Organic farming continues to rise across the globe

World Progress Watch

2 million of the world’s 1.5 billion farmers are now producing organically, with nearly 80 percent based in developing countries. India boasts the most certified organic producers, followed by Uganda and Mexico.

By Kendra Nordin, Staff writer February 17, 2015

 Across the decades of boom and bust that characterize agricultural history runs a trend: the rise and recognition of organic farming worldwide.

According to the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM), 2 million of the world’s 1.5 billion farmers are now producing organically, with nearly 80 percent based in developing countries. India boasts the most certified organic producers, followed by Uganda and Mexico.

Currently 164 nations have certified organic farms, powering an industry worth $63.9 billion. (In 2000, there were 86 countries with certified farms producing $15.2 billion.) With this growth come opportunities for farmers to add value to their products and access expanding markets.

While the 94 million acres of certified organic agricultural land constitutes less than 1 percent of total global agricultural land, industry analysts call the growth of organics significant, also noting that the certified numbers fail to account for the vast numbers of small-scale farmers who use organic methods by default.

“[There are] probably 500 million small family farms worldwide; most of those are traditional farmers who farm primarily through organic principles,” says Andre Leu, president of IFOAM.

He adds that 200,000 organic farmers become newly certified each year. “In most places there is still a dramatic loss [in the numbers] of farmers and ... where we see growth is in the organic sector.”

Farmers today, battling climate swings and plummeting farm incomes, are essentially faced with four options: leave farming completely, obtain off-farm income, expand and play the commodity game more efficiently, or find ways to add value per unit of production, says Joel Gruver, a soil science professor at Western Illinois University in Macomb.

“Basically, organic farming anywhere in the world – if you are certified – is the one label that is most clearly defined,” says Professor Gruver, the university’s director of organic research. “Each nation has its own rules in how they define organic, but the general set of rules is very much the same,” he says. Organic methods eschew chemical additives and rely on such practices as crop rotation to harness ecological processes that promote healthy soils and fight disease, weeds, and pests.

For consumers, organic farming addresses a range of issues on which many feel conventional farming falls short: environmental impact, pesticide residues, and nutritional quality. It addresses concerns about energy consumption and climate change, and even restores a social connection to the land that many feel commodity farming has eroded.
In fact, consumer demand is the driving force behind the growth. In 2012 in the United States and Europe, markets with a healthy appetite for organic goods, there was a 10 percent year-on-year rise in sales.

“Organic farming is the fastest growing multi-product sector in the world,” says Mr. Leu. “[I]f you go into any store now, organic products are in every section. Anything from dairy to [prepared foods] to body care products to organic clothing.... And there is no other sector like that.”

Organic farming does draw critics. Some question the consistency of its accreditation and labeling system. There is debate over whether organics deliver higher nutritional value, and concern that the certification process is too costly to allow for financial success. And there is doubt over whether organic methods can yield enough to feed an ever-growing population. Yet consumer preference continues to grow.

“[T]here is more demand than supply,” says Anna Lappé, author of “Diet for a Hot Planet.” Ms. Lappé also points out that less than 1 percent of agricultural research funding now goes toward refining proven chemical-free farming methods.

Still, there have been considerable efforts to support organic farmers. A growing number of nonprofits provide microloans. IFOAM publishes the principles of organic farming on its website for those who want to practice it but can’t yet afford certification. Countries such as Denmark and Sweden have set goals for organic agriculture. The US offers small grants and loans.

Commercial investment may gain momentum, too. Nature’s Path, an organic cereal manufacturer, recently bought 5,640 acres of farmland in Canada and northern Montana in efforts to support organic family farmers there.


http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Progress-Watch/2015/0217/Organic-farming-continues-to-rise-across-the-globe

How changing the way we farm could reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Certain farming practices can trap a majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. On a global scale, this could even lead to a net decrease in atmospheric greenhouse gas levels — or, in other words, help reverse climate change.

By Skylar Lindsay, FoodTank September 3, 2014

A recent study by the Rodale Institute documents how specific organic farming practices can trap a majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. On a global scale, this could even lead to a net decrease in atmospheric greenhouse gas levels — or, in other words, help reverse climate change.

The study, “Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming,” highlights soil’s natural ability to trap carbon from the atmosphere. This process, called carbon sequestration, occurs when photosynthesis removes carbon from the air faster than other biological processes, like respiration, release it.

According to the Rodale, if half of the world’s croplands were shifted to regenerative methods, the world could reduce net annual greenhouse gas emissions from 51 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent to below 41– the threshold necessary by 2020 to limit global warming to 1.5º C.

The figures are based on 75 peer-reviewed studies and on test sites throughout the world where organic and conventional methods are compared side by side. These include Rodale’s long-running Farming Systems Trial (FST) in the United States and more recent Tropical Farming Systems Trial in Costa Rica. Rodale uses this data to calculate a rate of carbon sequestration per area of land cultivated, and then scale-up to see the impact of global adoption of each practice.

For example, if all current cropland were cultivated using methods tested in Iran and Egypt, 21 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO₂e), or 40 percent of global emissions, could be sequestered annually. If applied to the world’s pasture and grassland, Rodale calculates its recommendations could sequester 37 GtCO₂e, or over 70 percent of emissions. Changing the cultivation of cropland, pasture, and grassland together could lead to a net reduction in the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

Rodale’s recommendations focus on soil health, biodiversity, and avoiding farming methods that contribute to a net release of carbon including the overuse and misuse of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and unnecessary tilling. The regenerative techniques include crop rotation, cover crops, mulching and green manure, composting, and no-till practices.

Cover cropping techniques increase soil carbon via photosynthesis and better carbon retention in topsoil layers. Perennial cover crops, called living mulches, are especially effective due to large, deep root systems. Strategic crop rotations increase soil carbon levels, and coupled with on-farm composting and cover cropping, encourages soil microbes that absorb carbon. These regenerative practices also help carbon-absorbing fungi populations.

Skylar Lindsay majors in Peace & Conflict Studies at Colgate University, where he heads the organic farming initiative and leads for the Outdoor Education program.


http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Bite/2014/0903/How-changing-the-way-we-farm-could-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions

Hope in a Changing Climate - trailer

Hope in a Changing Climate places the restoration of ecosystems at the centre of global discussions on climate change, poverty and sustainable agriculture.

 

This documentary entitled Hope in a Changing Climate highlights that fertile, life-sustaining environments can come out of degraded ecosystems. It shows projects in China, Ethiopa and Rwanda where large areas of decimated ecosystems that were able to be restored through the efforts of local people, enabling them to break free from poverty.

