Green-Up, Dead Nettle, and the Urging of Meadowlarks
Reckoning with the barrier between farming and ecology
THIS notorious and celebrated corn-thief, the long reputed plunderer and pest of our honest and laborious farmers, now presents himself before us, with his copartner in iniquity, to receive the character due for their very active and distinguished services. In investigating the nature of these, I shall endeavour to render strict historical justice to this noted pair; adhering to the honest injunctions of the poet,
"Nothing extenuate,
"Nor set down aught in malice."
Let the reader devest himself equally of prejudice, and we shall be at no loss to ascertain accurately their true character.
* Statement made in reference to the Red-Winged Blackbird (known then as the Red-Winged Starling) as well as the Pileated Woodpecker “his copartner in iniquity”.
Alexander Wilson - American Ornithology, or the Natural History of the Birds of the United States, Volume II
The birds are waking up before I do some days– first the robin’s melodious carol, then the chirruping high-hat rhythm of common, vulgar, and sexually-potent house sparrows, followed by the searching, sonorous beckon call of mourning doves, and then finally, the agitated stammering of northern cardinals. But I have never risen so late in the morning as to make it out the door after the eastern meadowlark whistles its simple, melancholy song.
Eastern meadowlarks (Sturnella magna) are birds I feel a fair bit of camaraderie with. Much like myself, they display a distinct preference for grasslands and gently managed farmland. They may perch high on a lone tree to sing their lazy, mellifluous solos, but by and large, they are a ground-dweller, carefully laying their precious eggs, like sprouted seeds, into light depressions formed by trampling cattle, picking at invertebrates with their sharp beaks, weaving protective canopies for their nests with loose bits of grass, hair, and pine needles, if’n you’ve got any pine (we don’t). In spite of the flashy, sunshiney wash of gold upon their breasts, they are fairly pedestrian– proletarian even– in their appearance. Broad-bellied and short-winged, I see them struggle to achieve meaningful flight in strong spring gales. Often alone, I sometimes spot a couple alighting at the flowering tips of orchard trees. The male meadowlark typically breeds with two females but rarely matches a third– a reasoned and uncomplicating strategy.
Mostly, we all just appreciate the same types of environment: open grassland, and the occasional tree or wooded edge, minimally disturbed by the economic activities of humans. The conservation status of eastern meadowlark is common, yet in steep decline– near threatened as a result of the agricultural efficiency of row to row planting and continuous hay cropping. Between about now and mid-July is prime time for ground-nesting birds to plant their precious progeny down among the stems and stalks of North American prairie. Conventional, cool-season hay crops are often harvested at least once during this time frame, to the detriment of ground nesting species, but slow-to-start native warm season grasses (as detailed in this previous almanac entry) are nearly as vulnerable to early-summer haying as the ground-nesting birds held within their clumps and mats. In addition to haying, meadowlarks are also vulnerable to applications of pesticides, herbicides and the like.
The eastern meadowlark has a long-time association with agricultural grasslands, not unlike the woodcock’s association with the quiltwork land patterning of bygone settler homesteading. As noted consumers of a broad range of insects, their slurring, flute-like tunes offer to the orchardist’s ears a certain song of assurance against the armies of caterpillars, weevils and locusts threatening fruit and tree. Meadowlarks are utilitarian eaters, probing the soil with their pointed beaks and widening these little holes into furrows by gaping their mouths, but they will also consume a good deal of dropped seed on the ground. The potential pest control (let’s just say pest balancing) offered by meadowlarks is renowned enough that the western meadowlark was imported to Hawai’i for agricultural purposes in the 1930’s. On most of the islands western meadowlarks were introduced to, the populations were quickly wiped out by imported mongooses (mongeese if you prefer), however some remnant populations from this experiment remain on Kauai.
Back here in the Midwest, the association between eastern meadowlarks and farmland doesn’t start and end with ground nesting in pastures or their benefit as a native biological control– these birds turn to foraging through cowpies for undigested seeds when the fields turn to dry or cold for bountiful insect life. With a few straightforward management considerations, like leaving a few unmown corners for seed development on hay plots, cutting later in the season, and raising the the height of the mower, most of our continental pasture land can be made to be supportive of not only the eastern meadowlark, but short-eared owls, bobolinks, turtles and snakes and such.
