Science Club juniper talk a big hit

Last Thursday evening, 175 people - several of whom were students from Sisters schools - were in attendance at The Belfry when Dr. Tim Deboodt, staff chair person of extension faculty, range and livestock at the OSU Crook County Extension Service, presented a lecture on the presence of Western juniper in this part of Central Oregon.

At the beginning of his talk, Dr. Deboodt told the audience that the only geographic location Western juniper can be found is in Central Oregon. While several other juniper species also can be found throughout the West, the Western Juniper is confined to eastern portions of our state.

Using the Keystone Ranch as a model for juniper expansion, he showed photos of the ranch in 1908 with only a sparse number of trees on the southern slopes, and then compared it to today, where juniper covers the entire hillside.

"I like to look at old pioneer photographs," he said. "I don't pay too much attention to the people; I look at the hillsides in the background, comparing the juniper that was there in the early years to what we see on the ground today."

Deboodt went on to say that in 1937 there were an estimated 1.5 million acres of juniper in Oregon, by 1999 there was approximately 6.5 million, and today there are around 10 million. He also stated that, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't the millions of sheep overgrazing the land in the early days that got juniper going, but overgrazing millions of horses being raised for service in World War I, and over-use of the land, shrubs and grasses that helped the junipers to spread.

He also pointed out that when juniper begin taking over the landscape, grasses and shrubs decline dramatically, creating a condition where fuel for range-fires is no longer available. Without fire to control the spread of juniper, watersheds fail, grazing conditions drop to almost zero, and the junipers keep marching forward.

Junipers compete with other plants and succeed because they are evergreens and can keep photosynthesis going all year round. Native shrubs and grasses sleep through the winter, but in January and February juniper trees wake up and get to growing.

Most anyone who lives in Sisters knows how the wintering Canadian robins and local cedar wax-wings utilize juniper berries for food (and leave half-digested berries all over sidewalks and parked motor vehicles), something Elise Wolf (wildlife rehabber) pointed out at the end of the talk. She also gave a great deal of credit to the "old-growth" junipers for their value as wildlife trees.

Michael Geisen, science teacher at Sisters Middle School, was very happy to see many of his students at the juniper talk. The next day he said in an email: "We're having some fabulous discussions today in science - not only about junipers and penstemon, but especially about the scientific process, the role of evidence vs. anecdote, variables, emotional responses, bias, and so on. Great times!"

Bunny Thompson, writer and citizen scientist, was scrambling to keep up with the food and drink orders Thursday evening, but also had ample time to listen and appraise Dr. Deboodt's juniper lecture.

After the talk she said, "It was fabulous to see a packed crowd, with people standing and sitting on the floor, to watch a science talk. Our Sisters Science Club rocks! I bet you'd have a hard time getting 175 people to show up for a science talk in a big city."