http://mofgacertification.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/organicsproutspring2012_web1.pdf

This contains an interesting article by Joan Cheetham: Organic Fruits & Vegetables: Micro-Nutrient….

Mic Mac’s first 50 pound sale of Organicblueberry.com wild Maine Blueberries to make Fidelis Dog Biscuits. April Thibideau picks up our blueberries coming from Rockland Maine. She tries to use local Maine ingredients that now include our blueberries.

Mic Mac Sampled her Fidelis Dog Biscuits and fully approves of them.

Organic blueberry field maintenance

We cut our blueberry fields on a three year cycle. The first year after cutting there are few berries but the next two years are productive. Because we do not use any chemicals, the fields are full of mound ants that to me are a sign of health of the fields like worms to a garden. They are also full of cranberries, hardhack and other woody growth that you can see in this photo.

When you see our frozen organic blueberries in a freezer bag, you may not realize all the hard work that goes into field maintenance, hand raking and hand winnowing. Since our blueberries are Always Organic (TM) they are safe from our fields to your table without washing.

Nina, owner of Up Front Pleasant Gourmet, calls this years frozen blueberry crop “Excellent”. Perhaps even tastier than last year. She sells and eats our frozen Wild Maine Organic Blueberries from her store at 157 Front street, Farmington.

Make your reservation Now.

You can pick up your own 5 Pound freezer bag ($35) from our farm in Madrid, Maine.

We will make a few selective deliveries to Portland, Boston and NYC this Fall depending on interest at $50/freezer bag.

Micmac is not the only four footed visitor to our blueberry fields.

DJ and Kathy have been at farms in New Zealand, Costa Rica and Nicaragua learning through the WWOOFER program. We thank them for coming to help secure our harvest by hand so that you may have the best, tastiest and healthiest Wild Always Organic Blueberries from Maine’s High Peaks Region. Our fields are at 1700 feet.

Linda Smithers checking out the growth in organic matter on our second field in Madrid, Maine.

All the biodiversity makes for tasty and healthy Wild Organic Blueberries. We have a coding system that tells who picked, when and which field.

Our Mound ants are a healthy sign of of no chemicals on our fields ever.

Pesticides are a real health threat: Organic products offer a healthier choice

Contact: Barbara Haumann (413-376-1220; bhaumann@ota.com)
Greenfield, Mass. (Nov. 18, 2010)— In response to John Stossel’s show “ Is ‘Natural’ Better?” that aired tonight on Fox Business News, the Organic Trade Association (OTA) alerts consumers wishing to minimize their families’ dietary exposure to pesticide residues that choosing organic products is the only verifiable way to do so.

“How could we argue that produce grown chemically is safer or healthier for human consumption than those grown organically?” asks Dr. Chensheng (Alex) Lu, Mark and Catherine Winkler Assistant Professor of Environmental Exposure, Biology Exposure, Epidemiology, and Risk Program in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard School of Public Health.

Notably, Dr. Lu’s research has found that pesticide residues, which show up in the urine of children eating conventionally produced fruits and vegetables, disappear in children’s urine when they switched to organic produce. Meanwhile, researchers have shown exposure to pesticides has been linked with higher risk of birth defects, the onset of autism, as well neurodevelopment problems in vulnerable fetuses and young children. Therefore, it is very easy to make the connection: less pesticide exposure, lower disease risk.

In fact, trying to protect American’s health, the President’s Cancer Panel released a report in May 2010 urging consumers to choose food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, antibiotics, and growth hormones to help decrease their exposure to environmental chemicals that can increase their risk of contracting cancer. The report illustrated the contribution of chemicals in the environment to incidence of cancer in the United States. Agricultural chemical use is ranked the third highest risk for cancer in a nation where 41 percent of persons will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.

“Exposure to pesticides can be decreased by choosing, to the extent possible, food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers…Similarly, exposure to antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxic run-off from livestock feed lots can be minimized by eating free-range meat raised without these medications,” according to the landmark report, “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now.”

“Consumers should not be misled. Organic production and processing are the only system that uses certification and inspection to verify that these chemicals are not used on the farm all the way to our dinner tables,” said Christine Bushway, Executive Director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA).

“Consumers should know that organic foods have the least chemicals applied in their production and the least residues in the final products. Thus, those seeking to minimize their exposure to these chemicals and follow the recommendations of the President’s Cancer Panel, can look for the USDA Organic label wherever they shop,” Bushway added.

Note: This is not the first time John Stossel, now an entertainer at Fox News, has gotten it wrong on organic agriculture. In 2000, in ABC Television’s 20/20 program, Stossel used unsubstantiated research to discredit organic agriculture. As a result, he later apologized on air for misrepresenting information on organic agriculture. View the statement here.

The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is the membership-based business association for organic agriculture and products in North America. Its members include growers, shippers, processors, certifiers, farmers’ associations, distributors, importers, exporters, consultants, retailers and others. OTA’s Board of Directors is democratically elected by its members. OTA’s mission is to promote and protect the growth of organic trade to benefit the environment, farmers, the public and the economy (www.ota.com)

Insects – 195-Beneficial Insect Series 1: Allegheny Mound Ant

Fact Sheet No. 195, UMaine Extension No. 2005

Prepared by Beth Ann Choate, Graduate Research Assistant; Frank Drummond, Professor of Insect Ecology/Entomology; and David E. Yarborough, Extension Blueberry Specialist, the University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469. February 2008. This fact sheet was funded in part by the Maine Agricultural Center.