I partly bring this up on account of a conversation I had with one of our elected officials this past year– well, one of his staffers at least. Trying to have a discussion on the farm bill with the office of our House Rep. Sam Graves (who looks like one of those guys who shakes your hand too hard and stands too close), I attempted to talk about climate issues without describing them as such, which as you may well understand, is beginning to feel absurd. So I bring up the severe drought we’ve been dealing with, being sure to clearly acknowledge our state government’s declaration and subsequent emergency protocols which were called into effect. These include allowing for haying warm season prairie plantings in the CRP program– to which the staffer sort of rolled his eyes, on account of the legal restrictions put in place that do not allow for emergency haying to begin until after ground-nesting bird season ends (Early-mid July here). I offered a gentle retort– that ground-nesting birds or not, these native grasses suffer greatly if they’re cut low or grazed that early in the season– and that unlike Eurasian cool-season grasses, they really aren’t even at their nutritional peak ‘til later anyhow.
Every politician, along with their staffers or kept boys or whatever, that I’ve talked to about meaningful, common sense agricultural policy seems to do this thing where they talk like they understand farming because they own agricultural real estate, but then portray ignorance when confronted by common, if near-threatened, ecologically-literate ol’ boys with solid information, like myself. Facts are facts– and I’ll take personal responsibility for when I don’t care about Sam Graves’ feelings. As a member of the Congressional Cement Caucus I would probably defer to Mr. Graves on matters involving concrete. As an industry of course, not as work people do. But the dude doesn’t understand prairie grass, which is probably a part of why he has a 4% approved legislative record from the League of Conservation Voters. Hopefully everyone left the meeting more educated than when they began, but I’m not counting on it. Still, I try, like a meadowlark fluttering in place against fierce headwinds.
Spring is unfurling, breaking bud, dangling its glossy, young, vital appendages in an atmosphere of unrest. I have seen the sun wilt walking onion transplants (don’t worry, they’ll be fine) and sleet fill the opening blossoms of wild plum within a day. The floor of my bedroom is strewn with muddy clothing, arranged in various gradients according to the fickle temperatures. It takes about three different hats to adorn my head properly throughout any given workday, depending on from where the wind blows. As pressure systems break down or clash, the limping winter bears its teeth in flashes, followed by a calm caress of spring stillness, punctuated by the sharp chatter of corn thieving red-winged blackbirds, or the sudden, swelling, driving heat and sun of another long, hot year ahead. It is nearly impossible to plan or predict the next best move among the diversity of necessary work.
The pastures, at least the cool season fields, are greening up, and the sight and smell of so much rising chlorophyll fills the hearts of cattle, goats, swine, and even poultry with a longing for walkabouts upon the broad and verdant earth. Gangs of chickens jump their winter fencing to pluck cold, slow grasshopper nymphs from thickening grass, and the cows edge up to the gate every morning to be let out. The distinction of when and how to reenter the grazing season can be determined through a few clues. For cattle, it helps to picture a cow tongue when surveying prospective early paddocks– without separating my fingers I swipe an open hand at growing grass clumps– if I can easily rip the growing tips off while leaving suitable cover for regrowth, then so can a cow tongue. This factor needs to be held against the potential for compaction. Wet, lowland areas green up quick, but are also fragile. One or two pockmarks for ground-nesting meadowlarks is acceptable, but wide areas of pugging is not.
The goat herd can be utilized in areas where early-emerging woody invasive –honeysuckle, autumn olive, multi-flora rose and the like– are leafing out, even if the grasses are slow to start. Avoiding soil-dwelling parasites, a goat instinctually browses up and away from the dirt if given the opportunity, so they can be employed in the bramble and brush early on. We’ve begun offering the nannies and their kids some-day paddocks to work through, while our buck and his cohort of wethers, simple of need, are already remotely employed on the edges between woodland and open prairie for the purpose of retarding the creep of woody plants. The swine and poultry will remain in their winter yard for about a week longer: I want to be certain that the grass is growing rapidly enough to recover from the somewhat higher level of disturbance they can cause, and if positioned in a difficult location our chicken wagons can become marooned during periods of consistent spring rain, injuring the tender shield of plants that protect our fragile soils.
Sometimes green-up doesn’t look like green-up. Down along muddy roads and across ditches and banks the barren fields cropped out last harvest gradually and then suddenly erupt in burgeoning heliotropic quilts of purple dead nettle. Or is it henbit? The casual, untrained botanist like myself finds these two common weeds of the field and garden difficult to distinguish. They are square-stemmed mints that don’t taste very good but look pretty enough, and as the name suggests, a cartload of henbit mowed down from the garden makes an entertaining salad for poultry stricken with a wanderlust for spring foraging.
