a garlic flavored herb. So, you know, it's. I've tried it.
- [26:21]
Max Primorak
It's.
- [26:21]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
It's not bad. If you get it at the right time of year, it's got that little garlicky flavor, but its ability to make its way into forests. So it's a pretty broad generalization. But a lot of invasives are really good at first, colonizing, you know, disturbed areas, edges, we might call them roadsides, where we find even our native weeds seeds. Right. They're really good at hitting and establishing in those places. But garlic mustard has this ability to make its way into forested systems, which we think sometimes are kind of resilient or resistant to invaders. And so that's, that's the issue. As you go into the forest, you're expecting to see the spring wildflower display, and instead you've got this, you know, this carpet of garlic mustard.
- [27:06]
Scott Bertram
And one of the problems is the seed of the garlic mustard stays viable for quite a long time.
- [27:12]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Yeah. So fairly recent study out of one of the leading groups studying garlic mustard up in Cornell, have shown that those seeds in that seed bank, you know, the seeds in the soil there, can stay viable for over 10 years, which, you know, which is a long time. There are seeds that do last longer, but, you know, it's a great strategy for those plants to. To have that ability and then just go along with the sheer amount of seeds that these things can produce. It's one of the reasons that it's hard to control.
- [27:47]
Scott Bertram
We got a couple trees, Tree of Heaven, and then buckthorn. And I know about buckthorn, and I hate buckthorn. It's all over the yard. And for a number of reasons. Terrible, terrible. Tell us about Tree of Heaven and particularly why we should hate buckthorn so much.
- [28:02]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, one sounds kind of nasty. The Buckthorn Thorne. The Tree of Heaven is another one of those purposefully introduced plants. The issue with Tree of Heaven is it's so versatile. I think it's a bigger problem in urban areas. So they produce a prolific amount of seeds, and those seeds don't need a whole lot of soil to germinate. So it'll grow out of the cracks and sidewalks or in buildings and things. And then once they start growing, you can start to break up. Those roots are strong enough, they can break up those things. In rural areas, we do have Tree of Heaven around here, I think it's harder for most people to kind of recognize it and. Or just see that. Oh, that's kind of out of place because it looks pretty similar to some of our native trees. So I. I would think most people, if they're not looking real close, would take a sea Tree of Heaven and say, oh, that's a walnut tree, or it's a staghorn sumac, because they both have these long, pinnately compound leaves on them. But the flowers are very different right now. Around here, around town, you can actually see Tree of Heaven in bloom. And it's really kind of pretty. I mean, it aptly named, I guess, but the problems that it can cause make it something that we just really don't want around. Buckthorn, on the other hand, is not a very attractive tree, in my opinion. It's kind of a. It's definitely not a canopy sort of tree. They don't get terribly tall. The branches break easy. Its invasion was more accidental, I believe, but it. It spreads really rapidly because they are, again, another one of these plants that is a prolific seed producer. The birds will disperse their seeds, and before you know it, you have buckthorn everywhere. And one of the things with buckthorn is it's one of these invaders that is able to kind of have an effect on its habitat to kind of propagate itself. So it's really fast growing. So it's able to grow faster than some of the other trees around it. And turns out their leaves have a pretty high nitrogen content compared to other tree species around them. And so what happens is, as those leaves fall, the leaves break down faster because of that higher nitrogen actually attracts more pests in and more decomposers. And it kind of accelerates the nitrogen cycle and ground. And you get higher nitrogen, which some other natives are. Are going to be less adapted to growing.
- [30:34]
Scott Bertram
Yeah.
- [30:35]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
So you get these thickets, buckthorn, and it's really difficult to deal with. You've got to cut it down, and again, you've got to treat it with herbicide. And unfortunately, it's a big problem because it's such a good colonizing plant. Seeds get dispersed. It's a nightmare for land managers who are trying to keep grasslands and shrubby areas intact because the birds bring those seeds in and it's a constant battle.
- [30:58]
Scott Bertram
Yep. Purple loosestrife is beautiful, as are many of these invasive species. So what makes it so dangerous?