New Study Shows Plants Talk to Each Other Through the Soil

New Study Shows Plants Talk to Each Other Through the Soil
by Tafline Laylin
5/23/14

Image via Shutterstock

A new study conducted by Dr. David Johnson at the University of Aberdeen found that plants actually communicate with one another through the soil. The study shows that when vegetables are infected with certain diseases, they alert other nearby plants to activate genes to ward off the disease when it heads their way. The key to this communication is a soil fungus that acts as a messenger.

Image via Shutterstock

Soil fungus and certain plants have a symbiotic relationship, according to the research team, who shared their findings with The Economist. The plants deliver food and the fungus delivers minerals. But now it turns out the fungal hyphae, which creates a network in the soil that connects the various plants, plays another essential role as a messenger.

Related: Glowing Bioluminescent Plants for Lighting Nature’s Way

In 2010, a team of Chinese researchers found that when a tomato plant became infected with a leaf blight, it was able to somehow alert nearby tomato plants, which then prepared their defense. Dr. David Johnson and his team sought to find out by which mechanism the plants were able to communicate this information with Broad Bean plants.

To prove that the plants were communicating through the soil, the team set up a series of “mesocosms” of five bean stalks each. Beans are often attacked by aphids. When this happens, they release a chemical that attracts wasps that then come around and annihilate the aphids.

Related: 3 Houseplants to Feng Shui Your Home

“Five weeks after the experiment began, all the plants were covered by bags that allowed carbon dioxide, oxygen and water vapour in and out, but stopped the passage of larger molecules, of the sort a beanstalk might use for signalling. Then, four days from the end, one of the 40-micron meshes in each mesocosm was rotated to sever any hyphae that had penetrated it, and the central plant was then infested with aphids.”

You can read more about the experiment at The Economist, but the controls demonstrated that indeed the bean plants communicated to each other through the soil when it was found that one of them had been attacked by aphids!

Via The Economist

http://inhabitat.com/plants-talk-to-each-other-through-a-messenger-in-the-soil/
 

No-till farming's Johnny Appleseed

 

No-till farming’s Johnny Appleseed — in a grimy Prius

By Nathanael Johnson

17 Apr 2014
 
Let’s start with Jeff Mitchell’s car. From the outside, it looks like a regular, if slightly dinged-up, white Prius. But inside it’s so messy that it’s hard for me to describe it without sounding like I’m exaggerating.

 









When I say the back seat is packed solidly with papers, I mean that literally: It’s as if Mitchell had pulled up alongside a set of filing cabinets and transferred everything that could fit into the back, carefully filling the leg space until it was high enough to be incorporated into the stack on the seats. The papers are wedged solidly together, three-quarters of the way up to the headrests.

There’s some PVC pipe back there too, some metal tools, a power cord, and some luggage. But that’s just what I could see on the surface. On the front dash there’s another layer of files, and a layer of dirt. And again, when I say dirt, I’m not overstating it. It’s not just a patina of dust; there are big clots of mud clinging to the face of the radio.

“What can I say?” Mitchell said when I asked about the state of his vehicle. “I’m embarrassed. People say I could just scatter seeds in here and they’d grow.”













I was never able to get a straight answer out of Mitchell as to why his car was so squalid, but it’s easy enough to guess. He has spent years driving up and down California’s long Central Valley, from one field to another, asking farmers to sign up to try new conservation techniques. He estimates that the car has driven 600,000 miles, though he can’t say for sure: The odometer stopped at 299,999. The car really does have to function as a high-speed file cabinet, as well as a mobile tool shed and soil-sample transporter.

“So, is this basically your life?” I asked, after about an hour driving down highway 99. I was expecting a good-natured gripe about him becoming permanently welded to the driver’s seat. But instead he said:

“You know, I’ve been truly fortunate. I’ve been doing this long enough that wherever I go I’ll look out and see a field and think, ‘That’s where we did that one trial, how’s that coming along?’ And there have been some big changes. It’s gratifying. There’s a soil scientist at Berkeley, Garrison Sposito, who says it may be just once or twice in a century that agriculture has an opportunity to re-create itself in a revolutionary way. Now, it may sound way over the top, but I think that’s what’s happening with conservation agriculture. It’s energizing for me to wake up to that every day.”

His official title is Associate Extension Vegetable Crops Specialist, but since the early 1990s Mitchell has really been a Johnny Appleseed for conservation, leading an ever-growing band of farmers toward sustainability. The idea driving Mitchell’s work is to develop farm systems that are closer to proven natural systems. That main idea breaks down into four tenets: Don’t disturb the soil; maximize the diversity of plants, insects, fungi, and microbiota; keep living roots in the soil; and keep the ground covered with plant residues. Since 1999, a team working with Mitchell has been demonstrating that it’s possible to do all that profitably.

After another hour on the road we reached the University of California West Side Extension and Research Center. Behind a handful of one-story buildings lay a collection of plots that workers have farmed continuously with conservation techniques. Mitchell took me to a field where they had been experimenting with a tomato-and-cotton rotation since 1999: “These beds have not moved, they have not been worked, in 15 years.” This 15-year study suggests that there are real, sustained benefits to the methods that the UC researchers have pioneered.

Mitchell waded into the shoulder-high cover crops of one bed. There’s a bed nearby of cleanly plowed soil. The contrast couldn’t be more different. Mitchell knelt in the cover crop, pushing aside the plants. The earth was covered in a layer of duff (dead leaves and twigs). It looked a lot like — well, like any bit of ground that humans haven’t recently scraped.

“There’s more organic material going into the soil, more carbon and more nitrogen. There’s more capture of water, and the shade and residue reduces soil water evaporation.”

These kind of innovations might seem obvious, but the journey to no-till cotton has been exasperatingly hard. Cotton requires coddling: It has a large seed, but it’s not a vigorous seedling, so often a farmer will knock off a layer of dry soil, drop the seeds onto moist earth, then cover it up. All this requires tilling the field. So Mitchell’s team decided to fine tune a planter to bury the seeds at just the right depth: Too close to the surface and they’d dry out, too deep and they’d never make it up. But when they ran the planter over the field it bounced over dry tomato stalks and dropped seeds higgledy-piggledy.

