AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Tumbleweeds are an iconic part of the landscape across much of the Western U.S. Often, they're described as the spirit of the cowboy, lawless and lonely drifters. But they can actually be an invasive plant and a nuisance to farmers. Calen Moore of the Kansas News Service reports.
CALEN MOORE, BYLINE: In old Western movies, tumbleweeds are ever-present. There's, of course, the music, like the song "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" by Sons of the Pioneers. At the end of the movies when the gunfighters stand off, a lonely tumbleweed often hops along the dusty ground.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TUMBLING TUMBLEWEEDS")
SONS OF THE PIONEERS: (Singing) Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
MOORE: Across the high plains, tumbleweeds come with the territory, and people in urban areas may be surprised by just how prominent this plant is on the frontier. So that image of the lonely tumbleweed is actually a misconception. AccuWeather meteorologist Tony Laubach explained just how wrong that is when he described tumbleweed activity when winds were strong in Montana late last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TONY LAUBACH: Tumbleweeds are buying neighborhoods in Billings, Montana, and they can cause some serious problems.
MOORE: Although ubiquitous in the Western United States, tumbleweeds are relatively new on the frontier. They are native to Russia and Eastern Europe. Patrick Geier, an instructor of weed science at Kansas State University, says their journey to the United States in the late 1800s might've also burst the wheat belt in the middle of the country.
PATRICK GEIER: When the immigrants who came from that part of the world brought their wheat over, a lot of that wheat had these weed seeds in them. They didn't realize it. They were actually establishing some of these plants.
MOORE: The weeds come up in early spring and dry out in late fall. A layer of cells around the stem die. So when a gust of wind sweeps through, the globe-shaped plant breaks off and is carried away. As it tumbles and tosses across the Great Plains, upwards of 10,000 seeds shake out and sprout new tumbleweeds in their wake. This creates more of a nuisance than a novelty, especially for farmers like Vance Ehmke in Kansas.
VANCE EHMKE: One really good Russian thistle can remove, like, 44 gallons of water, and that will definitely have an impact on the yield of following crops like corn or milo the next year.
MOORE: Part of why they're so common is that tumbleweeds were the first documented case of herbicide resistance in Kansas by Kansas State University, making them harder for land owners to eradicate. And with tumbleweeds flying all over and stacking up on each other, they can also cause real fire hazards. Their tumbling nature makes for quick-moving kindling. Kelly Kirk is the fire chief in Liberal, Kansas, a city right near the Oklahoma border. He says the solution to preventing the fire hazard, ironically, is to burn them safely before they become an uncontrolled fire threat. Kirk has battled tumbleweeds often in his career. He can tell plenty of stories, like the time tumbleweeds swept over a portion of Liberal.
KELLY KIRK: It literally inundated that entire neighborhood. We cleaned up that entire area and burned off all of those tumbleweeds over a period of probably a week.
MOORE: But even though they can have a serious impact on the region, the tumbleweeds are still embraced culturally and considered part of the landscape.
For NPR News, I'm Calen Moore in Liberal, Kansas.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLASS BEAMS' "KONG") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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