Dateline: 23 June 2015
I took the above picture in my garden yesterday morning. If you click on it, you will see a nice close-up of some potato leaves. They are verdant, velvety, and simply beautiful. The hideous-looking larvae provides quite a contrast; it's a beastly little potato leaf destroyer. If I did not kill it, and others like it, they would destroy my plants, and I would have no potatoes.
I think there is a spiritual metaphor in this picture.
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3 comments:
Herrick,
We grow alot of potatoes (for a family) about 1000 row feet.
And we always get potato bug. We got advice from Ruben Stolfuz
of Lancaster Ag and from John Sensenig from Growers Mineral
Solutions. Ruben said DE, Kelp and Root Pro help. John said
"GMS will raise the Brix of the CROP and the bugs will go away"
GMS is a 10-20-10 foliar fertilizer made of food grade or better
ingredients and has all the traces a plants needs.
I cultivate on a Super A and it has a 12 V sprayer on back.
For the past three years, we have watched the CPB come and go.
Growers does help.
It tends to work on the plum curculio too.
John Kempf of the AEA has the best explanation of why it
works.
Dave Rogers
Interesting.
I had about 300 ft of potatoes last year and got far more potatoes than I needed (and we eat a lot of potatoes).
This year I have only 200 ft. One 15' bed is planted with Peter Wilcox potatoes which are a purple-skinned tuber with yellow insides. I have not found a single potato bug on the row of Peter Wilcox.
Otherwise, the CPB have been minimal and daily had-picking has been a simple and effective control. But if I had 1,000 ft to tend, it might be too much to hand pick.
Thanks for the insights, Dave.
I like the spiritual metaphor that you let us think through. I was just sitting here thinking about that and looking at the picture. My immediate attention is to the beast, not even noticing the beauty. Yet, which destroys which? Which provides life? Very good thoughts you didn't say. :-)
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