That first year the crop came up patchy. So they started trying residue managers, to push debris out of the way of each seed line, then brush it back into place. Mitchell went to Georgia to see what they were using there. They tried different timing and amounts of irrigation. If they tried to plant while the field was too wet the tractor would turn everything into a muddy mess. If they waited until it dried, the seed wouldn’t get enough moisture. If they irrigated after planting, the soil might form a hard crust that the seed couldn’t penetrate. They made pass after pass, making minute adjustments to the equipment until tempers frayed.

“I’m not an argumentative guy, but some of the things have been so trying,” Mitchell remembered. At the end of one of those days, one of Mitchell’s collaborators threw up his hands and said, “This will never work!” But then, in 2004, after years of disappointments, they finally hit on just the right combination of techniques — specific levels of irrigation, fine-tuned equipment, special disk and finger attachments for the planter — and got a beautiful cotton crop.

When all the pieces came together, the cotton began producing reliably. And Mitchell also noticed an added benefit: As the years passed, the soil improved, and all this got easier. Instead of the farm equipment needing to break up clots of compacted soil, the researchers found they were planting into soft, fine-grained earth, continuously tilled by worms and roots and microorganisms.

Mitchell’s work looks like a clear winner on paper: The yields are now the same as in the plowed beds, and the no-till beds take less work, sequester more carbon, suck up less water, and require less tractor fuel. And yet few farmers have taken up these methods.

“When I had the results showing that you can save 16 percent of irrigation water with residues and no till, I thought it would really change things in the Valley,” Mitchell mused. “But it hasn’t seemed to be that relevant.”

There are farmers successfully using these methods, but the percentage is still very low. And Mitchell can understand why people are skeptical. The cost savings — for fuel and labor (water prices are too variable to estimate) — are just $70 an acre, which isn’t terribly significant for a cotton farmer. And, as Mitchell knows, there are lots of things that can go wrong when a farmer starts trying new things.

That reluctance to change doesn’t slow Mitchell down for long. He knows that surmounting the technological challenges is less than half the battle. The bulk of the work is in teaching people how to do the same thing, and — even more importantly — convincing them that it’s worth their time.

And so he gets in the dirty Prius again, year in and year out, adding mile after uncounted mile, and carrying his Johnny Appleseed act across California.

http://grist.org/food/no-till-farmings-johnny-appleseed-in-a-grimy-prius/?ut

Worms Produce Another Kind of Gold for Growers

SCIENCE
Worms Produce Another Kind of Gold for Growers

By JIM ROBBINS
Published: December 31, 2012

SONOMA, Calif. — Under rows of old chicken sheds, Jack Chambers has built an empire of huge metal boxes filled with cattle manure and millions of wriggling red worms.

“My buddies all had planes and boats,” said Mr. Chambers, 60, a former airline pilot. “I have a worm farm.”

Mr. Chambers’s two decades of investment in what he calls an “underground movement” may be paying off. New research suggests that the product whose manufacture he helped pioneer, a worm-created soil additive called vermicompost, offers an array of benefits for plants — helping them grow with more vigor, and making them more resistant to disease and insects, than those grown with other types of composts and fertilizers.

The earthworm’s digestive process, it turns out, “is a really nice incubator for microorganisms,” said Norman Q. Arancon, an assistant professor of horticulture at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

And these microbes, which multiply rapidly when they are excreted, alter the ecosystem of the soil. Some make nitrogen more available to plant roots, accounting for the increased growth. The high diversity and numbers of microbes outperform those in the soil that cause disease.

By contrast, Dr. Arancon said, soil that has been heavily exposed to synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides lacks microbial richness and diversity, qualities that can be restored naturally by adding the microbes from worms.

Some experts and entrepreneurs hope earthworms can also help with another problem: the growing piles of animal waste from dairy farms and other agricultural operations.

Worm Power, a company in Avon, N.Y., transforms 10 million pounds of manure from a single dairy herd each year — about 40 percent of the cattle’s output — into 2.5 million pounds of vermicompost. Tom Herlihy, a former municipal waste engineer who founded the company in 2003, says it has raised more than $6 million in venture capital and $2 million in grants for research, much of it at Cornell University.

Here in Northern California, Mr. Chambers’s Sonoma Valley Worm Farm produces about half a million pounds of similar compost, an amount he plans to increase in the spring. He loads a long metal bin with cow manure and 300,000 to 400,000 Eisenia fetida, or red wigglers — weighing 300 to 400 pounds. In their wake, the worms leave cattle waste that has been processed into rich and crumbly castings that look like fine peat moss.

It takes six months for a vermicompost bed to become fully mature, by which time a million worms roam the manure. Mr. Chambers continues to add two yards of manure and harvest one yard of worm compost weekly. The finished product is shaved, an inch at a time, off the bottom of the bin. An established bed can go on this way for years.

Both operations pre-compost their manure before they fork it over to the worms. That means piling it up and allowing it to get naturally hot enough to kill unwanted seeds and pathogens like E. coli.

The properties of worm compost are different from fertilizer or manure. “It’s interesting and complicated,” said Rhonda Sherman, an extension specialist at North Carolina State University who has taught vermicomposting around the world for more than 30 years and who holds an annual conference on the subject.

“Certain plants might react well to vermicompost from dairy manure,” she said, “and other plants might react better to food-waste vermicompost.” That has led to “boutique composting,” with different blends for different kinds of plants.

A West Coast company, California Soils, uses worms to break down cardboard waste fibers that are too short to be recycled. The glue used to bind the paper serves as an important source of nitrogen for the worms. “It’s a really good product for nut farmers and stone fruit farmers,” Mitch Davis, a company spokesman, said of the compost, adding that it also helps control nutgall, a fungal disease that afflicts walnut trees.

Worms were said to be Darwin’s favorite organism, and for good reason: it seems they can break down most anything. Studies have shown they can detoxify soil with cadmium, lead and other heavy metals.

Another product made from worm waste is a concentrate, sometimes called tea, that Mr. Chambers extracts using an aerator. Dr. Arancon said even a 1 percent solution of the extract had the same properties as vermicompost.

At Cornell, Eric Nelson, a plant pathologist, is studying how compost suppresses disease. Worm Power’s product, he says, does a better job than traditional compost, perhaps because the worm compost is highly uniform. “The key is understanding why these microbes do what they do,” Dr. Nelson said. Then, perhaps, the mechanism can be enhanced, he said.

The worm compost is considered valuable enough to fetch almost 10 times the price of other composts.

Still, the industry suffers from image problems. “It’s hard to bring it out of the ‘It’s cute to have a worm box in my backyard’ approach and put it on par with other strategies for waste management,” said Allison Jack, who earned her doctorate by studying vermicompost at Cornell and is now teaching at Prescott College in Arizona.

