Large scale farming operations tend to focus on one (supposedly profitable) crop at the expense of preserving a natural ecosystem on the land-base. It weakens the environment's natural immunity to low-level blights such as the one described. (The same thing hit the large strawberry farms in BC this year ...) Add poor soil preservation practices and gobs of chemical fertilizers and you get the Monsanto effect ...
On our farm, we're reaching toward what we hope will be a sustainable future for our food supply (and, by extension, the planet). You might enjoy my wife's blog: http://nanocosm.livejournal.com/
Much as I might like to agree with you, the article noted that Late Blight a) recurs periodically in this part of the world, and b) has been affecting organic growers the most. Granted, large-scale monoculture of tomatoes on the same plot of ground year by year probably doesn't help; but it's probably mostly a combination of bad luck and the weather.
We got a letter from our CSA blaming a nursery that supplies tomato plants to big box stores. Wal*Mart and the like sold the seedlings to backyard growers all over the region; the spores spread on the wind. New York State's tomato crops are basically hosed.
Deadly! Most of those are Monsanto products. They're designed to spread a genetically-engineered type of spore that's actually a copywritten DNA pattern. Monsanto uses its spread as an opportunity to sue farms upon which it falls for violation of copyright (see the nanocosm blog for details).
Please tell me you simply neglected to leave off the [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] tags. I'm not a Monsanto fan by any means, but I really doubt they genetically engineered a crop-killing fungus.
No. What they've done is engineer their plants to be resistant to Round-Up. They have used to the drift of these seeds and spores onto other farms' land as an excuse to sue for copyright infringement (successfully, I might add). Farmers unable to pay the astronomical civil damages imposed have had their assets seized.
Yes: you can now patent DNA combinations. Yes: courts will uphold corporate claims to intellectual property on same. Yes: farms have been seized. Monsanto is a fucking monster.
Organic farming and weather have little to do with it. It's simple science. Vitiation of the nutrient base caused by poor crop rotation and monoculture creates a breeding ground for opportunistic blight, fungii, etc. Plants are organisms, and they cannot thrive in the kind of mass farming, high-concentration growth environments common to North America these days (think of forcing large numbers of people to inhabit a very small area and you'll get the same result). This is the model that's being followed by most going agricultural concerns - even the so-called "family farms" (what few are left in the States) - and it's wreaking havoc on the environment. I know what the article says, but my wife and I own a farm and so have a slightly different perspective ...
I'm not aware of any difference between hybridized/engineered tomatoes and traditional types as regards resistance to late blight. If you have reliable information supporting this claim, please provide.
In the mean time, note that every article on this phenomenon blames a combination of negligence in home garden stores and an usually cool and wet summer. (Hot, sunny weather kills late blight, which is why it usually doesn't strike until the end of the tomato season, hence its name.)
The comparative resistance to blight of engineered vs. traditional tomatoes was not the subject of my comments. I did not touch on this topic, nor did I make any claims regarding it. I cannot support a claim I have not made, nor can I provide reliable information about it.
You are very fortunate to have the time to read "every article" on blight.
Let me reform my argument: I don't see any indication that monoculture farming is responsible for this outbreak. If you have information on the matter that does not spread from your personal intuition, please provide it.
Every article that I have read on the subject, and they are several, agrees on the overall cause of the problem: the presence of a naturally and frequently occurring fungus, spread due to the lack of government regulation of home garden stores and their stock, combined with a bizarre and not fully explained weather pattern that happens to suit the fungus's purposes perfectly. Again, any solid information to the contrary would be appreciated.
My comments are not based on intuition. They are based on my experience as a professional farmer. My credentials in this regard are not based on academic publications, but rather on the quality of my produce, the soundness of my methods and the satisfaction of my customers. My comments on monoculture are based on comparative experiences on farms with monoculture vs. those which maintain a diversity of produce and a living eco-system.
If you would like to learn what I know, I offer the following recommendations:
1. Put down the books 2. Get outside into the field 3. Get to work
You will learn many things that are not in books or in articles on the Internet and sooner or later the academics will catch up to you.
You will learn many things that are not in books or in articles on the Internet and sooner or later the academics will catch up to you.
Please do not, in my space, insult books or those who read them. (Or academia; do you discount me as a poet because I learned my three dead languages at a university?) You are not being dismissed; you are being asked for information.
My comments are not based on intuition. They are based on my experience as a professional farmer. My credentials in this regard are not based on academic publications, but rather on the quality of my produce, the soundness of my methods and the satisfaction of my customers. My comments on monoculture are based on comparative experiences on farms with monoculture vs. those which maintain a diversity of produce and a living eco-system.
