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Hi Fred & All,
Sounds good Fred. Perhaps the message and the practice will eventually
reach a wider following. If half of the lawn area in any region were managed
in this way then we might see some recovery not only of insects but possibly
of Nighthawks and Swifts; especially if people stopped using bug zappers and
the like. I suspect that insecticides, unfortunately, are still used on many
lawns but have no figures to go on.
Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Schueler" <bckcdb@istar.ca>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 11:48 PM
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Insect decline
> Quoting David & Alison Webster <dwebster@glinx.com>:
>
>> This
>> rapid decline has been under way for 70 years at the very least but
>> anyone who owns a house with more than a tiny lawn can, if they so
>> chose, act to
>> provide/enhance insect habitat on the land area over which they have
>> control; mainly by not destroying potential habitat. Examples include;
>> mow
>> narrow paths with a bush scythe, let the rest flower and go the seed
>> before
>> scythe mowing, encourage a diversity of broad-leaved weeds, use a rotary
>> mower mostly to grind leaves so they don't blow away and reduce brush to
>> chips, compost most or all food waste and all 'yard waste', turning
>> compost
>> piles can become a chore so don't worry because invertebrates, molds,
>> slime molds and fleshy fungi will take care of that in their own good
>> time, use no herbicides and no insecticides other than carefully
>> directed materials such as soapy water or Rotenone on diatomaceous
>> earth.
>
> * we do all this, and we also monitor invertebrates alive-on-road and
> dead-on-road on the streets in our village - and it's very striking how
> our yards produce the most invertebrates, and how the production by other
> yards decreases in years when particular lawns are mowed more tightly -
> we preach this sermon in the Lawn Care Manual in our landscape book -
> http://www.pinicola.ca/books/landscape.htm
>
>> End of sermon,
>
> fred.
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
> Mudpuppy Night - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
> Vulnerable Watersheds - http://vulnerablewaters.blogspot.ca/
> study our books - http://pinicola.ca/books/index.htm
> RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
> on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
> (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
> "[The] two fundamental steps of scientific thought - the conjecture and
> refutation of Popper - have little place in the usual conception of
> intelligence. If something is to be dismissed as inadequate, it is surely
> not Darwin [, whose] works manifest the activity of a mind seeking for
> wisdom, a value which conventional philosophy has largely abandoned."
> Ghiselen, 1969. Triumph of the Darwinian Method, p 237.
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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