The quality of products varies widely, and because there are no industry standards, anyone can call a product vermicompost.

For a time, the worm business was a haven for swindlers. Companies would sell worms to growers, who were told they could raise more worms and produce vermicompost, which they could then sell back. Some of these offers turned out to be Ponzi schemes.

Still, the properties of vermicompost have long been recognized by growers. Jeff Dawson, the curator of gardens at the Round Pond Estate winery in the Napa Valley, swears by Mr. Chambers’s castings, which he has used for more than a decade.

“A cup or half a cup in the hole as we plant each vine increases the vine’s ability to establish itself at a much faster pace,” Mr. Dawson said. “And it creates a healthier plant.”

This being California, some of Mr. Chambers’s customers are medical marijuana growers, and he likes the way growers do business. “They hand you cash,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 1, 2013, on page D4 of the New York edition with the headline: Worms Produce Another Kind of Gold for Growers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/science/worms-produce-another-kind-of-gold-for-farmers.html

“Mycelium is Earth’s Natural Internet.”

Six ways mushrooms can save the world.

Paul Stamets gives this wonderful TED Talk about mushrooms that are organisms that cover our earth and are very important for the life on earth.

Paul Stamets believes that mushrooms can save our lives, restore our ecosystems and transform other worlds.



Entrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords. The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas.

There are cosmic implications as well. Stamets believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet.

A Farm for the Future

“All of the debts for society’s century-long industrial fiesta are coming due at the same time. We have no choice but to transition to a world no longer dependent on fossil fuels, a world made up of communities and economies that function within ecological bounds. How we manage this transition is the most important question of our time.”       
              ~ Richard Heinberg

A Farm for the Future is a video about changing the way we garden/farm - it is made in the UK, but so much applies here in the U.S. and throughout the world.

This video starts off examining animal farming, but develops into a holistic examination of growing and providing food in the future.  The scope of this video and what changes need to be made in the future are eye-opening and thought provoking. We are all in this together, so it is encouraging to see some successful examples of farms for the future.

Maine House Gives First Nod to GMO Labeling Bill in Landslide Vote

By Steve Mistler     Portland Press Herald, June 11, 2013

AUGUSTA — Maine is on track to join several other states attempting to require food producers to label food containing genetically modified ingredients, following a landslide vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. 

The House voted to support L.D. 718, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lance Harvell, R-Farmington, sets the stage for a legal entanglement between the state and agribusiness and biotech industry giant Monsanto, which has already threatened to sue states that pass similar labeling laws. The political battle between industry interests and the well-organized supporters of L.D. 718 has raged behind the scenes for several months at the State House, as the biotech industry fights to blunt a popular movement that has taken the GMO fight to at least 18 other state legislatures following failed attempts to pass labeling legislation in Congress.

The House voted 141-4 in favor of a amendment that would trigger the labeling requirement once four other contiguous states, including Maine, pass similar labeling legislation.

Supporters of L.D. 718, a bill co-sponsored by 120 lawmakers, including Democrats, independents and Republicans, relished the looming fight with Monsanto, the litigious international company widely vilified by supporters of the organic food movement. Harvell blasted the company, saying lawmakers should not give the industry "veto power" over a bill that tells people what's in their food.

"In this body alone we have routinely taken on the federal government, which is supposedly the most powerful government in the world," Harvell said. "And yet, if a corporation threatens us, we fear them more? Are we going to give these people veto power over this body and the people of the state of Maine? Do we really live in a world where they have more power than our federal government? It's a question that we should ask."

A lawsuit likely may await Maine if the labeling bill goes into effect.

Attorney General Janet Mills, who was asked to review the constitutionality of the bill, told lawmakers on the Agriculture Committee that it is "almost certain" to face a legal challenge from the industry. Mills did not guarantee that her office would be able to defend its constitutionality.

Proponents of the bill, including the Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association, said it is up to states to take on industry to ensure that it discloses whether food is bio-engineered — its DNA has been spliced with that of an unrelated plant, animal, bacterium or virus — because Congress has failed to enact federal legislation.

No state has passed such a labeling law. At least 18 states are considering them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Connecticut recently passed a GMO labeling law that is nearly identical to amended version of L.D. 718. Vermont is on the verge of doing the same. A similar bill is under consideration by the New Hampshire Legislature.

Lance Dutson, a spokesman for the business and industry coalition that's opposing the bill, told the Portland Press Herald in May that Mills' review of the bill essentially reaffirmed the proposal has "serious constitutional concerns."

The constitutional issue centers on free speech, specifically compelling food manufacturers and retailers to disclose ingredients that don't pose a known public health risk. The Maine State Chamber of Commerce, the Maine Farm Bureau and the Grocery Manufacturers Association say the bill would stigmatize genetically modified foods despite a dearth of scientific research proving that such products are any less healthful than those that are grown conventionally.

Maine law now allows retailers to label products voluntarily as certified organic or "GMO-free."

Harvell's bill would prohibit retailers from labeling a product "natural" if it contained GMOs, genetically modified organisms.

Advocates of new regulations say scientific evidence is emerging that genetically modified foods can increase health risks and food allergies. They say federal regulators have left testing up to the industry that is producing and profiting from genetically modified products.

Labeling supporters argue that independent testing on GMO foods hasn't happened because industry patents prohibit it.

"If it's so unique that it requires a patent, then I say that it's time that it requires a label," Harvell said.

Harvell, during a rousing floor speech, said Tuesday that if GMO foods are so unique that they require a patent, the public can't be sure that it's safe to eat.

The Food and Drug Administration regulates genetically modified foods but does not approve them. The agency assumes the foods are safe until confronted with evidence that they're not. Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union, has worked on labeling legislation in Congress. He told lawmakers during a public hearing on Maine's bill that federal regulators have ceded review of genetically modified products to ensure that the industry — not the government — is legally liable if health problems surface.

Opponents say a labeling law would be costly to farmers and sellers, who would have to review affidavits to determine whether the food they're selling contains genetically modified ingredients.

The Legislature previously has rejected four GMO-labeling bills, but supporters say there is growing support for a law.

The proposal endorsed by the House differs from the original bill. It would not take effect until five other contiguous states pass similar legislation.

Some lawmakers worried that the amended version would doom the labeling effort because one state could derail the effort if it doesn't pass labeling legislation. Rep. Brian Jones, D-Freedom, said the altered bill effectively would grant New Hampshire veto power over Maine's effort if Granite State lawmakers don't pass a labeling law.

