Comments about ‘Safflowers harvested for biofuels research’

This is actually exciting not just becasue of the bio-fuel side but also from a pollinator side.

Over the years we have been losing pollinator crops to buildings and roads. This in turn has decreased the populations of pollinator insects such as butterflys, various variety of bees, and others. Some have been endangered to include many types of Bumble Bees. Adding pollinator crops to the freeways and open spaces provides addtional food sources for the pollinator insect which are important to our overall environment and to food crop production. I would like to see some of our other roadways planted in native wild flowers to both beautify the roads and provide flora for the pollinator insects.

I do think it would be wonderful to see these spaces used to compensate for our roadways otherwise draining effects, but I do want to mention that some of those roadside "weeds" that are of course not the most beautiful things in the world (except as they represent God's native creations here) are also natives (except for the cheat grass invasives, diers woad). I miss the days when I would see more open spaces and I think its too bad that in Salt Lake City the notion of natural corridors couldn't have been introduced when they could have had a chance (others areas just outside could still work if the will is there). I would defend keeping the limited grasses on the side of our corridors alone except that they are truly limited and they could easily be put to much more environmental benefit since they don't really connect to much else most of the time anyway especially in this area and are not at risk any more than they are already marginalized in their locations. GREAT IDEA! Maybe there is something more indigenous that would have similar harvests? Stretch, maybe.