industrial autumn

"rooted in the complex interactions between soil, water, plants, animals, and microbes, agroecology depends more on understanding local conditions and context than on using standardized products or techniques. it requires farming guided by locally adapted knowledge, farming with brains rather than habit or convenience...in labor intensive systems people tend ot adapt to the land. in technology-intensive systems people typically try to adapt the land to their techniques."david montgomery. "dirt: the erosion of civilizations."_______________________________________________you can see autumn deepening out in the fields...the poke weed berries are well past their prime to begin with...and there's not a lot of green left in the dense yellow #2 plants...a beigeness rules the color scheme as the corn ripens and, seemingly in some cases, weights down the rachis...lots of it is split open revealing the kernels too...field corn is supposed to be entirely dependent on humans to reproduce...and it may be if there's a sterility gene spliced in this corn to keep the farmer coming back to buy seed...but hybrid seed is pretty much a mule too...there's nothing new in keeping farmers in debt...the biomass is dying back too...this was a no til field...that helped cut down erosion ( probably mostly wind in this field )and the roots of the "weeds" will help hold the soil together after harvest...this field could not have been sprayed with herbicide...and if it was it was the most ineffective herbicide known to modern industrial agriculture...when this field is harvested it will probably be covered with a mulch of chopped husks and stems with a few kernels left for the deer to glean...so, as far as stewardship goes this farmer gets as close to an a as industrial farming will allow...go further south and the fields are prayed sterile and will be left bare to the elements after harvest until spring when runoff creates a fair amount of erosion here in a glacial moraine...many farmers here have begun to use no til methods...many others are still trying to chemically dominate the growth medium ( soil is alive...anhydrous ammonia, pesticides, and herbicides turn it in to a sort of laboratory substance )...another industrial season on the wane next to the supermarket...wonder how many more are left.