Rep. Amy Volk, R-Scarborough said the amended bill would help defray some of the anticipated legal costs and "send a message to the federal government."

The bill now moves to the Senate for a vote. The bill may face a steeper climb among Republican state senators. Sen. Andre Cushing, R-Hampden, on Monday described the bill as a Democrat-led effort on a conservative website.

The LePage administration testified against the bill during the public hearing. Adrienne Bennett, the governor's spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the governor had not yet taken a position on the amended bill.

In May the U.S. Senate rejected an amendment by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would give states the power to require genetically modified food to be labeled as such. U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, voted for the amendment. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against it.

Steve Mistler — 620-7016 smistler@pressherald.com

http://www.pressherald.com/news/Maine-House-gives-first-nod-to-GMO-labeling-bill-in-landslide-vote.html 

For related articles and more information, please visit Organic Consumers Association - OCA's  Genetic Engineering page, Millions Against Monsanto page and Politics and Democracy page.

Letter: Moving ahead on composting

Letter: Moving ahead on composting
Montreal Gazette February 19, 2013

Re: “Composting delay is a waste of good waste” (Editorial, Feb. 1)

I read with interest your editorial on the delay in setting up a compostables collection network. I’d like to add my voice to those suggesting finding local solutions and point to a couple of kinds of “low hanging fruit” in managing organic resources currently being treated as waste at great expense.

The first group are the materials that can be successfully “lawn composted”: grass clippings and deciduous fall leaves. The right tool for this is the now ubiquitous mulching mower. Research funded by the golf-course industry has shown that both grass clippings and a surprisingly large amount of fall leaves can simply be shredded into turf with no harm to turf quality, but instead, improvement of the soil. This costs less labour than collecting; fall leaves can be shredded into turf in a third the time it would take to rake and bag them, with no demand on the public fisc for hauling and composting and re-hauling the compost to your neighbourhood. In many ways, our old habits are dying hard for no good reason, since this is a method that requires not more work, but less.

The second low hanging fruit out there are spent coffee grounds. Coffee grounds are sterile, high in nitrogen compared to other compostables, and have no weed seed or pathogen issues. Once dried, they can be stored, bagged and resold to the public as a soil amendment, already in particles suitable for spreading with any ordinary fertilizer spreader. While the mulching mower is now everywhere, here a good technology needs to be developed to rapidly dewater and dry coffee grounds with minimal energy expenditure — some combination of draining, pressing and solar drying would probably fill the bill. Coffee sellers like Tim Hortons, McDonalds, Second Cup and Starbucks process hundreds of tons of coffee grounds in our area and have the resources to save the environment a huge amount of hauling around of unnecessary wet materials. Some combination of cost avoidance, sales revenues and positive PR should make this economically a winner.

Some similar dehydration technology might be used in the treatment of other kitchen wastes, which, like grass clippings, are mostly water, and which become rapidly putrid when enclosed in an air-free container, like a plastic bag or even a green bin. This is why central composting will always generate some nuisance factor in its immediate neighbourhood, since the anaerobic wet materials will always bring in a stench, even if composting will eventually eliminate it.

Local worm composting is a potential solution in some situations where a stream of kitchen-type wastes can pass directly from the kitchen to the worm area without being closed up and allowed to get stinky. This can also serve as a way to use some of the paper that flows through our city, including The Gazette, soiled cardboard and paper that might otherwise not be eligible for paper recycling. Vermicompost thus made can also be dried down somewhat before being taken for use in gardens, yards and other applications, thus lightening the load on hauling requirements.

Keeping organic resources out of anaerobic landfills is a worthy goal, and even hauling them to compost sites instead is better than letting them generate methane, 30 times the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is. But, the right approach to organic resource management is to find the best and lowest cost way of treating them as locally as possible. In this way we can improve our soils and capture carbon there while burning up the least amount of carbon fuels in the process.

Frank Teuton

Pointe-Claire
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/Letter+Moving+ahead+composting/7984103/story.html

The Zero Mile Diet

Carolyn Herriot is a food security consultant and regular columnist for the BC Home & Garden and CommonGround magazines, as well as the best-selling author of A Year on the Garden Path: A 52-Week Organic Gardening Guide, The Zero Mile Diet, and The Zero-Mile Diet Cookbook. Herriot grows certified organic seeds for "Seeds of Victoria" at The Garden Path Centre in Victoria.

This is Carolyn Herriot's TEDx Victoria Talk about The Zero Mile Diet.



http://www.earthfuture.com/gardenpath/
http://tedxvictoria.com

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yFN8V7pWZs&feature=youtu.be

Edible landscaping sprouts beyond the vegetable patch

Originally published Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 4:01 PM

Tips on creating an edible landscape that can help reduce some pest problems while benefiting pollinators, enhance soil fertility and provide homegrown fruits, vegetables and herbs.

By Mary Beth Breckenridge
Akron Beacon Journal

Food plants have jumped the fence from the kitchen garden.

They're making their way into the landscape, doing double duty as both food sources and things of beauty.
It's a movement called edible landscaping, and there's good reason for it, advocates say. Edible landscaping encourages and simplifies local food production, with all its health and environmental benefits.
The idea behind edible landscaping is that fruits, vegetables and other edible plants can be intermingled with ornamental plants such as shrubs and flowers. Often edibles can be used in place of more common landscape plants — rhubarb instead of hostas, perhaps, or a fruit tree instead of a maple.

"I think it opens up a whole new territory for people who don't consider themselves gardeners" or don't like the look of a traditional vegetable garden, said Jonathan Hull, co-founder of the not-for-profit organization Green Triangle. The Cleveland-area organization promotes permaculture, an ecological system that stresses living in harmony with nature.
Edible landscaping is considered a part of permaculture because food plays a central role in sustainability, Hull explained. Homegrown food is considered by some to be more nutritious than much of the commercially produced food, and growing food locally saves the energy needed to ship it long distances.

What's more, reducing a lawn to make room for food plants means less maintenance, less need for chemicals and less use of noisy, polluting equipment, he said.

Edible landscaping also benefits pollinators and other wildlife that are seeing many of their habitats and food sources destroyed. And it's an economical approach to landscaping in tough times, noted Renata Brown, the Cleveland Botanical Garden's associate director of education.

But Tim Malinich's motivation is more personal. "The best benefit, in my opinion, — is the taste is phenomenal," said Malinich, a horticulture educator with the Ohio State University Extension in Lorain County.