- [31:06]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
So I think the danger in purple loosestrife is where it grows. Right. It's doing similar things compared to A lot of other invasive plants, but it is known for taking over wetlands, right? And wetlands are a precious habitat. They're somewhat rare to begin with. And one of those things that we worry about when we're looking at development and things, and the importance is what those wetlands do for us, those ecosystem services. So they're great at filtering water. And part of that ability of those wetlands to do that is because of, you know, the diversity of plants using nutrients in different ways. And so when you have purple loosestrife, it's such a strong competitor. It spreads through the rhizomes. When the stems break, they'll just make more. It's a prolific seed producer. All of a sudden you've got this monoculture, you know, stand of a swamp of pure purple. And yeah, it is. It is beautiful, right? But it's having detrimental effect on what that wetland can do as providing ecosystem services. Apparently, the waterfowl don't like to nest in there or use it as habitat as well. So it just kind of really degenerates those wetland habitats.
- [32:22]
Scott Bertram
Talking with Dr. Christopher Haeckel from Hillsdale's biology department about invasive plants in the US this one is a name for our neighbor above, Canada thistle. How did Canada thistle become such a widespread nuisance across the continent?
- [32:37]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Oh, it is a nuisance, too. I have this on our little homestead, and it is a blue bear. So I didn't really know the story about this before, before coming in. This is one of the probably invaders that has been here the longest. So Canada thistle, like most thistles, right, has this rosette that grows up, you know, up to 3, 4ft tall, as it's named. It's really prickly, right? It's leaves, and it produces a really pretty flower which makes tons and tons of seeds. And so it's thought that Even in the 17th century, thistle came over with French settlers into Canada. That's how it got the name Canada thistle in some impure grains that they were planning to plant. And then the thing is, is that it forms such dense colonies, it just crowds out everything. And I think part of the spread, like your question of, like, how did it get to be so bad? Because it is the one thing that we've talked about today as far as range, pretty much nationwide. Every state in the U.S. i think, has Canada thistle. It comes down to its ability at being good at, you know, growing in those disturbed places. And part of it comes a little bit from our agricultural practices, too. So one of the things I was learning was when our, our farmers leave Fields kind of open after harvest without planting any cover crops or anything like that. That's kind of the in sometimes for these thistle seeds to take hold. And then unlike some things like garlic mustard, which is a biennial and doesn't have a long life cycle, Canada thistle is actually perennial. And so it has a big taproot system. And you know, we fight it in our garden. If you don't pull the entire root up when you're pulling weeds, it's going to re sprout, you know. And so that's the real problem is just. It's really so hard to deal with because the, the real conventional strategies for dealing with a noxious weed like that just don't. It takes some real effort.
- [34:43]
Scott Bertram
That's from Canada. We gotta go overseas for the next couple of entries. Including Japanese knotweed, which is destructive to natural habitats, destructive to infrastructure. What's the story with Japanese knotweed?
- [34:58]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Japanese knotweed is, is one of a collective group of INV spiders that are not weeds. And they all look mostly the same. So they're these perennial kind of shrubby plants. Again, really not bad looking in my opinion. They've got these big heart shaped leaves, they produce a big cluster of flowers out at the end of them. But they again in urban areas have such a deep root system. So they have a big taproot system. So they go down and can get into people's sewer systems, you know, break into, you know, ruin your drain fields, those sorts of things. That's just the taproot that's going straight down. They also have a really extensive rhizome system which is just underground. Rhizomes are modified stems that plants sprout from. These rhizomes can reach up to 65ft. And that's where all the clones come from. And so that's how these things dominate is bred underground, they start to sprout up and before you know it you've got this just dense, dense thicket of things. So in the urban areas it's really just kind of about the sheer biomass and being able to break up sidewalks and roads and crack into buildings out in these natural areas. Where I see it usually kind of along rivers is where I've seen it the most, although I have some in my backyard and it's not fun to deal with. But the issue there is along streams where these get so thick, it's actually kind of pushing the trees back. And by trees not being near to the streams, it's got an effect on that stream ecosystem. So it's not Just terrestrial, but it's having an aquatic effect.
- [36:35]
Scott Bertram
Water temperature.
- [36:36]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Water temperature, yep. There's no shade, there's no leaf litter inputs, which are what a lot of those base of the food chain invertebrates need to feed on. And so, you know, again, it's this, those cascading consequences of these things.
- [36:48]
Max Primorak
Things.
- [36:48]
Scott Bertram
And then Japanese honeysuckle. Why has it been so successful at spreading across the US and why should be afraid of that one?
