Oh Roger, you open a can of worms and I'm trying to find common ground with Randy. I doubt if anything I could offer him would make the slightest difference to him. He's the envy of his peers because of the prices he gets. He had just come back from a trip to Moscow, Idaho, where the University of Idaho is. He had been asked to lecture a class on growing trees. His blue spruces looked beautiful, though his ponderosa pines were stressed. I offered a suggestion of spraying CT on the the pines as a foliar spray, but Lord knows I know nothing about raising pine trees and what the ingredients should be.
I wasn't clear. Randy claims that he can spray Escort when the trees are dormant and they don't die. Whether they are stressed by it he didn't say. I was glad my husband was along and they could talk about things like elk guiding. This was a PR run for me and I wasn't trying to debate him on his methods. But what he meant was that the weeds growing around the trees affected the growth of the lower branches, not the herbicide. These were trees that would be planted as focal points in perfect lawns. Your story about the grazier/shearer of Merino sheep setting fire to the place next door and getting five-fold renewed growth of serrated tussock is human nature, isn't it? Randy offered to show us all his equipment. He's very proud of his place, his methods and his equipment. It was getting dark so we demurred on that. His place shows the results of a lot of work in a paradigm we don't share. He also doesn't understand that he's raising trees in agricultural, not forest practice. The things we care about don't matter to him when it comes to making a living. I may send him the article on ramial wood chips, though. He seems to be interested in some organic practices, like green manuring and if he pursues the ponderosa's dis-ease, he may learn something. Next time I see him, I'll ask about those two problems he showed me. He has offered me some hard fescue seed for Rapid Lightning right-of-way. Should I take it? I was thinking of using it on some of the bare ground to try it out. I did get some dirt from our county road from a knapweed site and from bare ground, but it was all frozen and I had to chip it up. I have it in some plastic bags which I left open. I'm still interested in having you dowse paper dipped in its mud. I read the Acres USA catalog and they have a lot of books on dowsing and radionics. I'm reading Richard Gerber's book on Vibrational Medicine and it's a good background book for me. Still, it's hard to get started. I'm in the information gathering stage, I guess. I have all sorts of unpleasant work like cleaning and ordering that haunts me. Best, Merla Roger Pye wrote: > Merla Barberie wrote: > > > Your nemesis, Randy, seem to exemplify many good, as well as > > misguided, qualities. His land is in his family and farming is in his > > blood. He is open enough to share with you what he is doing and he > > really believes in it, works hard, makes it pay, pays his bills > > thereby, etc. He uses a spider and cover crops, for crying out loud. > > > > 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. > > > The organically grown trees will be happier and know how to compete with > other species for precious nutrients and therefore better able to resist > disease and decay in the long term. > > > 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. > > > A year ago I visited a one thousand acre property in the southern > highlands of NSW whose owner was allowing it to revert to bush and > naturally regenerate. He was helping it along the way with tree > plantings of friendly native species, had planted several hundred. The > farm had a lot of serrated tussock, Oz's number one 'noxious' weed > (noxious to stock, of course) which is under permanent sentence of death > by the authorities. The owner lived in town, no one lived at the farm. > About half the property was accessible by vehicle (4-wheel drive), the > remainder by mountain goat. > > Access was through another and much bigger farm. The grazier (I use the > term loosely, he was in fact a shearer) ran Merino sheep and little > else. He used toxic chemical weedkillers and superphosphates like they > were going out of fashion. Every time a 'weed' (ie, anything other than > grass) poked its head up, it and the area around got hit by a toxic > blast. The average grass height was about an inch and colour a vivid, > sickly green. > > On a particular day two months before my visit, a fire broke out at the > inner farm. It destroyed every living plant in the 'accessible' area - > serrated tussock, native grasses and trees, others - and most of the > straw mulch (actually chopped tussock). Miraculously, the only buildings > (a shearing shed and a ruined cottage) were untouched although the fires > came within metres of them all around. > > I make no charges but I have the photographs that show the > fire-blackened areas meticulously following fencelines without breaking > through them, and the wheel tracks of a large vehicle where there should > be none. > > ST seed can lie dormant for half a century and still be viable; mature > plants on average drop about 100,000 seeds a year.The heat of burning > serrated tussock (dry) triggers germination of viable seed in the seed > bed. The result on this property is a five-fold increase in growth > generating pressure for more destruction by toxic chemicals. One of the > boundaries of this inner farm is a major river feeding into the water > supply of Sydney, 300 km away, and some of the burned land slopes down > to it. I'm sure I need not spell out the consequences. > > > 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. > > > I assume he meant the spray had affected the growth. Trees are living > plants - I don't think dormancy cuts off natural life-support systems, > there would still be some sap flowing. Escort, Task Force and Roundup > used in any way (other than as a spot-spray and even then I wouldn't be > too sure) will be taken up by roots and carried to plant tissue with > resultant ill effects. > > However, tansy indicates soil compaction and poor drainage which could > also be a cause. > > > 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. > > > This fescue is high in iron, I don't think it will do what he wants. > However, it would be better if he put in plants which would put > nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus into the soil. Or just allowed them > to grow - the soil knows what it needs better than we do. Hence the > tansy - if he improved the drainage the tansy wouldn't grow there. > > > 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. > > > Then for him perhaps they will - the working of belief systems is a > facet of human dynamics which is well and truly beyond our understanding. > > > 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. > > > Trees are plants - we often forget that. Chemical fertilisers are salts; > the nutrients they contain are artificial, are not readily absorbable by > plants. The salts are taken up by plants because there is no choice (eat > salt yourself and you instantly need a drink; if the only drink > available is salty, and always salty, that is what you will drink). The > salts inhibit if not destroy outright the symbiotic relationship between > plant and soil. > > > It is always better to ask questions than to give information. > > > Only if the person being asked has the inclination - or the time and > resources - to go looking for the answers if they're not already know. > We live in the age of information. The internet is a success primarily > because it assists or enables the carriage of information. This mailing > list - even though at times it drives me to distraction (and likewise > I'm sure some of my contributions cause similar feelings in others) is a > success because it carries a vast amount of information. > > Roger > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% > > Today, do not worry > Today, do not anger > Honour your parents, teachers and elders > Earn your living honestly > Show gratitude to all living things > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% > Earthcare Environmental Solutions > PO Box 2057 Queanbeyan NSW 2620 > Ph: 02 6255 3824 > Fax: 02 6255 1028 > Mob: 0410 469 541 > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