Landscape designer Sabrena Schweyer said she regularly incorporates edible plants into the landscapes she and husband Samuel Salsbury create through their Akron, Ohio, firm, Salsbury-Schweyer. Sometimes those plants might be clustered in an attractive area set aside for food growing, such as a traditional French garden called a potager, or contained in pots in an area close to the kitchen. Sometimes they're incorporated into a food forest, a growing method that mimics the layers and plant diversity of a natural forest, where plants naturally get the water and food they need to thrive.

She and Salsbury created what she calls an edible border on an 8-foot-wide strip of land that edges the driveway on the south side of their Highland Square house. There they mixed edible plants such as nasturtiums, cardoons, strawberries, potatoes and tomatoes — some of them in pots — among small trees, shrubs and perennial flowers.

Schweyer said she took care to choose food plants they would use and looked for disease-resistant types, which often are heirloom or native plants. Because her yard is small, she often uses dwarf plants or climbers, such as the purple Italian beans that clambered up a bamboo arbor and fed the couple for a good part of last summer.

She chose those beans because their color matched the trim on their house, she said. Beauty, after all, is a foremost consideration for her.

Still, edible landscaping has some benefits that are purely practical, Hull said.

For one thing, mixing a variety of plants can do a better job of reducing pest problems than traditional food gardening methods. Destructive bugs have a harder time finding individual food plants than they do a whole row, which is "like a big neon sign for any munching insect," he said. And with a mix of plants, it's easier to incorporate flowers that attract predator insects or confuse undesirable bugs.

Interplanting can also enhance soil fertility, Hull said. He often incorporates plants grown specifically to be cut down and returned to the soil as fertilizer, or plants that take nitrogen from the air and convert it to a usable form.

And because edible landscaping involves beds that aren't completely replanted each year, they're not tilled annually, he said. Repeated tilling breaks down the soil structure, a detriment to soil health.

Despite the benefits, promoting the concept of edible landscaping means changing some firmly held mindsets.

"I think a lot of people think flowers have to be here, herbs have to be here, vegetables have to be here," Hull said.

He's hoping to break down those boundaries.

EDIBLE LANDSCAPING TIPS

Edible landscaping tips from Jonathan Hull and Tim Malinich:

• Start small. Limit the number and variety of new plants you add each year. That way you won't be overwhelmed by the amount of information you need to learn about them.

• Choose sunny sites. Food plants need a lot of sunlight to produce the best-tasting fruits and vegetables. If you don't plant in full sun, the plants might still look nice, but the food they produce will have a lower sugar content and won't be as tasty.

• Be aware of plant competition. Larger plants such as trees and shrubs can take a big share of water and nutrients, leaving an insufficient amount for the smaller plants.

• Have a water source. Your food plants may need supplemental water, so make sure you have a hose or some other water source that can reach them.

• Plan for wildlife. Birds and beasts like to eat many of the same things we do, so edible landscaping is likely to attract them to your yards. Some people want that; others don't.

If you intend to protect your plants from wildlife, consider the ramifications. For example, you might be tempted to plant a berry bush in your front yard, but "how's that going to look in your design when it's covered with bird netting later in the season?" Malinich asked.

• Be prepared for trade-offs. If you're used to spraying your plants for insects or diseases, you're going to need to be cautious. Consider integrated pest management instead, an approach that looks at all the factors that keep plants healthy and de-emphasizes chemical controls.

• Know what you're growing. Just because someone told you a plant is edible doesn't mean it is. Be sure before you eat it. It's also a good idea to eat only a small amount of a new food at first, just to make sure you're not allergic to it.

• Expand your horizons. Study how to prepare the foods you're growing, so you'll enjoy them and they won't go to waste.

http://seattletimes.com/html/homegarden/2017469487_ediblelandscape09.html

Consider the Weed

In defense of botanical trespassers.

By Richard Mabey

Posted Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The first weeds were created 10,000 years ago, when the first fields were cultivated, and the concept of the botanical trespasser—the "plant in the wrong place"—was invented. Seven thousand years later, Middle Eastern farmers, still disgruntled at having lost their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, wrote a creation myth in which agriculture and its accompanying weeds are a celestial punishment for their cleverness. Genesis' god condemns errant humans to till the soil "in the sweat of they face ... cursed is the ground for thy sake ... thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee."

Today the thorns and thistles are still there and more is spent trying to exterminate weeds in farms and gardens than on any other aspect of cultivation. Their appearance sparks reflexes, not reasoning. They are regarded as inexplicable and impertinent intruders, quite unconnected with the way we live our lives. But the fact is that we are responsible for weeds. Every single nuisance, from the purslane and witchweed in the cornfields to the thrown-out aquarium exotics now smothering the native flora of the Everglades, is a consequence of our thoughtless and sometimes deliberate disruption of natural systems, ploughing, spraying, moving species way beyond their natural homes.

We tend to ignore that weeds are beneficial. They are nature's pioneers, abhorring the vacuum of barren earth, sometimes functioning as a kind of ecological immune system: organisms which move in to repair damaged tissue, in this case earth stripped of its natural vegetation. Certain weeds are more directly useful for humans. The wheat on which western civilization is predicated began as a weed grass: wild emmer, St John's wort (klamathweed) is now a recognized and widely used anti-depressant.

We couldn't survive as modern humans if we ceased to control weeds. It's impractical to let them grow unimpeded. But, every once in a while, perhaps we should take a break from weed-whacking and examine our relationship with these clever and resilient plants, if only to admire their will to live and to multiply.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/07/consider_the_weed.html

Below we view a slide show by Richard Mabey on weeds that expands on this introduction.

 Credit: Photograph by foto footprints via Flickr.

BINDWEED

Bindweed is the archetypal weed, being both an interloper and awesomely adaptive. It’s also ambivalent, as beautiful in flower as its close relatives the morning glories. The big, “granny’s nightgown” flowers of hedge bindweed came to the United States with early settlers. Bindweeds thrive on weeding and ploughing. Every fragment of chopped root or stem can generate a new plant. It can cover 30 square yards in a season. If it’s eaten by cattle, chemicals in the stem respond to the growth hormones in the animals’ saliva and grow even faster. Doff your hat in respect before you try to hoe it out.

Credit: Photograph by Bogdan via Wikipedia Commons.

