Grandpa, Bugs in the Garden, and Where To Go From Here

I was in my early teens sitting at my grandpa’s kitchen table when he announced I would be cutting down the horseweeds along the west side of his house.  “Looks like nobody lives here!” he growled.  I wasn't much interested in the job and thought the horseweeds looked just fine, but headed out to follow orders.  The weeds were impressive, some approaching two inches on the stump, and I ended up enlisting an axe to complete the task.

Turns out they weren’t horseweeds, which are technically asters, but giant ragweeds, and in more than 50 years I've not looked at one without remembering that day.  They are common as flies in these parts and grow impressively in a single season.  Just yesterday, while adding weeds to the compost pile, I realized that in a mere three months the giant ragweed were towering 12 feet overhead and threatened to overtake the pile, so I began pulling them out.  Nearly all of them broke clean near the base, its stem having been hollowed and weakened from the feeding of the common stalk borer.  The plants otherwise appeared flawless, stout as mules, racing jubilantly towards maturity.

Evolution has provided the giant ragweed with a tolerance to the borer so the plant is rarely killed, in much the same way parasites coexist with their hosts. Native oaks tolerate a raft of insect larvae which in turn feed millions of birds which then contribute mightily to the local ecosystem.  It's a beautifully functional machine, one easily disrupted by removal of a single component or when complicated by the introduction of nonnative species. 

The infested giant ragweed will complete its life cycle while the borer does the same.  To some degree we copy this strategy to manage our vegetable garden.  This spring we had a large number of squash bugs on our cucumbers. We did nothing.  As a result, the cucumber season was shortened but not before we were bursting at the seams with canned pickles.  We had earworms in the sweet corn, did nothing, and still had ample for freezing.  Our tomatoes are sick with blight but we are getting a harvest that will more than satisfy our needs.  In past years we've had issues with voles eating potatoes, maggots infesting carrots, beetles eating asparagus, potato bugs riddling leaves, but almost always we have had more than adequate harvests after doing nothing to address problems.

Today I visited a local organic grower who produces incredible vegetables as a livelihood.  He, too, has a live and let live attitude towards many common pests. Earlier this season he had the most serious infestation of aphids on pepper plants he had ever seen, but did nothing.  Within days he noticed a virtual army of ladybug larvae emerging, which it turns out, are voracious aphid predators, and in short order the problem was no more. Had he used an insecticide, even one approved for organic production, he would have almost certainly killed the developing ladybugs as well. 

In a world addicted to chemical pest control we have been programmed to reach for the pesticide at the first sign of danger.  Almost all are potentially lethal to the user and most are broad spectrum killers, taking more than the targeted species.  They are, to no small degree, responsible for an alarming reduction in insect populations worldwide, including those we rely on for pollination, including those that are fundamental to food chains and support entire ecosystems.  And both weeds and insects have an incredible ability to quickly gain immunity against chemical concoctions, forcing chemists to constantly develop new, more lethal agents in their quest for control.  It's a quest without end. 

On a typical morning I'll see several rabbits in and around the garden. Last year they took a liking to tomatoes, taking big chunks from low hanging fruit about a week before ripe for our picking.  We responded with fencing and the problem was rectified.  This year the tomato loving rabbits were back and we did nothing, lost a few low hanging fruits, and the problem is no more.  Earlier this year the rabbits were eating our green beans, so we draped the patch with chicken wire.  When the plants were larger we removed the wire and the rabbits came back and nipped a stem here, a leaf there, but from two short rows of beans we’ve canned enough for weekly meals to last a year, not to mention a couple dozen meals of fresh.  We're still picking today, the rabbits are still nibbling, everybody’s happy.

In a small way our gardening strategies help to support the local ecology.  If we had more ambition we could apply proven natural control measures and have even better results.  It’s a stretch to compare our experience with the ag industry, but a published report by US scientists in 2016 adds credence to the fact that the world’s food requirements can be met using organic methods, and in years of stress, organic yields will exceed those of conventional ag.  

The USDA Organic label has taken a hit over the years with some producers finding loopholes to satisfy label requirements while continuing practices detrimental to soil health.  In the soil is 95 percent of all life on land, up to a billion invertebrates per healthy acre and countless bacteria. There is ample evidence that modern agriculture is turning soil to dirt, destroying organisms essential to healthy function, administering toxic, manufactured pesticides and petroleum-based fertilizers in an effort to produce another crop.  The process is grinding away crucial soil components, a fact recognized by leading soil scientists. 

An improvement over organic is regenerative agriculture, which focuses on soil health and expounds the benefits organic provides.  Among it’s chief perks is massive carbon sequestration.  Conventional practices are responsible for up to 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.  The environmental benefits of a total shift to regenerative production is beyond measure, with every living system being positively influenced and contributions to the climate crises grand and inherent.

