The law of unintended consequences

Just ran across this from Bee Culture Magazine: Neonicotinoid Pesticides Foster Spider Mite Outbreaks

Ada Szczepaniec, an agricultural entomologist at Texas A&M University, investigated the outbreak. Her study found that it was not just the elms, but also crops such as corn and soybeans that had been sprayed by the pesticide also showed spider mite outbreaks. When investigating soybeans, she found that exposure to the neonicotinoid pesticides altered their genes involved with the cell wall and defense against pests, and changed them in such a way that the plant became more vulnerable to infestation. Other researchers noticed correlation as well, and recorded spider mite outbreaks on corn and other crops.

As well as spider mite outbreaks, the pesticide has had other quantitative effects as well, like an outbreak of slugs, due to the pesticide killing off their predators.

I hate slugs! The last thing we need is more of those in the garden! Of course, I also am against the use of pesticides in general. We're basically killing ourselves...

Slug motels!

Still no frost! But tonight is forecast to be a serious, hard frost at 29ºF. I'll probably get a last picking of beans today and that will be the end. But my broccoli and cabbage will be fine. The tomatoes are in the hoop house, so they will be ok too.

Yesterday I dug the potatoes. What a disappointment! I think I was growing slug hotels! I lost probably 10 pounds to slug infestation. Yuck! I hadn't thought of it, but straw potatoes make the perfect environment for slugs. Last year I grew them in a gravelly bed, which slugs hate, so I didn't have an issue. This year, I grew them in a bed that I had just built the year before and had filled with fresh compost. Perfect habitat for slugs once you put down 6 inches of straw. Oh well, now I know. Next year I'll try convention potatoes and see what happens.

That's the fun (and at times frustrating) thing about gardening. You're always learning, experimenting, and succeeding—or failing. But the point isn't the success or failure, but the experimenting. Our lives don't depend on my garden, so I can take the failures in stride. That's a major difference between gardening here in the opulent western world and the 2/3 world. For them failure is a matter of life and death. For me, it's the difference between fresh garden produce and a trip to the co-op or grocery store...