DODDERS
A cosmopolitan family of semiparasites that come in all manner of varieties, each chemically adapted to a specific host. Dodders have no chlorophyll and no roots. The growing stems edge forward with the coiling movements of sidewinders, until they chemically “sniff” their host, and then head toward it, suckering spikes at the ready. The variety that preys on tomatoes has been filmed rejecting globes of red liquid and dyed tennis balls, and slithering decisively toward a piece rubber impregnated with tomato-scent chemicals.

Credit: Photograph by Epukas via Wikipedia Commons.

BURDOCK
Most American weeds originated in Europe, a legacy of colonialism that outstayed the colonists. Burdock’s floppy gray-green leaves were a favorite foreground ornament of 17^th- and 18^th-century landscape painters. But it’s had a more modern practical use. The seed-heads—called “burrs”—are covered with hooked spines, which attach themselves to passing animals and get dispersed. In the 1940s the Swiss inventor George de Mestral, removing a bushel from his dog’s fur, was inspired to create Velcro. It was patented in 1951, one of the first examples of the burgeoning science of bio-engineering.

Credit: Photograph by Muffett via Flickr.

  PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE
One of the most enchanting European wetland flowers. The pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais painted its magenta sprays on the riverbank in his famous picture of the drowning Ophelia. It arrived in the New World in the early 1800s, probably as a stowaway in ships’ ballast. It came without any of the munching insects that, above and below ground, keep it in check in Europe, and took off west like any other ambitious immigrant. It has now reached the fragile marshlands of Alaska, forming solid stands—a mile thick in places—which even muskrats cannot penetrate.

Credit: Photograph by K W Reinsch via Flickr.

TUMBLEWEED

A quintessential ingredient of the ambience of Western movies, but also a wonderful example of cinematic anachronism. Tumbleweed—aka Russian thistle—is a native of arid areas of eastern Europe and Asia which arrived in the USA in the late 1870s, mixed up with flax seed brought by Ukrainian immigrants. It didn’t really become established until the early 20^th century, some while after the pioneering heydays portrayed in classic Westerns. Tumbleweed’s great trick, in which the dried-out plants detach themselves from the ground and bowl about the desert, scattering seeds as they go, is a typical piece of weed smartness.

Credit: Photograph by Lane Tredway via Flickr.

KENTUCKY BLUE GRASS
Sounds as American as hillbilly, but is another settler introduction. Meadow-grass is a widespread European weed-grass and was introduced to the United States in the fodder, or attached to the hooves, of their cattle. Adapted to the heavy grazing—and heavy hooves—of domestic stock, it soon ramped across grasslands east of the Mississippi, and drove most of the more delicate indigenous grasses close to extinction. But it was good feed and a boon to ranchers, who rebranded it, immortally, as “Kentucky blue grass.”

Credit: Photograph by Gardening in a Minute via Flickr.

COGON

Not all weeds travel east-west. Cogon is a tough grass that is a natural component of the ground vegetation of Southeast Asian forests. When the United States used Agent Orange to obliterate the trees in large areas of this forest during the Vietnam War, cogon rampaged across the landscape. It has overwhelmed attempts to overplant it with pineapple, teak, even the formidable bamboo, and picked up the local tag of “American weed.” There’s some poetic justice in the fact that cogon recently infiltrated the United States in the packaging of imported house-plants, and is now advancing across the southern states.

Credit: Photograph by SoftCore Studios via Flickr.

KUDZU

Kudzu is the “vine that ate the South”—aggressive, imperious, its origins the subject of wild conspiracy theories. The true story of its arrival in the United States is that in 1876, the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia contained a Japanese garden full of that country’s native plants. Kudzu proved very appealing as an ornamental climber and was widely planted in gardens. In the 1920s, a Florida nursery noticed that cattle were browsing on the plants and promoted it as a forage crop. Ten years later the Forest Service started planting the vine to control soil erosion in the dust bowls. But by the 1950s it had broken out of cultivation, and, capable of climbing up to 90 feet at the rate of 1 foot every 12 hours, was swallowing entire forests and houses. It’s a salutary demonstration that even the most beneficent of plants, translocated from the natural control systems of their native habitats, can turn into superweeds.

Credit: Photograph by DarkOne via Wikipedia Commons.

TREE OF HEAVEN
Not all weeds are, so to speak, “weedy.” Many tree species can behave with the enterprise of wheatfield invaders and flower-border guerrillas. Tree-of-heaven is a popular Chinese ornamental with prodigious powers of both seeding and vertical growth. It gets its name not from some paradisiacal scent (the flowers smell rather disagreeable, but are popular with city bees), but from the speed with which it rockets skyward, sometimes carrying sidewalk slabs with it. In the U.K., during a rubbish collectors’ strike, trees-of-heaven were seen shooting out of unemptied refuse bins. They are one of the great healers of broken and derelict city space, as in Detroit, and already a key component of the post-industrial urban forest across the northern hemisphere.

Michael Pollan: From the Soil

Eating offers us an intimate connection with the soil.
Food journalist Michael Pollan describes the nutrient cycle that starts and ends with dirt.




The first "BEST reason for composting"....start a pile today! (remember, no animal stuff and no dairy...but egg shells are good) It is easy to get started now!!!

WHY LEAVES CHANGE COLOR

 
If you are lucky, you live in one of those parts of the world where Nature has one last fling before settling down into winter's sleep. In those lucky places, as days shorten and temperatures become crisp, the quiet green palette of summer foliage is transformed into the vivid autumn palette of reds, oranges, golds, and browns before the leaves fall off the trees. On special years, the colors are truly breathtaking.

How does autumn color happen?

For years, scientists have worked to understand the changes that happen to trees and shrubs in the autumn. Although we don't know all the details, we do know enough to explain the basics and help you to enjoy more fully Nature's multicolored autumn farewell. Three factors influence autumn leaf color-leaf pigments, length of night, and weather, but not quite in the way we think. The timing of color change and leaf fall are primarily regulated by the calendar, that is, the increasing length of night. None of the other environmental influences-temperature, rainfall, food supply, and so on-are as unvarying as the steadily increasing length of night during autumn. As days grow shorter, and nights grow longer and cooler, biochemical processes in the leaf begin to paint the landscape with Nature's autumn palette.

Where do autumn colors come from?   

A color palette needs pigments, and there are three types that are involved in autumn color.

Chlorophyll, which gives leaves their basic green color. It is necessary for photosynthesis, the chemical reaction that enables plants to use sunlight to manufacture sugars for their food. Trees in the temperate zones store these sugars for their winter dormant period.

