permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <london@metalab.unc.edu>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 14:18:20 -0600
From: Steve Diver <steved@ncatark.uark.edu>
To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
Subject: New ATTRA pub: Phenology web links, Sequence of Bloom

Here's a new resource list from ATTRA: 

Phenology Web Links: Sequence of Bloom, Floral Calendars, What's in 
Bloom
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/phenology.html

I am particularly happy to add this resource list to the sustainable
ag and ecological studies resource base.  As web links, it 
is essentially just a compilation of work that quite a few other
organizations, scientists, and educators are doing around the world.  

For a moment in time, as you stroll through the web links and think 
about the seasons of the year and when plants bloom and birds appear, 
you can enjoy the natural world and contemplate patterns and 
connections in Nature.  Perhaps you take on the persona of an Aldo 
Leopold or a Diane Fossey, slipping on a sweater and jotting down 
observations in your field studies notebook. 

But, phenology also serves as a useful indicator for a number of
important farming and related activities.  

Uses of Phenology

*Correlation with insect emergence and pest control
*Correlation with crop planting dates 
*Farmscaping with insect refugia (cover crops, hedgerows, strip 
  crops) to attract beneficial insects and enhance natural biological 
  control 
*Designing orchards for pollination and ripening sequence 
*Designing bee forage plantings
*Designing perennial flower beds and wildflower plantings 
*Prediction of global warming trends 

At ATTRA, we have systematically created publications in a series 
that are complementary to one another in much the same way a farmer 
would group things or learn about a topic.  In this sense, the 
phenology resource list dovetails with the ATTRA publication on 
Farmscaping.  

In farmscaping, you are designing insect refugia by planting certain 
cover crops, hedgerows, and field-grown annual and perennial flowers 
to attract beneficial insects.  Flowering plants offer nectar, 
pollen, honeydew (from aphids feeding on plants), and herbivorous 
insects and mites as food to sustain natural enemies of crop pests.  
Knowing "when" these plants flower can be important since you may be 
trying to match senescence of cover crops or flowers with migration 
of beneficials to the adjoining crop at the same time biological 
control of crop pests is needed. 

This first edition includes web links only.  But for those who are 
interested in this topic there are quite a few good books and 
articles that provide useful information and data.  Compiling the 
print material into a resource list is another day's work.  

Steve Diver
ATTRA 
http://www.attra.org