The Plan
Today I have two things to do: talk with Pascal and meet a bug specialist. I’m supposed to meet the specialist at nine though I have no clue as to what we are going to do. Ideally, I will learn about a few bugs and how the practices of the farm best deal with the bugs. With regards to talking to Pascal, I have no idea what I will be doing only that I will meet with him in the afternoon to talk. Pascal and I talked a bit last night and I have a feeling it will have to do about the ideas and people he told to me to research, so essentially, holistic management and soil health.
What I learned
For the moment I will not be writing what I learned with Joanna the bug specialist for I need to go over my notes with Axelle seeing as there were times that I didn't know if Joanna was speaking french or simply saying a scientific name; either way, my notes are not clear right now and hence would not be effective to share. My notes with Pascal, on the other hand, are very clear, and in my opinion, very interesting. Pascal and I mainly went over the main problems the apple orchard faces and how everything on the farm is interconnected. He also told me his mindset of that if he has a problem he doesn’t try to find a solution to the problem but rather tries to prevent the problem from happening in the first place. For example, both he and the bug specialist, Joanna, emphasized the point that the Dysaphis Plantaginea, or more commonly known as the Ash Apple Aphid, is the biggest pest to the apples. They told me how this pest is exceptionally difficult to control seeing as it comes in the early spring when there are no predators to keep it in check, and then, during this time, it sucks on the apple leaves, making them curl, and protecting them from any outside predators or pesticides while simultaneously shrinking the size of surrounding apples making them unsellable. Pascal told me of how instead of worrying about the problem the Aphids are causing currently he instead is focusing on ways to avoid them altogether in the future. His plan is to plant Brassica Napus, Rapeseed, which blooms around the same time that the Ash Apple Aphids start coming out. His goal in planting Rapeseed is to attract more predatory bugs so as to kill off the Aphids before they have time to do any damage. This is one of the best examples of how Pascal is implementing his idea of cut of the problem, not a symptom of the problem. He did, however, state that this way of thinking tends to be more financially taxing in the short term. An example he gave me was how if he wants to get rid of a pest such as Cydia Pomonella, the codling moth, he must think about investing in bats. Though to successfully house bats he needs to plant hedges so they are able to navigate and to be effective, these hedges need to be several yards tall which takes years to develop. So until these hedges grow, he is losing money not only due to the damaged moth crops but also because he is simultaneously trying to secure good bat shelter. All of this work comes back to the idea of cutting off the problem at its source, not a symptom of the problem. Besides learning about pests and the way he manages them, I also learned about his main philosophy in farming: the more life the better. He explained to me that the more life you have, the more there’s a balance between everything, and the better the balance the better off your yield will be. For example, the more diverse your soil is, the more diverse your wildflowers are, and the more diverse your wildflowers are the more diverse the bugs will be, and the more diverse your bugs are, the more predatory bugs and birds you will have to kill off the pests, so on and so forth. This idea really drove the way he managed his farm.
Reflection
As I stated previously, today I met with the bug specialist. It ended up being very different from what I was expecting instead of talking about the methods used for managing the bugs and how they affect the farm we learned and observed the different types of bugs and how they collect data. Upon reflection I feel I was also expecting too much from her because I kept on asking questions about the management of the orchard such as “Are the flora on the ground different for different species of fruit so as to attract different predator bugs to keep away the pests?” or “Is the idea of no pesticide farming applicable to smaller-scale farms?” yet these questions, as Axelle (my host sister) had to point out, aren’t her field of expertise, the actual bugs are. I think if I understood this earlier I could have had avoided some puzzled looks and “I don't knows” and instead asked her questions more so regarding the role each bug plays in the orchard and why it's important etc. I think what I was looking for was my talk with Pascal whereupon he talked about how the bugs connected to the fields, how they’re managing them and the idea of eliminating the problem, not the symptom. In the end, I am very appreciative of the opportunities I had today, I think they were both very informative, just in different ways.