Pests
The great part about growing crops in healthy well balanced soils is that there are very few pest problems. However its not a perfect system. At times pests and diseases can get to a point where action must be taken. The short term fix is using a pesticide. The key is knowing when to go in and use it. That's where integrated pest management comes in to play. We hire independent crop scouts to come to our farm twice a week, walk our fields and record levels of pests found in the crops. From this information we can monitor levels and make an informed decision about when to use control products. When we have to use control products we choose organic pesticides first. They are generally safer than synthetics but we have to be careful as they are still toxic poisons. We will use a synthetic pesticide when an organic option is either too toxic or not available. The key to using any pesticide (organic or not) is to use it at the right time with the lowest rate possible and then go back and check how well it worked. We will not use pesticides (organic or regular) that leave residues in the food or in the soil. If we can't get control of pest with the options provided we will "walk away from the crop" and let the animals graze it off or turn it back into the soil as green manure....and try again next year. The long term fix for pests is to address soil deficiencies (make sure soil nutrients are balanced) and look for issues in our crop management that may be contributing to the issues and fix them. We are always learning, changing and evolving.
A little bit about weeds. Some weeds tell us there is a soil issue. (eg. Dandelions indicate a hardpan) and some just love to grow in great soil. Having control is critical to getting high quality crop. We use many different methods, tillage, stale seedbed, flaming, solarising, some safe herbicides, and even hand pulling. The key is to get control with out damaging the soil, leaving residues in the soil, or having residues in the food.
