Our own garden's recent battle, that of Ladybug vs. Aphid, has had a similar outcome. While the ladybugs have clearly risen to the occasion to overpower the aphids, there have been casualties. If they just hadn't spent so much time toying with their prey! As you can see from the photos, one whole section of our Fava Beans were rescued. Unfortunately the other section has some major damage. In the first section most plants have been relatively successful, achieving a reasonable height of ~5' and setting plenty of pods. 
In the other section none of the flowers survived to set pods, all having been destroyed by aphids. What is more, individual plants and some whole areas gave up entirely, not even giving us the benefit of any appreciable biomass!
It is always a learning experience when one watches a crop through its entire life-cycle, and pays attention to how that crop deals with adversity. Certainly when they are flatted and transplanted we always choose the strongest seed and seedlings. After that there is little we can do to help - the plants must continue by their own wits. But by observation there are many lessons to be learned.
These two sections are 200 and 140 square feet, respectively. We plant out many beds of Fava Beans as compost/cover crops in September, but only leave a part of that to go to full maturity. They do a considerable amount of growing before the cold of Winter slows them down, and so
we trellis them with stakes and string. Why? This photo explains.
When frost and snow hit them, they lose all turgidity and wilt this way and that. Holding them off the ground preserves the plant when warmth comes again, allowing them the best chance of recovery. Then, once the Spring comes and they leap forth, the trellis keeps them out of the path.
Back to the point of adversity, we noticed that the 200 sq ft section (the one that now looks great) grew more quickly in the Fall, then suffered the most during the frosts. In the Spring it looked terrible, with sections of plants dying throughout. It had aphids as bad as any other section. But now it looks productive and healthy, and will probably have excellent yields. The 140 sq ft section, planted 10 days later, was slower off the blocks, not knocked back as hard by the frost, and then infested with aphids same as the rest. Somehow, though, this section was overcome, set no seed, and areas died before the middle of May.
How do you read this riddle? We know there are no easy answers, and certainly no concrete formulas for success in this kind of matter. In agriculture you watch, pay attention to any variables you can discern, and speculate. For instance, in this case the only constant was the seed source. The losing bed is ten feet from the windward garden border, the healthier bed is well to the center. Maybe the former got too dry at a pivotal moment? What was planted in each bed previously? Did two different people plant the sections with significantly different techniques or attitudes? Did the frost trigger some immune response, or had the bigger plants set more energy aside in the Fall? Did the ladybugs colonize the 200 sq ft section first, or did the aphid infestation really initiate in the 140 sq ft section and spread from there?
So we draw our own conclusions and create theories, then watch in future years to apply them. This is how, after forty years of experience, a farmer can say in the Spring "I think this is going to be a good year for corn, but the cucumbers might be a waste of time."
For the time being, we have an abundance of ladybugs and their spawn, even on the dead plants. In the photo below you can see three stages; larvae, pupae, and adults. Incidentally, I have noticed that there are many adult ladybugs with deformities in their shells and wings. Is this perhaps because eggs were laid in an environment once populated with food, which became scarce by the time the eggs hatched? I can imagine the larvae not getting enough nutrition before transforming, then suffering the consequences as adults. Probably similar in humans...
Look forward to the next post: Purslane Cake!
In the other section none of the flowers survived to set pods, all having been destroyed by aphids. What is more, individual plants and some whole areas gave up entirely, not even giving us the benefit of any appreciable biomass!It is always a learning experience when one watches a crop through its entire life-cycle, and pays attention to how that crop deals with adversity. Certainly when they are flatted and transplanted we always choose the strongest seed and seedlings. After that there is little we can do to help - the plants must continue by their own wits. But by observation there are many lessons to be learned.
These two sections are 200 and 140 square feet, respectively. We plant out many beds of Fava Beans as compost/cover crops in September, but only leave a part of that to go to full maturity. They do a considerable amount of growing before the cold of Winter slows them down, and so
we trellis them with stakes and string. Why? This photo explains.When frost and snow hit them, they lose all turgidity and wilt this way and that. Holding them off the ground preserves the plant when warmth comes again, allowing them the best chance of recovery. Then, once the Spring comes and they leap forth, the trellis keeps them out of the path.
Back to the point of adversity, we noticed that the 200 sq ft section (the one that now looks great) grew more quickly in the Fall, then suffered the most during the frosts. In the Spring it looked terrible, with sections of plants dying throughout. It had aphids as bad as any other section. But now it looks productive and healthy, and will probably have excellent yields. The 140 sq ft section, planted 10 days later, was slower off the blocks, not knocked back as hard by the frost, and then infested with aphids same as the rest. Somehow, though, this section was overcome, set no seed, and areas died before the middle of May.
How do you read this riddle? We know there are no easy answers, and certainly no concrete formulas for success in this kind of matter. In agriculture you watch, pay attention to any variables you can discern, and speculate. For instance, in this case the only constant was the seed source. The losing bed is ten feet from the windward garden border, the healthier bed is well to the center. Maybe the former got too dry at a pivotal moment? What was planted in each bed previously? Did two different people plant the sections with significantly different techniques or attitudes? Did the frost trigger some immune response, or had the bigger plants set more energy aside in the Fall? Did the ladybugs colonize the 200 sq ft section first, or did the aphid infestation really initiate in the 140 sq ft section and spread from there?
So we draw our own conclusions and create theories, then watch in future years to apply them. This is how, after forty years of experience, a farmer can say in the Spring "I think this is going to be a good year for corn, but the cucumbers might be a waste of time."
For the time being, we have an abundance of ladybugs and their spawn, even on the dead plants. In the photo below you can see three stages; larvae, pupae, and adults. Incidentally, I have noticed that there are many adult ladybugs with deformities in their shells and wings. Is this perhaps because eggs were laid in an environment once populated with food, which became scarce by the time the eggs hatched? I can imagine the larvae not getting enough nutrition before transforming, then suffering the consequences as adults. Probably similar in humans...
Look forward to the next post: Purslane Cake!
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