One of the major changes we have seen since we started practicing agriculture and animal husbandry on the land is the increase in the Biodiversity of the area. Rudolph Steiner, founder of the
Biodynamic method has influenced our path considerably as our farm has evolved over the years. The basic principle behind biodynamics is viewing the farm, its animals, soil, trees etc. as a whole organism, within the broader context of the environment that surrounds the farm. As a witness to European agriculture that emphasized the 'productive' use of all available land, Steiner realized that many of the problems that afflicted the farmers (insects, fungus, infestations, etc) would never get to epidemic proportions if there was a 'natural' check on them. To that end he was an early advocate of green spaces, unused for cultivation, as 'reservoirs' of beneficial 'wild' animals, birds and insects which would help maintain a natural balance of the populations of all animals and plants that inhabited the landscape.
In our neck of the woods we have a very different dynamic than the European and North American agricultural landscape. The 'reservoir' of wildlife and biodiversity around us stretches for hundreds of kilometers in nearly every direction. In our township, an area 8000 acres in size there are only 4 or 5 cultivated acres, 2 and a half of which belong to us. One might think that this would mean we would naturally have a very 'diverse' set of creatures inhabiting the farm, and to some degree that is true, however as we made changes to the landscape we noticed that the diversity increased.
The main changes we introduced were the re-opening and maintenance of grassland
,
tilling the soil,
and grazing the pasture with livestock.
At first glance these may seem like things that would only benefit the humans, but on closer examination we see that all the living things benefit from this diversity of habitat.
The total amount of open, maintained grassland here is only about 30 acres in size, and even that small area is broken into several different fields. But the area is open enough to encourage flocks of birds that would never consider landing in an abandoned, semi-treed old hayfield, to hang around, sometimes for weeks. The reason for this seems to be that they feel comfortable in the low-mowed grass, as they can see predators coming from aways off, and the abundance of small seeds from the clover, timothy and other grasses for food is close at hand. Our first visitors showed up almost as soon as the field was first mowed back in 2003. They were snowbirds, which are quite normal here in late fall as the snow-line moves south, but usually they only occur in groups of 10 or 20 at most. Over the course of a week the numbers kept increasing, more and more or them arrived, eating the grass seeds that were laying on the ground and flying around the open land, but never leaving the field. At the peak we guessed there had to be about 300 or so individuals. They left the farm one sunny evening in a great cloud of white wings, flying off to the south and the snow fell the next day.
In the following years we have had flocks of Redpoles (in winter), starlings, junco's, and grackles in the field, foraging for grass seeds. This spring saw a new visitor's to the fields:
Sandhill cranes!
Once the gardens were ploughed up and planted to oats, geese arrived and promptly started eating them. Canada geese are common all over the country of course, but in Matthew's lifetime living here he had never seen them land on a field in the township. Birds really enjoy the open space it seems, however all the avian life was not migratory.
In 2003 we saw our first Eastern Bluebirds and in in 2004 we were ready with nesting boxes for them. The Bluebirds love short grass or bare ground to hunt in, and around the yard and garden we had plenty of both. As "perching birds" the Bluebirds favored hunting technique is to sit on a low branch or fencepost and scan the ground beneath them until they see a bug, then swoop down and grab it. By placing old rake handles in the garden as perches, we encouraged them to hunt for insects where we most needed it between the rows of vegetables. The birds loved it, and we loved having them on 'bug patrol' as they made a effective natural insect control that was beautiful to watch.
With the cattle came a new set of birds, cow birds of course! It was amazing how the cowbirds arrived within hours of the steers, despite us never having sighted a single one in prior years.
The cowbirds ate flies and grubs that the cattle stirred up while they walked along. Occasionally the birds would land right on the steers but mostly they seemed to prefer the ground or low-hanging branches in the shade trees we left in the pasture. They nested in these shade trees too, raising a bunch of chicks we hope to see return next year.
Not all the creatures that arrived have been birds of course. The cattle took the place of Bison on our miniature prairie grassland, but they still shared it with other large mammals. Deer and bears enjoy grazing the grass in early spring, although both seem to stay out of the field after mid June until fall, which suits the vegetable gardens just fine. Moose have been becoming rarer as the population of whitetail deer explodes in the area, although we sighted one this morning for the first time in 5 years.
One of the places the biodiversity is most intense is in the worked soil. When the old field is first turned over there is very little in the way of life in it. A pitiful few earthworms and small insects are about all you might see. However once the sod starts decomposing under the ground, jillions of little lifeforms appear to take advantage of the available food. Nematodes, beetles, ants, earthworms, dew-worms and larger creatures like, red backed voles and mice eat away at the organic material, or each other, and help create a rich, living soil. While the creatures work away from below, we add to the biodiversity from above:
With clover and (this year) oats.
Both the stems and leaves as well as the roots of these plants are then turned back into the ground to feed the soil and it's host of organisms. This second time the land is plowed there are tons of earthworms and nematodes present, encouraged both by the available food, but also by the soils increased organic matter content which helps hold moisture necessary for the micro-fauna to thrive. For the sheer square footage of diversity, the soil is where it is at.
This year has really helped us appreciate some of Steiner's idea's much more intimately. Chiefly that means that rather than a negative factor, or a constraint on local wildlife, human activity, properly applied, can actually benefit all lifeforms and not just one to the exclusion of all others. As a species we can choose to tread lightly on the land and leaves things better than when we found them.
