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The next generation of farmers?
Students learn about ecological farm design from oregon fruit
and vegetable grower Larry Thompson. Photo by Jerry DeWitt,
Iowa State Univ. |
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Year-Round Blooming Cycle Attracts Beneficials
In Oregon’s Willamette valley, Larry Thompson’s 100-acre
fruit and vegetable farm blossoms with natural insectaries. “To
keep an equilibrium of beneficials and pests and to survive without
using insecticides, we have as much blooming around the farm as
we can,” he says.
Thompson uses cover crops to recruit ladybugs, lacewings and praying
mantises in his battle against aphids. Overseeded cereal rye is
already growing under his lettuce leaves before he harvests in late
summer and fall. “It creates a nice habitat for overwintering
beneficials and you don’t have to start over from ground zero
in the spring,” he says.
Between his raspberry rows, Thompson lets his dandelions flower
into a food source for nectar- and pollen-seeking insects before
mowing them down. Forced out of the dandelions that nurtured them
in early spring, the beneficials pursue a succession of bloom. They
move first into his raspberries, then his marionberries and boysenberries.
Later in the year, Thompson doesn’t mow his broccoli stubble.
instead, he lets the side shoots bloom, creating a long-term nectar
source into early winter. “The bees really go for that,”
he says.
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