I was surprised at how much I liked his place, but it bothered me, I guess because it wasn't a small farm growing vegetables organically, but rather just large fields of beautiful perfect trees, exactly spaced...little monocultures of various tree species planted and harvested in different years. It might be valuable to compare an organic tree farm with Randy's farm. I got the invitation to come via the Weed Supervisor who is trying his hardest to produce harmony among the disparate elements on the Weed Committee. I jumped at the chance to contribute to that. In some way, his spread reminded me of the way you have many different crops planted in a kind of patchwork to accommodate the shape of your land. I have French intensive beds so that is quite different. There was much good in his work, and I hope this is a beginning of shared respect. My husband tells me he heard Randy bragging about how he and some other farmers sneaked onto an organic neighbor's land who wouldn't take care of his weeds and sprayed it with herbicide...I guess it's his personality, not necessarily his farm. Maybe the fact that we are taking care of weeds on our IPM road project is a start to help him to relax. I am a threat to a long-standing culture of chemicals. If I can just get all the tansy, knapweed, thistle and hawkweed off Rapid Lightning Road, maybe he will respect me. There is zero tolerance for "noxious" weeds and everything has to be oriented toward making a profit. My political values are so different.
Taking a page out of our native son, Jimmy Carter's book, appreciate his good points and simply acknowledge his shortcomings. That keeps the exchange going and you can discuss little things that might lead to bigger and better things. It's a non-judgmental, step-wise approach, and admittedly it doesn't always work. But sometimes it produces astounding results.
I agree. I'm going to try and I appreciate Brad, the Weed Supervisor's efforts to help find something in common between the chemical proponents and the environmentalists. I have mellowed out a lot in my approach. I'm demonstrating non-chemical methods and taking care of weeds. I'm keeping confidences when I could write letters to the editor in the local paper blasting various problems I see. Right now I'm quite troubled about the residue in the sediment of a broad spectrum herbicide, diquat dibromide, that was put in the lake for Eurasian watermilfoil. This has nothing to do with Randy. It was the Public Works Director's baby and he is extremely sensitive if I raise any questions about any problems or about the high cost of hiring out-of-state applicators and divers to protect drinking water inlets...Oh God!
The bare soil really bugs you? Well around here grasses and clovers in the Christmas tree orchard is the only way it is done. This involves mowing, but still it pays back in moisture and nutrient retention, because as long as the level of biology is kept up in the soil, living organisms keep these things inside their cell walls where they are not so easily lost.
Is there some reason he keeps it bare? Does he know that in other places such plantations all grow grass? Has he been observant of what happens to his soil and the living organisms that support it when it spends several years bare?
He did explain why he keeps it bare. He pointed to some trees on his next door neighbor's land which hadn't been kept bare, but had had lots of tansy that Randy finally sprayed Escort for him when the trees were dormant. He commented that it had affected the growth of the bottom branches and they didn't look good. He did have hard fescue on interior roads between large beds on another piece of land that he bought later. He expected it to fill in completely and keep out weeds. Since he had that large sawdust/urea compost pile, he may be using that as a mulch. He would never plant clover. It would have to be grass to stand the herbicide spraying. He really believed that the trees grew better on bare soil.
There was insect damage which means that his chemical fertilizer isn't giving some varieties of trees, especially the native ones, what they want. I will probably ask him about that. He could decide to approach the native trees organically with soil and organisms just like untouched native soil, but how would he get fast growth? Maybe it's not possible to treat native species like the blue spruces he raises from seed from blue trees with a long history of being grown on a tree farm.
It is always better to ask questions than to give information. This is quite interesting. Education has come to mean, particularly in our public schools, informing people. But if you look at its root, educare, this means to draw out. In older times they knew that true education was a process of drawing out of people the realizations that go beyond mere information.
I am going to write a thank you email and I will ask some more questions. Thanks for your suggestions.
Merla
