Does this mean a dense healthy cover of grass can’t protect karst health and function? No. It means grass cannot establish a dense cover on degraded Texas karst country as effectively as a mountain cedar thicket. Until the land starts regenerating, it cannot support a dense cover of grass.
Aging Your Mountain Cedars
There’s a general perception that mountain cedars do not grow very large or that large ones aren’t very old. Neither is true. Although mountain cedars can quickly spread across a rangeland, their growth once established is very slow. It is, after all, a juniper– and junipers are long-lived species.
Measure the trunk diameter in inches 4.5′ up from the ground. Then divide the diameter by .1 and .06
Using .1 and .06 gives a range of ages. If your tree is growing near water in bottomland soils, it will be closer to the .1 number. If your tree is growing on a drier hillside, .06 will be more accurate.
For instance, if your tree has a 12″ wide trunk (measured 4.5′ up from the ground), then it will be about 120 years old if it’s growing near water, but at least 200 years old if growing on top of a hill.
Limestone Junipers of Texas
Mountain cedars are native junipers that prefer limestone karst country. They are most abundant on the eastern Edwards Plateau and on karst country north to the Red River. They are less common on the semi-arid western Edwards Plateau:
Ashe juniper (Juniperus ashei) is the most common mountain cedar. It typically grows as a bushy shrub and is most often seen colonizing degraded rangelands and hillsides. Its range extends to the Ozark Mountain in Missouri.
Adams Juniper (Juniperus ovata) is a more ancestral juniper species that would have been more widely dispersed during the last ice age (10K+ years ago). Current populations exist in western New Braunfels (several are growing in Mission Hill Park) and western Comal County. There is also a population near Big Bend National Park. This species is also called Lemon Cedar due to its lemon-colored sapwood (Ashe Juniper sapwood is white). It is a woodland/forest tree.
Hybrid Juniper is a hybrid of Ashe Juniper and Adams Juniper. Ashe Junipers do not hybridize with any other juniper species. The hybrids can be found growing as a tree in and near forests and woodlands.
Field observations reveal that Adams junipers and the hybrids tend to grow as trees inside established woodlands and forests of the Eastern Edwards Plateau and karst country regions northward.
Two other juniper species can be found growing on limestone karst country, but neither has a preference for limestone:
Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) that grows from the central region of Texas to the Atlantic Ocean, can occasionally be found growing on limestone karst country. It does not hybridize with other limestone junipers.
Redberry Juniper (Juniperus pinchotti) is found mostly on the drier western Edwards Plateau and grows as a shrub. Although common on karst country, it is just as common on non-karst country. It does not hybridize with other limestone junipers.
Project Bedrock informally named Adams Juniper to honor Dr. Robert Adams of Baylor University who identified this separate species. It is also called Lemon Cedar.
The Two Types of Cover
Cedar Thicket
Dense cover, less than about 40 years old, dominated by bushy cedars working as pioneers to regenerate degraded karst country. Can occur where forests once grew or in open rangelands.
Helps regenerate karst function.
- increase karst porosity
- enhance spring flows
- rebuild soil structure & biology
- reduce erosion
- protect new plants
- provide wildlife winter shelter and food
Can take 5 – 75 years based on level of degradation–however we can use nature-based solutions to help speed up the process.
Cedar Forest
Mostly continuous to completely continuous canopy cover. Will contain a mix of hardwoods and mountain cedars (oak-juniper forest) OR be dominated by tree-like tall mountain cedars growing close together (cedar brakes).
Sustains healthy karst function.
- protects karst porosity
- sustains spring flows
- protects soils
- controls erosion
- moves carbon deep
- supports diverse wildlife habitat
- feeds winter wildlife
Forest cover can be old-growth, regenerating old-growth, or areas where forests should be reestablished. Most of our forests are classified as dryland forests.
The dense thickets of bushy mountain cedars we see today are pioneering (or colonizing) thickets. These are NOT cedar brakes. True old-growth cedar brakes are 250+ years old dense forests dominated by tall, timber-like mountain cedars. Historically, pioneer thickets were uncommon, but true cedar brakes were common. Pioneer thickets are acting as pioneers because to help regenerate degraded Texas karst country.
True old-growth brakes and juniper-oak forests make up the bulk of dryland forests in Texas karst country. They are both characterized by a mostly continuous canopy of shorter (30-60′ tall) trees and can be found in bottomlands and on hillsides. The rolling terrains between bottomlands and hillsides with deeper soils historically were more characterized as open, wooded prairies.
Each cover type needs to be managed differently because they play different ecological roles.