There is a parallel between all of this and the introduction of wolves to the Yellowstone ecosystem 25 years ago.  The cattle ranchers and elk hunting guides surrounding the park predicted it would deliver a fatal blow to their businesses but today they are still there.  That’s not to say there haven't been problem areas with cattle and sheep lost to wolves. And there are fewer elk, some whose habits have changed making the guide’s work more challenging and, for some, more satisfying.  While there will always be individuals opposed to wolves, a growing number whose livelihoods have been negatively impacted can see and appreciate the merits of having a top predator reestablished.  The ecological consequences of introduced wolves have gone beyond expectations. Reduced browsing by elk has allowed willows to return to stream banks which have attracted beavers which have worked their magic with dams.  Long lost ecosystems have been restored, diverse species have returned, and river courses have been modified which will ultimately influence geologic features.  It's a taste of the dramatic, life enriching, unpredictable repercussions of working with nature in land management.

Imagine a society embracing a principle to preserve the environment first and foremost, where a commitment to live in harmony with nature is instilled from birth, the doctrine guiding economic growth, the core of school curricula.  If some tolerable crop loss to insects, disease, competition, rodents, were viewed inevitable, anticipated, even appreciated, what would be the impact to overall ecological health? 

I'm not sure grandpa ever heard of global warming, though it was being predicted in the scientific journals of the day.  He probably didn't spend a lot of time contemplating the web of life, though he was an ardent outdoorsman.  He was instead consumed with work and earning a living, receptive to chemical concoctions that held the promise of improving yields.  He was living by the ethics of the day, putting to practice the recommendations given him, getting results favorably perceived. 

A half century later and not much has changed, other than a steady deterioration of our planet.  The window of opportunity is closing, but doesn't have to. The solutions are within reach.

A Rumination On Migration

We awoke this morning to dozens of northern rough winged swallows feasting on insects over the cattails. Like many other birds, they form groups after the breeding season and prior to departing on their fall migration to far away places, which for rough winged swallows means Mexico or Central America.

Seasonal migration is an awesome subject and is applicable to birds, insects, fish and mammals.  It’s a behavior as old as life itself, and movements can vary from as little as a few hundred meters for the blue grouse to a mind boggling 44,000 zig zagging miles for the Arctic tern.  

There are mysteries at work, and specialized adaptations for navigation are always being discovered.  The magnetic poles play a prominent role, but exactly how they are processed in animals is still in question. Magnetism alone does not explain how an oriole flies thousands of miles before returning to our backyard to rest on a deck rail where nine months earlier was a jelly feeder.  This level of accuracy indicates a detailed memory, or an extremely refined GPS system. 

If we can be baffled and humbled by a tiny hummingbird making its way to Central America and back each year, wrapping our heads around butterflies and dragonflies that require multiple generations to complete their annual migratory trek is beyond comprehension.  Indigenous peoples believed that medicine men were born with the memory of what their predecessors had learned. The concept must apply to migrating insects as well, some sort of message in their genetic code that details their migratory routes and destinations with impeccable accuracy.

Lake Superior measures 160 miles north to south.  Monarch butterflies migrating south from Canada manage to flutter nonstop across the open expanse.  It's an impressive enough feat if the migrants set a straight line route, which they don't.  Instead, at a certain location they make an abrupt eastward turn and stay that course to a prescribed point where they again turn south, adding unnecessary distance. The belief among scientists is that Superior once contained a mountain of ice, or some sort of obstruction of such height that the insects could not fly over but instead flew around, and the memory has not been lost to time.

Native Americans would often have seasonal migrations between summer and winter hunting grounds, and in the US today about a million people head to Florida to lay out the winter while others seek the dry mild air of the desert southwest. But migration applied to humans generally refers to movement in only one direction, a dispersal often spurred by force or desperation.  Worldwide, a person is being unwillingly uprooted every two seconds.

Unless we are direct descendants of native peoples and have remained within our ancestral borders, we all have a migration or two in our histories.  Over the decades a disproportionate number of us have migrated to coastlines or mountainous regions. We jockey for prime locations in beautiful natural settings such as lakeshores, then moan about aquatic weeds and mosquitoes, beavers that eat our yard trees and deer that eat our hostas.  We build on the coasts then fear mudslides and earthquakes and hurricanes. We speckle homes in mountainous areas then expect fire suppression where uncontrolled wildfires had managed forest ecosystems for centuries.  We move from cities and bring demand for Starbucks and fine restaurants and nightlife. Entrepreneurs respond, more folks move in, and soon congestion fills the quaint mountain or seaside town. In every migration there are hopes and heartaches, losses and gains, assurances and uncertainties, but with none comes an iron clad guarantee.

Think of the risks associated with seasonal migration, the extreme outputs of energy.  A bird, having fought hard to establish and defend its nesting territory, abandons it, assuring a repeated effort the following season.  If it's nest fails there might be a second attempt, with fledglings too weak to make the arduous cross country trip.  What great advantage to sit tight, keep the home fires burning, and bring reproduction to strong completion.