Because this is such an educational publication, I will offer a brief way to differentiate between purple dead nettle and henbit– namely that henbit has sessile leaves, that is, leaves which are attached directly to the stem, whereas dead nettle leaves are borne on petioles, sort of a secondary stalk or stem that connects the leaves with the main stalk. The distinction certainly matters in the minds of botanists both professional and unpaid, but being neither of this but rather a coarse and common cowpoke of dubious credibility, I just call it all henbit. Understanding does sometimes compliment respect, which is why I’d like to bring to your attention two distinctly different articles I’ve read this past week while considering the subject.
This gem, laid to page in what else but Farm Progress (but originally published by Indiana Prairie Farmer) entitled: “Why Farm Fields Are Purple: Here’s why fields are purple– and what to do about it”, can be summed up thusly: It’s dead nettle and henbit, and they do really well when the winter is mild, and you should probably spray them down with 2,4-D or even dicamba if you’re still holding onto any. Here’s the thing… as far as weeds go, henbit and dead nettle are innocuous. The pop up before anything needs to be planted and fade with the heat of mid-to-late spring. By my observation, henbit and dead nettle merely arise when given the opportunity created by bare soil, and they’re more or less an early, exuberant live mulch that intervenes when we practice agriculture carelessly. I do not see much in fields where stubble and crop remnants are left, just those that have been stripped bare and exposed to the erosive elements of winter. The piece later goes on to complain that clumps of tilled up dead nettle can make seed-bed shaping a challenge. Maybe that’s true in Indiana… and I know that Hoosiers take their corn and soy seriously, but here in the free state of Missouri no-one can show me a field where farmers get a belly-ache about henbit and decide to spend money on spraying it.
For example, contrast the Indiana Prairie Farmer’s brief and grim dismissal of this non-problematic, ephemeral weed with Fox 2 Now St. Louis’ own strikingly progressive if inaccurately told story on the scourge of having pretty purple farm fields for a short time. In “Wondering what those fields of purple are? Hint: they’re not flowers”, Fox 2 Now starts off on shaky footing in their title alone. Dead nettle and henbit are, in fact, flowering plants. They are very much flowers… though it’s also correct that they have purple foliage. I don’t really know why this story begins so contrarily, but regardless it goes on to describe them as a natural cover crop, a thought I’ve had for years. No-till planting into purple fields is certainly straightforward with the right equipment. For many field-crop farmers, the extra cost of cover crop seed is a major boundary for adopting soil-conserving practices… it only seems natural that some folks may choose to form a working relationship with henbit and dead nettle, like we do with pollinators, birds, amphibians and so on. Many county extension offices or USDA service centers can help folks borrow no-till seed drills, and so the opportunity to switch over to natural cover crops (I also personally believe peppergrass has some potential for this) is fairly available to growers with an experimental approach.
This time of year especially, between the grazing season gear-up, the time spent troubleshooting dysfunctional watering infrastructure laying in muck, the frustrating hours crouching in damp dirt, unsuccessfully loosening frozen bolt threads with kerosene and the approximately correct amount of force from the back end of a wrench, and our best attempts to unclog hoses, repair fencing, fix cart wheels and trailer tires, it’s easy to lose sight of the agricultural ecosystem we’re part of. In our most desperate moments, like when my ear got grabbed by the arching, razor-lined whips of multi-flora rose, or the total and utter theft of a freshly planted crop by “the long reputed plunderer and pest of our honest and laborious farmers”, the habit to move ourselves from within the cycle of relationships between plants plants, and birds and soils and to separate of this cycle and on the other side of our human-constructed economic battlefront against a natural world poised to spring into the niches we unknowingly create is, while not an approach to agriculture I fully endorse, one which I can partly understand.
Perched at the top of sloping grassland soon to become host to a considerable population of anthropocentric tree crops, peering down across the undulating earth soon to be broken with shovels and augurs and filled with the roots of a new orchard, I hope to use my voice to replicate the feeling, if not the precise melody of an eastern meadowlark– a song somewhere between melancholy and optimism. On a continent which has lost 29 percent of its bird population in the past 50 years, and closer to half of its total ground-nesting bird population in the same time, some wild margins left uncut and the lightness of my own movement is the literal least I can think of to do. As for the songs I sing for our elected officials, I wish to be as convincing as those meadowlarks out urging for my own full consideration, bobbing on thin stems in the stiffening wind.