Plant And Insect Predictions For 2016

Jan 05, 2016

By Richard Hentschel

Gardeners and commercial growers alike are enjoying the mild winter so far, not worrying about those tender perennials or those later than should have been transplants out in the home landscape or overwintering production crops.

What may be a bit of concern is with the mild winter, so far anyway, is what are the insect populations looking like for 2016 and how are plants going to respond next spring if the dormancy triggers are not fully met.

Insects that survive the winter above ground do so because they can tolerate temperatures well below zero, so those insect populations may not be any different. Insects can also spend the winter in an egg stage or as a pupae. Pupae can be both above and in the soil or leaf litter.

Insects that are not winter hardy in our typical winter temperatures are currently surviving. If the mild winter weather pattern continues, these insects will already be here rather than traveling up from the south or other warmer parts of the country. An easy example of how weather impacts overwintering is the Japanese beetle. The beetle needs adequate soil moisture or perhaps a better way to say it is the grass plant they feed on needs adequate soil moisture to produce the roots they eat in late summer. We have not lacked for water this summer and fall. Another survival point is the Japanese beetle does not travel down in the soil profile as far as our native grubs, so a mild winter will allow them to survive in the soil as they won't get cause in the frost line.

About the only drawback that is possible is that the weather may actually remain too wet, allowing fungi to attack the insects in their resting stage.

Plants normally go dormant based on day length and come out of dormancy based on temperatures. Dormancy is the way our deciduous plants cope with the below freezing temperatures to survive the winter and triggers next years' blooms. The crystal ball is a bit cloudy right now, yet gardeners might expect to see some erratic blooming next year, both in terms of uneven blooming or perhaps later or earlier than what we typically expect. Landscape and nursery stock that have a tendency to come out of dormancy early and be damaged by late cold spring weather will be a concern too.

Source: illinois.edu

Video: From Conventional to Regenerative: Will Groeneveld’s Journey Back to the Land

"You realize you've got a pretty finite number of years to do this. If you ever want to try something new, you better do it."

That mindset helped Will Groeneveld take a bold turn on his Alberta grain farm. A lifelong farmer, Will had never heard of regenerative agriculture until 2018, when he attended a seminar by Kevin Elmy that shifted his worldview. What began as curiosity quickly turned into a deep exploration of how biology—not just chemistry—shapes the health of our soils, crops and ecosystems.

In this video, Will candidly reflects on his family’s farming history, how the operation evolved from a traditional mixed farm to grain-only, and how the desire to improve the land pushed him to invite livestock back into the rotation—without owning a single cow.

Today, through creative partnerships and a commitment to the five principles of regenerative agriculture, Will is reintroducing diversity, building soil health and extending living roots in the ground for as much of the year as possible. Whether it’s through intercropping, zero tillage (which he’s practiced since the 1980s) or managing forage for visiting cattle, Will’s approach is a testament to continuous learning and a willingness to challenge old norms.

Will is a participant in the Regenerative Agriculture Lab (RAL), a social innovation process bringing together producers, researchers, retailers and others to co-create a resilient regenerative agriculture system in Alberta. His story highlights both the potential and humility required to farm with nature, not against it.