Food is a driving motivation.  There are no flowers in winter for nectar seeking hummingbirds, no plankton in cooling waters for feeding whales, no browse for elk in the high country.  Yet some of the great blue herons in our region move south while others stay to endure the cold, banking on finding food not locked in ice.  There are questions unanswered.

Climate change is affecting every life form.  Plants are moving north, and along with them food sources for associated species.  Everything alive is a candidate for redistribution, and the impact on human cultures, food supplies, and migration behaviors is phenomenal.

It’s August and the great seasonal spectacle has commenced.  Weather radar picks up the activity at night, masses of birds streaming southward.  Shorebirds, especially, are well underway.  Most of the orioles have left the feeders, as have the grosbeaks.  Their work here is done, and the shortening days have flipped an internal switch which cannot be ignored.  

A mysterious and finely tuned seasonal mechanism for so many things wild, a hope-filled and sometimes final alternative for millions of people, migration lies intricately woven in the quest for survival.

Saying It Again While Singing Some Peggy Lee

I was out early one morning last week to get the garden irrigated.  The dew was heavy, and it weighed on the asparagus so it bent and glistened under a silver veil.  In the distance a screech owl called.  The grass, cut the day before, clung to my bare feet.  The humidity rested at 92 percent.  The first rays of sun carried an assurance it would be a hot one, well in the 90’s, with stifling air to drive home the discomfort.

There will be more of these days, not necessarily this year, but in general.  It comes with a warming planet.  The reality is now broadly recognized and accepted. If we stopped emitting all fossilized carbon today we would still face advanced warming for decades.  Coastal cities will be vacated.  Heat stress, droughts, floods, food shortages, mass migrations, pestilences, pandemics, now underway will only ramp up in frequency and magnitude. The trigger’s been pulled, the ramifications unleashed, and yet there seems a strong inclination to let everything that brought us to this point continue, to dust off the old vinyl and listen to Peggy Lee sing “Is That All There Is” while planning our trip to Greece.

Recently we awoke to see a deer floating in the pond.  We pulled it ashore and found it to be a young lactating doe with no obvious wounds, looking good and healthy aside from being dead.  Dying in the water at this time of year points to hemorrhagic disease, since infected animals seek out wetlands for relief from fever.  Animals may or may not exhibit physical symptoms such as swelling around the neck, lumps on the roof of the mouth, discolored tongue, etc.. We filed a report with the DNR.  The cause of death will never be known for certain and a jubilant gathering of vultures in our north field aren't asking questions.

Hemorrhagic disease is spread by biting midges whose range is extending north and east with a warming climate.  Shifts in the ranges of birds, plants, and insects are being widely documented with climate change.  The state of Vermont’s rich history of maple syrup production is in its last generation of sugar maples so the industry will soon be lost to Canada. Hatches of insects, their timing critical to nesting birds, are occurring earlier, shrinking breeding windows and threatening brood survival.  

One of the best examples of how seemingly minor climatic changes can have dramatic consequences is found with the red knot, robin-sized shorebirds that migrate up to 9300 miles each way from their Arctic breeding grounds to the southern coasts of Chili and Argentina. On their route north they stop along our east coast to rest and refuel, seeking primarily the eggs of horseshoe crabs.  As oceans have warmed, crabs are laying eggs earlier and finish before red knots arrive.  At the same time arctic temperatures are rising so spring insect are hatching earlier, depriving birds the larvae essential to their developing broods.  Red knot numbers have dropped precipitously and surviving birds are physically smaller due to the effects of malnutrition. Their migratory movements are spurred by day length, not temperatures.  Their future looks bleak.

Carbon emissions have slowed a bit worldwide with the pandemic but it’s just a lull.  The concept of man-caused warming might be mainstream but consequential action is minimal. The stage is set for climate conditions never experienced by Homo sapiens as we enter a new era with no assurances.  There are big distractions: the virus, the economy, unemployment, injustice, corruption, while the biggest threat of all looms before us, its ultimate impact growing steadily with business as usual.  

A family of little green herons dart around the pond daily, screeching.  No man ever heard a screaming pterodactyl but surely herons learned from them.  Today the weather has moderated significantly.  We got a much needed soaking rain.  The pond temperature dropped to the low 70’s and Lee and I, being the weenies we are, donned wetsuits for the daily swim.  It’s August.  The field crops are looking good, the garden even better, the pantry’s nearly full and the tomatoes are just coming on.  Butterflies are showing up on the zinnias, monarch caterpillars on the milkweed.  Songbirds are everywhere. 

It’s so easy to fall into complacency, to think: Is that all there is to climate change? Is that all there is?  If that's all there is, my friends, then let's keep dancing.  Let's break out the booze and have a ball.  If that’s all there is.