In perennial ecosystems, we need to begin evaluating and identifying which plant species have medicinal effects on the ecosystem. 

Years ago, I visited an orchard in upstate New York, and I asked the grower how he didn’t have apple scab on his apples. And he said, “Well, that’s easy — it’s because I plant a wormwood plant every 50 feet through my orchard.” That’s a medicinal plant having a medicinal effect on the ecosystem of the trees — not just a medicinal effect on itself. 

An annual example is blue cornflower in wheat and barley fields — when you have blue cornflower at a plant population density of 100 plants per acre, it completely prevents rust. It’s been known that if you plant cucurbit crops like winter squash or pumpkins along with corn, corn rootworm will not be anywhere close to a squash root system. There’s been research on sweet alyssum in fields with salad greens and lettuce; 500 to 1000 plants per acre will be enough to completely prevent any aphid pressure in that field because the sweet alyssum attracts so many predators. 

Those are just a few of the things that we need to relearn; how many hundreds of others are out there that we don’t yet know about?

From John Kempf’s Eco Ag U session at the 2023 Acres U.S.A. conference. Get access to all of our recent conference archives by becoming a member at members.acresusa.com.