I respect the practical knowledge that your profession allows you, but that does not delegitimize the contributions of other professions and other types of experts. Your background also does not automatically imply that your every pronouncement on the subject is correct.
I'm aware of the problems with monoculture farming, and I agree that it's not an intelligent agricultural system. You don't have to convince me of that. But you've yet to convincingly connect monoculture to the blight outbreak, which has affected everything from huge industrial farms down to diverse backyard gardens across the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.
This discussion is now closed. Thank you.
Unwillingness to discuss a matter does not prove the unwilling party correct. Anyone can tell me I'm wrong; I'm asking you, as someone with far more experience that I have, to show me that I'm wrong.
It's been affecting organic growers the most because they can't use most of the conventional remedies against it. That doesn't mean it isn't CAUSED by monoculture.
If I may toss in a further point of confusion, organic ≠ ~monocultured. Most organic produce in supermarkets is grown in an environment very similar to that of non-organic produce, the only differences being chemical. Small farms that maintain crop diversity are not the norm even within the organic sector.
The article indicates it's statewide, but it certainly explains why ours aren't thriving.
I don't know if the blight's hit Connecticut or not, but nobody's tomatoes have been growing well round here, either. They say it's the weather.
(Oh, and my new icon was inspired by your post about still life, although I know it's not really what you (or Kalb) meant. I probably need to tweak the brightness and contrast, slightly.)
Yours may just be unhappy about all the rain and cold weather. But check them: if they DO have blight, kill it with fire you should probably get rid of the plants, to avoid spreading the stuff further.
It's been a bad year for tomatoes (http://www.motherearthnews.com/Grow-It/Milestone-Herbicide-Contamination-Creates-Dangerous-Toxic-Compost.aspx) all over, hasn't it... Ugh.
It's been a bad year for tomatoes all over, hasn't it...
". . . where thousands of gardeners lost their tomatoes, beans and other sensitive crops to manure and hay laced with this potent, highly persistent herbicide."
Now I feel bad; I think my tomatoes have more tomatoes on them than the pictured tomatoes from that organic farmer in Lincoln.
That being said, last year at this time we had more tomatoes than we could eat, and this year we've had...one. We might have two this week if the one on the vine ripens up. We have many tiny tomatoes, but I don't think they're gonna make it.
My peas are also sad; they're withering and rotting by turns. I also had a lot of aphids and was going to mailorder ladybugs to eat them, but it's been so wet and/or blisteringly hot that I didn't think they'd live.
I'm really sad; I was looking forward to canning some really good tomato sauce with the delicious heirloom tomato plants I'd got from the farmers' market.
It's set off a bit of a tomato panic here. Farmers are picking their fruits early and selling them green for fear that they'll be blighted before they ripen. Hence tonight's fried green tomatoes.
. . . the article is slightly inaccurate about the potato thing. Late blight comes in two separate strains: one generally affects potatoes, the other tomatoes. Though the fungus can jump species, it's not really correct to say that the tomatoes have potato blight.
Late blight comes in two separate strains: one generally affects potatoes, the other tomatoes. Though the fungus can jump species, it's not really correct to say that the tomatoes have potato blight.
Are we not talking about Phytophthora infestans in both cases? I assumed it was just a Bane of the Solanaceae sort of thing.
A doberman and a chihuahua are both members of C. lupus familiaris, but that doesn't mean they're the same thing.
So I am given to understand. I wanted to check that the term "late blight" (or "potato blight") did not itself cover more than one crop-destroying water mold.
Thank you, in any case, for the information. At least I don't have to worry now that the blight will jump ship to the ground cherries I was given a few weeks ago.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I wish I knew, as it's been sucky in so many different ways for so many different people.
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It's the result of monoculture.
Large scale farming operations tend to focus on one (supposedly profitable) crop at the expense of preserving a natural ecosystem on the land-base. It weakens the environment's natural immunity to low-level blights such as the one described. (The same thing hit the large strawberry farms in BC this year ...) Add poor soil preservation practices and gobs of chemical fertilizers and you get the Monsanto effect ...
On our farm, we're reaching toward what we hope will be a sustainable future for our food supply (and, by extension, the planet). You might enjoy my wife's blog: http://nanocosm.livejournal.com/
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Deadly! Most of those are Monsanto products. They're designed to spread a genetically-engineered type of spore that's actually a copywritten DNA pattern. Monsanto uses its spread as an opportunity to sue farms upon which it falls for violation of copyright (see the nanocosm blog for details).
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No. What they've done is engineer their plants to be resistant to Round-Up. They have used to the drift of these seeds and spores onto other farms' land as an excuse to sue for copyright infringement (successfully, I might add). Farmers unable to pay the astronomical civil damages imposed have had their assets seized.
