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Michigan Organic Listserve August
1-7, 2007
What’s Happening?
News events
1. Who owns organic?
2. Opportunity for a Detroit Spice Business-and why not
make it organic Michigan grown spices??
3. Monitoring your crops-Using degree days to target your
scouting
4. Be on the look out for Downy
Mildew on Pumpkins and Cucumbers
Who owns organic?
5. Blossom End Rot-How is it caused
and how to reduce incidence
6. Corn
Ear Worm Control
7.
APHIDS INCREASE
8. Questionnaire that seeks your
opinions and views on the topic of pollinators in agriculture
9. Help MIMFA plan their sessions for
the Great Lake Fruit and Vegetable Expo
10. STATE RACES TO BUILD NEW ETHANOL
TECHNOLOGY
11. Regarding the Organic
Certification Cost Share Program
12. Farm Bill Update
13. South Side Community Farmers Market
14. Farmers needed at Buchan Farmers
Market (Berrien County)
Opportunities and
Events
15. SIGN UP NOW for the last GROWING
MATTERS GARDEN class of the season!
16. COMMUNITY KITCHEN UPDATE Upcoming events centered
around food
17. THREE RIVERS SUSTAINABLE FOOD GROUP
18. Sustainable Table – a non
profit program that create Meatrix
19. High Tunnel Tour, Aug 15th
6 pm in Benton Harbor
20. Governor Granholm proclaims
August 6-12, 2007 to be “Farmers’ Market Week”
21.
Greetings from The Garden Project
22. Soil Building Workshop Aug 29-30th at Sears MI
at Morgan Compost
Have a
great week!-Hey it rained here- finally J
(Lansing, MI)
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http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/thestew/2007/07/who-owns-organi.html#more “The Stew”
TheChicagoTribune.com Posted by Robin Mather Jenkins at
9 a.m. CDT I've been hearing a lot of muttering about "big
organics" -- that's usually code for Wal-Mart -- and "Chinese
organics" -- usually used as a short-form expression to mean the
opposite of locally grown organics. What I've not been hearing much about is the
corporate ownership of many familiar American organic brands. So I was
fascinated to see Michigan State University Assistant Professor Phil Howard's
chart of organics ownership. Howard is in the department of community,
agriculture, recreation and resource studies. Until 2005, Heinz appears to have had the most
holdings. The 24th largest food processor, Heinz has a stake in Hain
Celestial Group, the 85th largest food processor. Hain Celestial, in turn,
owns the following brands: Millina's Finest, Fruitti di Bosca, Walnut Acres,
Mountain Sun, ShariAnn's, Tofu Town, Westbrae, Bearitos, Westsoy, Little
Bear, Celestial Seasonings, Imagine/Rice Dream/Soy Dream, Breadshop, Casbah,
Health Valley, Arrowhead Mills, DeBole's, Garden of Eatin', Spectrum
Organics, Nile Spice and Earth's Best. According to research by Paul Glover
and Carole Resnick of the Greenstar Food Co-op in Ithaca, N.Y., Hain's
largest investors include Philip Morris, Monsanto, Citigroup, Exxon-Mobil,
Wal-Mart and Lockheed Martin. Here are the owners of the other brands Howard
studied: The number in parentheses is the company's rank in
North American food sales. |
2. Opportunity for a Detroit Spice
Business-and why not make it organic
Michigan grown spices??
Michigan-based
business opportunity for sale!!
The New
Product Center has been approached by the
Detroit
Spice Co.
The owner of the company
is looking to sell the business to an interested party/individual that has the
energy and drive to take the company to the next level.
This business, currently
based in Detroit has established retail outlets in the area, a local
distributor and web based sales generating a gross income of $15,000 / year.
With the owner currently
devoting much of his time to other ventures, the client would like to offer
this ready made business to an aspired entrepreneur looking to start a new
venture or add an enterprise to his or her portfolio to increase income and
product line.
The business is ready to
run and includes all current inventory, recipes, equipment, domain name &
web site. The business could easily be run out of your home.
The product line has been
very well received at festivals, farmers markets and events in the past.
If you’re looking
for a ready-made business with great brand recognition and existing sales, this
could be the opportunity you have been looking for.
For further information
Contact
Randal Fogelman
www.detroitspiceco.com
3. Monitoring your crops-Using
degree days to target your scouting
By Vicki Morrone [log in to unmask]
Ask any organic farmer how often they visit their field, regardless if
it is a single row or multiple rows of the crop and you will wonder how they
ever manage to get anything else done. It is critical to look at the plants;
looking for nutrient stress, disease indicators, insect feeding, how nice or
not that variety is performing under this year’s and your soil’s
conditions and even the presence or absence of beneficial insects. The first
step of being an effective and efficient organic farmer is that you must be
familiar with all of these critters so you know what to keep an eye out for.
Identification of all the critters is the first step; insects, disease symptoms
and even weed identification. Then once you identify them you need to know
what they do, for good or bad. If you have determined that the critter is a
bad one then you need to determine just how bad it is. Can you sit back and
wait for it to get worse or managed by a beneficial organism (from insect
parasites to beneficial bacteria such as BTs) or react immediately? If you
need to react to get the critter under some control then you need to decide how
to manage it such as with a spray deterrent, pesticide, or removing the plant
that is being fed upon (that’s your best bet if it carries a virus as it
will serve as a vector for other susceptible plants).
Of course, keeping up on all of these pests and
“beneficials” requires time and knowledge but your scouting can be
targeted so that you are looking for a pest when it is possible for it to be
present. When an insect is present depends on the total accumulated temperature
or degree days. Insect development varies from year to year depending on the
temperature variability. Insects depend on accumulated heat units to develop
and part of their development includes feeding on your crop. So if you
understand how this works you can keep an eye on accumulated degree days to
predict when an insect will first start to emerge or feed or whatever stage of
development that concerns you.
If you do not understand how degree days work I try to share a
simplified definition: For an insect to develop it requires a certain amount
of days with an average temperature over 50 F (add the max and min temperature
for the day together, divide by two and subtract 50). A positive value is added
to the accumulated degree days. Negative values are ignored since an insect
does not develop in reverse but pauses in development when there is no degree
day accumulation. . So for example a European Corn Borer requires approximately
1500 degree days for the 2nd generation of the 1st instar
to occur. So the average temperature per day is calculated and then 50 is
subtracted and then any positive number contributes to the number of degree
days. These numbers are added up and then the development of the insect in
question is associated with the number of degree days it requires for
development or egg laying. This knowledge helps you to scout for insects at
the right time.
4. Be on the look out for Downy
Mildew on Pumpkins and Cucumbers (excerpt from Univ of
Illinois IPM newsletter July 24, 2007 http://www.ipm.uiuc.edu/ifvn/volume13/frveg1310.pdf
Downy mildew only affects
leaves. Symptoms of downy mildew vary with the host and environmental
conditions. The first symptom
is usually the appearance
of indistinct, pale green areas on the upper leaf surface. The pale green areas
soon become yellow in color
and angular to irregular
in shape, bounded by the leaf veins. As the disease progress the lesions may
remain yellow or become brown
105
and necrotic. During
moist weather the corresponding lower leaf surface is covered with a downy,
pale gray to purple mildew. Often an upward leaf curling will occur. The
symptoms in the pumpkin field were very obvious (see the pictures), and heavy
sporulation of the pathogen was observed by microscopic examination.
At this time, all
cucurbit fields need to be scouted carefully and sprayed before or at the first
sign of the disease. Fungicide sprays should be applied at 7-day intervals.