Carotenoids, which produce yellow, orange, and brown colors in such things as corn, carrots, and daffodils, as well as rutabagas, buttercups, and bananas.

Anthocyanins, which give color to such familiar things as cranberries, red apples, concord grapes, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, and plums. They are water soluble and appear in the watery liquid of leaf cells. Both chlorophyll and carotenoids are present in the chloroplasts of leaf cells throughout the growing season. Most anthocyanins are produced in the autumn, in response to bright light and excess plant sugars within leaf cells.

During the growing season, chlorophyll is continually being produced and broken down and leaves appear green. As night length increases in the autumn, chlorophyll production slows down and then stops and eventually all the chlorophyll is destroyed. The carotenoids and anthocyanins that are present in the leaf are then unmasked and show their colors.

Certain colors are characteristic of particular species. Oaks turn red, brown, or russet; hickories, golden bronze; aspen and yellow-poplar, golden yellow; dogwood, purplish red; beech, light tan; and sourwood and black tupelo, crimson. Maples differ species by species-red maple turns brilliant scarlet; sugar maple, orange-red; and black maple, glowing yellow. Striped maple becomes almost colorless. Leaves of some species such as the elms simply shrivel up and fall, exhibiting little color other than drab brown.

The timing of the color change also varies by species. Sourwood in southern forests can become vividly colorful in late summer while all other species are still vigorously green. Oaks put on their colors long after other species have already shed their leaves. These differences in timing among species seem to be genetically inherited, for a particular species at the same latitude will show the same coloration in the cool temperatures of high mountain elevations at about the same time as it does in warmer lowlands.

How does weather affect autumn color?

The amount and brilliance of the colors that develop in any particular autumn season are related to weather conditions that occur before and during the time the chlorophyll in the leaves is dwindling. Temperature and moisture are the main influences.

A succession of warm, sunny days and cool, crisp but not freezing nights seems to bring about the most spectacular color displays. During these days, lots of sugars are produced in the leaf but the cool nights and the gradual closing of veins going into the leaf prevent these sugars from moving out. These conditions-lots of sugar and lots of light-spur production of the brilliant anthocyanin pigments, which tint reds, purples, and crimson. Because carotenoids are always present in leaves, the yellow and gold colors remain fairly constant from year to year.

The amount of moisture in the soil also affects autumn colors. Like the weather, soil moisture varies greatly from year to year. The countless combinations of these two highly variable factors assure that no two autumns can be exactly alike. A late spring, or a severe summer drought, can delay the onset of fall color by a few weeks. A warm period during fall will also lower the intensity of autumn colors. A warm wet spring, favorable summer weather, and warm sunny fall days with cool nights should produce the most brilliant autumn colors.

What triggers leaf fall?

In early autumn, in response to the shortening days and declining intensity of sunlight, leaves begin the processes leading up to their fall. The veins that carry fluids into and out of the leaf gradually close off as a layer of cells forms at the base of each leaf. These clogged veins trap sugars in the leaf and promote production of anthocyanins. Once this separation layer is complete and the connecting tissues are sealed off, the leaf is ready to fall.

What does all this do for the tree?

Winter is a certainty that all vegetation in the temperate zones must face each year. Perennial plants, including trees, must have some sort of protection to survive freezing temperatures and other harsh wintertime influences. Stems, twigs, and buds are equipped to survive extreme cold so that they can reawaken when spring heralds the start of another growing season. Tender leaf tissues, however, would freeze in winter, so plants must either toughen up and protect their leaves or dispose of them.

The evergreens-pines, spruces, cedars, firs, and so on-are able to survive winter because they have toughened up. Their needle-like or scale-like foliage is covered with a heavy wax coating and the fluid inside their cells contains substances that resist freezing. Thus the foliage of evergreens can safely withstand all but the severest winter conditions, such as those in the Arctic. Evergreen needles survive for some years but eventually fall because of old age.

The leaves of broadleaved plants, on the other hand, are tender and vulnerable to damage. These leaves are typically broad and thin and are not protected by any thick coverings. The fluid in cells of these leaves is usually a thin, watery sap that freezes readily. This means that the cells could not survive winter where temperatures fall below freezing. Tissues unable to overwinter must be sealed off and shed to ensure the plant's continued survival. Thus leaf fall precedes each winter in the temperate zones.

What happens to all those fallen leaves?

Needles and leaves that fall are not wasted. They decompose and restock the soil with nutrients and make up part of the spongy humus layer of the forest floor that absorbs and holds rainfall. Fallen leaves also become food for numerous soil organisms vital to the forest ecosystem. It is quite easy to see the benefit to the tree of its annual leaf fall, but the advantage to the entire forest is more subtle. It could well be that the forest could no more survive without its annual replenishment from leaves than the individual tree could survive without shedding these leaves. The many beautiful interrelationships in the forest community leave us with myriad fascinating puzzles still to solve.

Where can I see autumn color in the United States?

You can find autumn color in parks and woodlands, in the cities, countryside, and mountains - anywhere you find deciduous broadleaved trees, the ones that drop their leaves in the autumn. Nature's autumn palette is painted on oaks, maples, beeches, sweetgums, yellow-poplars, dogwoods, hickories, and others. Your own neighborhood may be planted with special trees that were selected for their autumn color.

New England is rightly famous for the spectacular autumn colors painted on the trees of its mountains and countryside, but the Adirondack, Appalachian, Smoky, and Rocky Mountains are also clad with colorful displays. In the East, we can see the reds, oranges, golds, and bronzes of the mixed deciduous woodlands; in the West, we see the bright yellows of aspen stands and larches contrasting with the dark greens of the evergreen conifers.

Many of the Forest Service's 100 plus scenic byways were planned with autumn color in mind. In 31 States you can drive on over 3,000 miles of scenic byways, and almost everyone of them offers a beautiful, colorful drive sometime in the autumn.

When is the best time to see autumn color?

Unfortunately, autumn color is not very predictable, especially in the long term. Half the fun is trying to outguess Nature! But it generally starts in late September in New England and moves southward, reaching the Smoky Mountains by early November. It also appears about this time in the high-elevation mountains of the West. Remember that cooler high elevations will color up before the valleys. The Forest Service's Fall Color Hotline (1-800-354-4595) can provide you with details as the autumn color display progresses.

Persons of any race, color, national origin, sex, age, or religion, or with any handicapping condition are welcome to use and enjoy all the facilities, programs, and services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Discrimination in any form is strictly against agency policy and should reported to the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, DC 20250.

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/pubs/leaves/leaves.shtm