Introduction

The Allegheny mound ant, Formica exsectoides Forel, is native throughout eastern North America from Nova Scotia to Georgia.  Colonies form thatched, bare mounds that are common throughout Maine wild blueberry fields, open forested areas, and old-field habitats.  During the summer months, ants are voracious predators feeding on pest populations damaging the surrounding vegetation.

Description

Mounds are noticeable throughout a variety of habitats, especially in areas lacking tall vegetation that may shade the colony from sunlight.  Workers remove all vegetation from the top of the mound and surrounding area by formic acid injection.  The mound serves as a solarium, collecting heat from direct sunlight to warm the colony.  Mounds are composed of coarse sand and often covered in 1-2 inches of thatch. This layer of thatch may serve to protect the mound from extremes in weather conditions.  Measurements of several mounds in Maine wild blueberry fields indicate a diameter of 1 to 4 feet, with heights ranging between 0.5 and 2.5 feet.  The literature indicates mounds can reach a diameter of 15 to18 feet and to a height of 3.5 feet.  Nest diameter may be used to estimate the number of individuals within a colony: if 6” to 18” from 500 to 3,000; 18” to 36” from 1,000 to 6,000; and if 36” to 60” then 3,000 to 10,000 ants could be present.

Allegheny mound ant worker. Photo ©Alex Wild, myrmecos.net	Allegheny mound structure in wild blueberry field.

A single Allegheny mound ant colony may contain one or many queens.  Both workers and queens have a reddish-orange head and thorax and a black abdomen and legs.  Workers vary in size from 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch long, while queens are larger, ranging in size between 3/8 and 1/2 inches long.

Biology

The complete life cycle of an Allegheny mound ant, from egg to adult, ranges from 2 to 3 months, depending upon soil temperatures.  In Maine wild blueberry fields, workers and queens hibernate in burrows deep below the mound from mid-October to mid-May.  As temperatures increase in the spring, colonies become active, building up the mound and removing vegetation from the surface.  Small, white elliptical eggs are found within the mound around mid-June.  Eggs hatch in 2-4 weeks revealing white, legless larvae.  Larvae are completely dependent upon foraging workers for food and survival.  Workers collect a variety of small insects and other arthropods such as spiders, daddy longlegs, etc. from areas surrounding the mound, which are within a 50 to 100 foot radius in blueberry fields, to feed their larvae.  Larval development takes approximately 3 to 7 weeks.  Upon completion of the larval stage, pupae are formed and remain within the pupal stage for approximately 2 weeks.  Adults emerge as new workers and are much lighter in color than the older workers.  Queens produce several batches of eggs throughout the summer months.  Activity decreases in September as the queen ceases to lay eggs and workers and queens move deep into the mound.

Allegheny mound ants have been observed scavenging upon honeydew produced by aphids and leafhoppers, dead vertebrates and arthropods, and seeds; and preying upon most small arthropods they encounter.  Workers can effectively control insect pests within jack pine stands, preying upon various stages of redheaded pine sawfly, jack pine budworm, gypsy moth, and white pine weevil.  In wild blueberry fields, ants have been observed preying on caterpillars, beetles, treehoppers, leafhoppers, grasshoppers, crickets, wasps and flies.  Specific pest insects that are preyed upon in Maine wild blueberry fields include red striped fire worm, blueberry flea beetle larvae and pupae, blueberry leaf beetle, and grasshoppers. The Allegheny mound ant plays a vital role in preying upon pest species in a variety of ecosystems, from home gardens to small vegetable and fruit cropping systems.

Management

The negative impacts of these colonies are the destruction of blueberry rhizomes and shoots in the immediate vicinity of the mound, but this is minor compared to the large benefit of pest control that is provided by the ants.  To encourage populations of mound ants, it is important not to let fields become overgrown with tall vegetation that may block sunlight.  Mounds act as solaria to capture heat in the early spring for incubation of ant brood. Research has demonstrated that colonies in shaded areas have a low probability of survival.  However, some vegetation other than wild blueberry is essential to support honeydew-producing insects which are one of the major energy sources for the foraging workers.  Honeydew-producing insects are not pests of wild blueberry in Maine; therefore, weeds that serve as a host plant for these insects are important in supplying these ants with necessary carbohydrates for energy.  The spraying of insecticides in wild blueberry fields can negatively impact the prevalence of colonies. This may be one reason, in addition to the weed diversity and abundance, which organic fields tend to have more mounds than more intensively managed conventional fields.  Insect pest control measures detrimental to ant workers include application of the insecticides phosmet and spinosad, while other insecticides such as methoxyfenozide, and the biological control fungus, Beauvaria bassiana affect the ants  much less and should be used if ant conservation and enhancement of natural control agents is desired.  Conservation of this species is dependent upon areas with ample insect prey to sustain a colony, early successional vegetation that allows sunlight penetration to the ground surface, and the selection of least toxic insecticides for pest management.

Information in this publication is provided purely for educational purposes. No responsibility is assumed for any problems associated with the use of products or services mentioned. No endorsement of products or companies is intended, nor is criticism of unnamed products or companies implied.

©2008

Published and distributed in furtherance of Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914, by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, the Land Grant University of the state of Maine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. Cooperative Extension and other agencies of the U.S.D.A. provide equal opportunities in programs and employment.

http://umaine.edu/blueberries/factsheets/insects/195-allegheny-mound-ant/