Yes: you can now patent DNA combinations. Yes: courts will uphold corporate claims to intellectual property on same. Yes: farms have been seized. Monsanto is a fucking monster.
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Organic farming and weather have little to do with it. It's simple science. Vitiation of the nutrient base caused by poor crop rotation and monoculture creates a breeding ground for opportunistic blight, fungii, etc. Plants are organisms, and they cannot thrive in the kind of mass farming, high-concentration growth environments common to North America these days (think of forcing large numbers of people to inhabit a very small area and you'll get the same result). This is the model that's being followed by most going agricultural concerns - even the so-called "family farms" (what few are left in the States) - and it's wreaking havoc on the environment. I know what the article says, but my wife and I own a farm and so have a slightly different perspective ...
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In the mean time, note that every article on this phenomenon blames a combination of negligence in home garden stores and an usually cool and wet summer. (Hot, sunny weather kills late blight, which is why it usually doesn't strike until the end of the tomato season, hence its name.)
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You are very fortunate to have the time to read "every article" on blight.
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Let me reform my argument: I don't see any indication that monoculture farming is responsible for this outbreak. If you have information on the matter that does not spread from your personal intuition, please provide it.
Every article that I have read on the subject, and they are several, agrees on the overall cause of the problem: the presence of a naturally and frequently occurring fungus, spread due to the lack of government regulation of home garden stores and their stock, combined with a bizarre and not fully explained weather pattern that happens to suit the fungus's purposes perfectly. Again, any solid information to the contrary would be appreciated.
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If you would like to learn what I know, I offer the following recommendations:
1. Put down the books
2. Get outside into the field
3. Get to work
You will learn many things that are not in books or in articles on the Internet and sooner or later the academics will catch up to you.
This discussion is now closed. Thank you.
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Please do not, in my space, insult books or those who read them. (Or academia; do you discount me as a poet because I learned my three dead languages at a university?) You are not being dismissed; you are being asked for information.
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I respect the practical knowledge that your profession allows you, but that does not delegitimize the contributions of other professions and other types of experts. Your background also does not automatically imply that your every pronouncement on the subject is correct.
I'm aware of the problems with monoculture farming, and I agree that it's not an intelligent agricultural system. You don't have to convince me of that. But you've yet to convincingly connect monoculture to the blight outbreak, which has affected everything from huge industrial farms down to diverse backyard gardens across the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.
This discussion is now closed. Thank you.
Unwillingness to discuss a matter does not prove the unwilling party correct. Anyone can tell me I'm wrong; I'm asking you, as someone with far more experience that I have, to show me that I'm wrong.
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Climate-change-related El Niño. Possibly with a dash of Wrath Of God.
PS: Is it tomatoes in your backyard specifically, or the Mass. tomato crop in general?
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I mean—first a depression, now a potato blight? I feel like I'm waiting for the bubonic plague.
Is it tomatoes in your backyard specifically, or the Mass. tomato crop in general?
The article indicates it's statewide, but it certainly explains why ours aren't thriving.
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I don't know if the blight's hit Connecticut or not, but nobody's tomatoes have been growing well round here, either. They say it's the weather.
(Oh, and my new icon was inspired by your post about still life, although I know it's not really what you (or Kalb) meant. I probably need to tweak the brightness and contrast, slightly.)
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kill it with fireyou should probably get rid of the plants, to avoid spreading the stuff further.no subject
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". . . where thousands of gardeners lost their tomatoes, beans and other sensitive crops to manure and hay laced with this potent, highly persistent herbicide."
That's no good!
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That being said, last year at this time we had more tomatoes than we could eat, and this year we've had...one. We might have two this week if the one on the vine ripens up. We have many tiny tomatoes, but I don't think they're gonna make it.
My peas are also sad; they're withering and rotting by turns. I also had a lot of aphids and was going to mailorder ladybugs to eat them, but it's been so wet and/or blisteringly hot that I didn't think they'd live.
I'm really sad; I was looking forward to canning some really good tomato sauce with the delicious heirloom tomato plants I'd got from the farmers' market.
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I don't think you should feel bad because your tomatoes aren't all dead . . .
My peas are also sad; they're withering and rotting by turns.
I'm so sorry!
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I can only hope someone's made the obvious joke . . .
Hence tonight's fried green tomatoes.
I hope they are tasty.
Oh, and . . .
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Are we not talking about Phytophthora infestans in both cases? I assumed it was just a Bane of the Solanaceae sort of thing.
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So I am given to understand. I wanted to check that the term "late blight" (or "potato blight") did not itself cover more than one crop-destroying water mold.
Thank you, in any case, for the information. At least I don't have to worry now that the blight will jump ship to the ground cherries I was given a few weeks ago.
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Ooh, do tell me how they turn out!