- [36:56]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Japanese honeysuckle is another intentionally introduced one. It's very pretty, used for ground cover. This one I actually studied as part of my master's research and its success comes from it. Unlike some of the other honeysuckles we have. Well, we have a mixture of honeysuckles that are invasive, that are both kind of shrubby and or vines. But the invasive Japanese honeysuckle really gets its power from that ability to creep and spread as, as a herbaceous perennial. It's not herbaceous, but perennial vine. Right. So they first tend to take hold in those disturbed areas and then kind of like the garlic mustard will just start to vine their way into the forest and steal nutrients away from other plants that, that are in the forest. And I, you know, I've seen the forested honeysuckle invasions and what's, what's odd is that it really doesn't look impressive like some of these other things that form these dense monocultures. But when you really start looking and taking measurements of it, you realize, oh, this is, is everywhere. It just is under the leaf litter. The vines are everywhere. And you have this network of things that are really just stealing nutrients away from all the native plants.
- [38:17]
Scott Bertram
Speaking of being everywhere, we close our tour with one of the more well known plants on our list. There was a comic strip that was named after it for some years. I don't know if it's still around. Has a reputation as the vine that ate in the south kudzu. So what's that all about? Is it still a problem? Is it still spreading down south?
- [38:38]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
So yeah, kudzu. Actually, another one that I studied in my master's research, kudzu, the vine that ate the south, is a really interesting one because it was intentionally planted as for a couple of reasons. It grows so fast that it was used to prevent soil erosion. Then it kind of turned out that really wasn't working. They don't have the fine root system for that. And so then they thought, well, this would be great food for cattle or things that didn't turn out to be so great either. The interesting thing about kudzu before we get to you know it, eating the south is. It's a legume, so it's in the bean family, meaning it's a. It's a nitrogen fixing plant. So it establishes these relationships, a mutualistic relationship with underground microorganisms that have the ability to convert nitrogen from our atmosphere into a usable form for plants. So that's nitrogen fixing. It's called Divine the eighth the south because it can grow meters over a meter a day and tens of meters in a season. And so you can see these pictures where it just like overtakes entire forests or houses that have been abandoned. My research plot in Georgia where I worked with this, it really is quite amazing because so it's a perennial woody vine. The leaves look a lot like. If you've seen a soybean, it looks a little bit like kazu because they're related. But in the spring and winter when that's died back, you just have this big brown gray dead area where all the vines are. And then the spring hits and all of a sudden you can't see anything except for kudzu leaves. And I could walk through this ravine where I was working and it was waist deep in kudzu vine. It just. So the real danger of it is it shades out everything, right? It's not doing a lot to the soil, although it is a nitrogen fixer. So it's increasing nitrogen but just just by pure force of biomass, you know, it's shading things out. It is still spreading, perhaps not at the rate that it was once thought to be spreading, but it is expanding its range in the US Moving westward. The other interesting thing or scary thing is that now I know this isn't a plan, but I was just, just learning in 2017. 2017 anyway, there's kudzu bug. So the right kudzu is from Asia. The bug that feeds on kudzu in Asia has somehow managed to hitch a ride over to the US for discovered in. In Georgia feeding on kudzu. And then the the scary thing about kudzu bug and there's always been in kind of researching using a bug to control these have it as a bio control is the close relationship. Not relationship but the how closely related kudzu is to a major crop plant like soybean. And so this kudzu bug has made it to the U.S. it's like, oh, there's kudzu, but hey, there's also soybean here. It's really causing some problems for soybean growers in, in the south.
- [41:48]
Scott Bertram
As we conclude our conversation about invasive plants, are there any success stories in controlling or even removing invasive plants through the decades?
- [41:58]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
I think I just kind of brought up the idea of bio controls, and that's been a great success. So the researchers from Cornell who I mentioned for doing garlic mustard have also been at the forefront of purple loosestrife research, and they just published the last two years. They've been coming out with some studies really kind of cementing the idea that these different beetles that can be released into purple loosestrife areas are really effective at controlling purple loosestrife. And so where these beetles have been released, there's less habitat occupancy and there's less density of stems. And then even better is that they're finding that those purple loosestrife habitat, the natives, are actually able to recover. And so we're getting plant diversity back from those. And so that's a really great success story and kind of using the science to combat the invasive.
- [42:53]
Scott Bertram
Dr. Christopher Haeckel is associate professor of biology here at Hillsdale College as we talk today about invasive plants across the U.S. Dr. Haeckel, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [43:06]
Dr. Christopher Haeckel
Thanks for having me, Scott.
- [43:07]
Scott Bertram
That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Max Primorak of the Heritage foundation and Christopher Hackel from Hillsdale's Biology Department. Remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews or listen anytime to the podcast. Find it at podcast.com hillsdale edu or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram, and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.