Pictures by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 March 2011.
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Potato, 17 March 2011
Plain old Irish potato.
Blackberries blooming
Rubus some native species or other in the woods:
Pictures by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 March 2011.
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Dogwoods blooming, 17 March 2011
Cornus florida in the woods:
Pictures by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 March 2011.
More dogwoods of previous years.
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The Lilies of Spring
These are not your average lily.
They only grow in counties in south Georgia and north Florida
along the state line,
and maybe a few counties in Alabama.
They’re
Treat’s rain lily, Zephyranthes atamasca var. treateiae.
It’s actually an amaryllis.
You may know them as “those lilies you see in the ditch by the road.”
More pictures in the flickr set. Pictures by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 March 2011.
Also pictures from previous years.
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Corn snake
Gretchen was very amused to see me do the snake dance.
This corn snake was lying in the path at the edge of the field,
and I almost stepped on it.
Probably it was sunning itself to get warm.
It’s harmless, except to small rodents that live in corn fields. Elaphe guttata is a constrictor. This one was 3 or 4 feet long. They’re native to the U.S. southeast from New Jersey to Texas. I did not know until that day that corn snakes can climb trees.
Here he is stretched out: Continue reading
Yellow jessamine
These flowers opened on the last day of February 2011.
Gelsemium sempervirens is
a high-climbing, woody vine that is known by several names, including Carolina jessamine, poor man’s rope, or yellow jasmin.It smells good. It’s native to the U.S. southeast.
Pictures by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 February 2011.
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turpentine cup
A common sight in the woods; looks like a scrap of rusty metal:
Turn it over and it has a shape: Continue reading
longleaf and wiregrass
The two plants that most characterize Georgia’s southern longleaf forests:
Pinus palustris and Aristida stricta.
These two are natives; they and their ancestors have lived on this spot
since the last ice age.
About Longleaf (Pinus palustris), wiregrass (Aristida stricta), and gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) by the Longleaf Alliance:
We believe that longleaf in any form is better than a cotton field; that longleaf and native ground cover (like wiregrass) is better than longleaf alone; that longleaf, wiregrass, and gopher tortoises are better than longleaf and wiregrass alone.
Picture of Pinus palustris and Aristida stricta by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 February 2011.
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gopher hole
Gopher tortoise hole, cleverly dug under a root:
It’s probably this gopher.
The gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is named for its burrowing skills. Its shovel-shaped forefeet dig burrows up to 40 feet long that shelter and house not only tortoises, but a virtual zoo. By one count, an astonishing 362 animals take refuge in these burrows, from gopher frogs and burrowing owls to an array of snakes and invertebrates, some species depend entirely on them. If we lacked the scientific concept of a keystone species–one with an impact far beyond that expected from its numbers–we’d need to create it for the gopher tortoise, given its importance in the longleaf forest ecosystem.
Picture of Gopherus polyphemus front porch by John S. Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 February 2011.
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The case against agrochemicals
Some people didn’t like the source of a recent post about
the toxic effects of agrochemicals and GM plants on the environment,
plants, animals, and people.
There are plenty of other sources, including:
How big agro causes the problem
- Vandana Shiva on the pesticiders’ strategy, why it’s bad, and what to do about it.
- Some specific U.S. cases of big agro gaming the regulatory system at the expense of the environment.
- International cases of Monsanto gaming regulatory systems.
- How Monsanto leverages patents to dominate the world food supply.
- The Fox-can-lie case, in which Monsanto made Fox rewrite 80 times about RBGH in Florida cows and the courts said that was OK; Fox can lie.
- Monsanto blocking research.
Evidence of the ill effects
- U.S. president’s cancer panel sounding the alarm about “Americans are facing “grievous harm” from chemicals in the air, food and water that have largely gone unregulated and ignored.”
- Scientific American on “The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods.”
- Peer-reviewed research on animal miscarriages.
- Sterility and infant mortality in hamsters.
- Liver and kidney damage in rats.
- Research on toxic chemicals from the GM plants themselves polluting streams.
- Pesticides found in the urine of schoolchildren linked to ADHD. More about that, including a link to the actual peer-reviewed journal article.
- A German documentary with research from Argentina and France, plus links I’ve added to that research.
- A French documentary The World According to Monsanto.
There are ways forward
- Remember, even Monsanto is not invulnerable, and in fact had a bad year in 2010.
- Monsanto’s Roundup no longer works on the mutant weeds it’s bred, so Monsanto has to pay farmers to spray rival pesticides and even that doesn’t really work.
- The most profitable crops are non-GM crops.
- Organic Farming Yields often Better Than with Agrochemicals.
- Local agricultural research on how to farm without Roundup.
- How to do organic peanuts in particular.
- They can farm without pesticides in west Africa, they don’t damage the land, and they make more money.
- Even Haiti refuses Monsanto’s seeds, calling them “a new earthquake”.
What you can do
- Things you can do yourself to replace poisoned food with local and organic food.
- Especially vote at the checkout counter. If you don’t know it’s local and non-GMO, don’t buy it. There may be no labelling laws, but local supermarkets know what’s local.
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Protests
worked in India.