| High-Brix Crops are Randy Henien are Grasshopper and Cereal Leaf Betle Pest-Resistant From http://www.aglabs.com Rodney Heinen and his grasshoppers is a farmer and agricultural consultant in Wetmoe, Kansas, in the heart of alfalfa-growing country. As a farmer, he'd been interested in nutrient-dense agriculture for several years when he came across International Agrilabs, a company that promotes Reams' biological approach to farming. "Everything I'd been thinking about [in relation to growing nutrient dense crops] made sense when I talked to them," he reports. Thus, things began to fall into place for Rodney's growing program after he began implementing the Reams program under the tutelage of International Agrilabs. Rodney's been growing high-Brix crops of alfalfa, wheat, timothy and Bermuda grasses for dairy cattle and horses ever since. Six years ago, when Rodney moved to his current farm, his next-door neighbor told him he'd regret it. The farm and soil were in bad shape. But things didn't quite work out as his neighbor predicted. Rodney recalls an incident in the summer of 2003 when his neighbor's conventionally-grown alfalfa crops were wiped out by grasshoppers. His neighbor used conventional fertilizers and sprayed both pesticides and herbicides on his crop. Rodney sprayed nothing on his crops--he just used Reams methods and fertilizers to grow high-Brix crops. One day his neighbor stood on the border of Rodney's alfalfa crops and his own. He then took three steps into his own field and was immediately swarmed by grasshoppers. He stepped back into Rodney's field and the grasshoppers hopped off him. He stepped back into his own field and was immediately covered with the insects once again. He repeated this five times with Rodney and several others witnessing. Each time the same thing happened. He was covered with grasshoppers when he stepped into his own field, but they hopped off him when he stepped back into Rodney's field. Both fields contained the same variety of alfalfa. The major difference was the higher fertility of Rodney's soil. His alfalfa crops were on average 12-14 Brix (his highest Brixed at 19) while his neighbor's crop was on average 3-4 Brix. It was Rodney's best year for growing alfalfa, and his neighbor's worst. I would visit http://www.aglabs.com/ Copyright © 2008-2018 BioBased.US - All content including, without limitation, text, images, media files, videos, software, and source code is subject to copyright protection and may not be used except with the written permission. |