Potential Cedar Fever Remedies
Every winter, cedar-feverish desperados scavenge doctor offices and drug stores for over the counter drugs and prescriptions. All they want to know is how can they stop their agony short of fleeing the Hill Country?
Cedar fever is the allergy caused by the airborne-pollen of mountain cedars. The male trees begin throwing their pollen into the air as they search for female counterparts starting in November and lasting until about mid-February. Although the hay fever they cause is no laughing matter, pollinating during winter that’s the bigger problem. That’s when people are getting colds, the flu, and consuming more holiday sugary treats. So it compounds the issue…hence the term cedar fever.
Better solutions that reduce cedar fever symptoms include changing how we manage ourselves. Here are a few approaches you can discuss with your doctor to help reduce your cedar fever anguish:
Alleviate
Alleviating means making your symptoms more manageable. To start, reduce your sugar consumption from November through February. This will be difficult for most since those are the holiday, sweets-focused months. This approach works because cedar fever is a regular pollen allergy + colds and flus. When you decrease sugar, you decrease your cold and flu misery, resulting in decreased cedar fever symptoms. If you’re looking for a quick approach, drink special juice blends that target hay fever allergies. For example: 1 cucumber, 1 apple, 1/2 bunch of parsley, the juice from two lemons, fresh mint, and a knob of ginger. Juiceland makes a juice called Go-J that helps reduce those symptoms. It is packed with vitamin C, papaya, mango, peach, orange, goji and lemon. Another approach a product called Easy Breather by Herbalogic in Austin. This solution contains herbs such as astragalus root and mint leaves to open your passageways and pamper your nasal passages. Another option uses the leaves of the Mountain Cedar. This treatment supports the old saying that remedies can be found near that which caused the ailment. Besides containing camphor, Mountain Cedar leaves also contain vitamin C.1 Steep a handful of leaves from a female Mountain Cedars (since they do not produce pollen). Then inhale the steam to open your sinuses and soothe itchy eyes.
Avoid
When cedar fever season was recognized in the 1920s doctors told patients to go to the Gulf Coast to avoid cedar fever. This alternative became so popular not just with cedar fever, but with all hay fevers, that several hotels along the coast began advertising as hay fever retreats. If you can’t leave the Hill Country, then stay indoors and use HEPA air filters when the pollen is smoking. If you have to go outside, shower immediately when you return and put your clothes in the laundry. Better yet, plan your outdoor activities on days after rains, when humidity is high and winds are low. When you do venture outdoors, consider wearing a mask. Since Mountain Cedar pollen grains are especially tiny at 19-22 microns, this means you need a mask to filter out particles up to 15 microns in diameter. A N-95 mask would more than suffice. If you don’t want to wear a mask, then you’ll need to flush the inside of your nose before you go to bed using a neti pot. Pour water in one nostril and it comes out the other using gravity. A modern, less awkward, alternative to the neti pot is nasal saline irrigation. This process uses more force than gravity to flush your sinuses.
*Important: whichever device you choose, it is important, according to the Food and Drug Administration, to ONLY use boiled or distilled water to avoid introducing nasty microbes that could harm your brain.
Adapt
Adapting to the pollen provides the longest and best results. This approach has traditionally been made with allergy shots prescribed by your doctor. An alternative to shots is allergy drops, such as Allergena Zone 5.3 The concept of shots and drops is based on Dr. Samuel Hahnemann’s early 1800s definition of homeopathy as a concept that ‘like cures like’. Both allergy shots and drops teach the body to adapt to the pollen during cedar fever season to no longer be viewed as such a threat. Options that teach your body to adapt to the pollen by becoming less reactive include acupuncture. Another less known technique, developed by Victor Frank in the 1970s, is called Total Body Modification (TBM).4 Chiropractors use it to teach your body to stop reacting to the pollen. The effects last a few weeks and should be repeated two to three times each cedar fever season. Another way to adapt is to remove chlorines and chloramines contained in city water. These chemicals will irritate your lungs when inhaled when taking a hot shower. A low-cost way to do this is to add a filter to your shower head if your city uses chlorine or a vitamin C neutralizer if your city uses chloramine (such as Austin). To achieve the best results you need to improve your gut health. An unhealthy gut can get tiny holes that allow things like cedar pollen to enter your bloodstream (called leaky guy). Nobody wants that. Foods, such as processed sugars, indirectly cause these holes since they feed the bad gut microbes. To find out if you have a leaky gut that’s making your cedar ever symptoms worse, the best route would be to contact a gastroenterologist with training in nutrition.8
Disclaimer: This information is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians. The reader should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.