sutton023

In the news today in the New York Times; 2-4-D resistant corn has moved closer to regulatory approval- as a fruit and vegetable growers group has withdrawn their opposition. Yes, 2-4-D will hurt your hazels, or chestnuts, or almost any other tree crop.  A modest amount will kill them- but more insidiously, tiny amounts will "hurt" your trees, resulting in lower crop production, or decreased crop quality.  Besides the effect on those aiming for organic-certified status. Dow has "promised" to change the formulation of the 2-4-D, so it's not so volatile; and change the label on the corn, so farmers are "required" to use only the "new" formula- and apparently the Save Our Crops Coalition  has decided that's good enough. It isn't good enough- not if it's YOUR field that gets wiped out, when a local farmer decides he can't afford the new and improved formula; and just uses the old stuff sitting in the barn that his father bought i...

So; walking back home from the greenhouse 2 days ago- after a technically "severe" thunderstorm - quite late in the season, with 3/4" torrential rain and 1" hailstones- I very nearly walked my bare toes right into this: This isn't the biggest snapping turtle ( Chelydra serpentina ) we've seen wandering through our woody agriculture plantings, by a good deal; but this fellow was certainly big enough to remove bare toes, if they went by within range. We see them rarely; more often in the pond than out.  This one was apparently heading towards the pond, which is at an all time low.  Looking for water, in the drought, maybe.  I'm puzzled a bit by the smoothness of the shell; our other, bigger, snappers have usually had the typical very rough upper scutes- this one looks like it's been tumbled in a rock polisher.  Old?  Perhaps.  We didn't try to count rings on the scales (possible sometimes). Not agressive.  But with excellent eyesight, and a strike ...

Hello folks, here's a final fall plant availability update. We are now (still)  taking orders for the 2013 planting season . We've stopped  shipping plants for 2012  delivery, a bit earlier than in the previous couple of years, because: 1) We are sold out of tubelings in a good state for late planting; what we have on hand is either too actively growing to reliably go dormant in time, or too close to dormancy to put in enough roots. 2) In the recent few years, fall planting has been overall less successful than before, and some of our growers have had very serious mortality. Most of this appears to be a result of unusual weather extremes: early freezes, excessive winter moisture and freezing farther south have contributed to direct mortality. Extended growing seasons or early warmth has also been confusing the plants and adding to transplant and seasonal-clock-reset stress. Given these developments, we can no longer provide our survival guarantee this late in the sea...