Our
yard in Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan was bordered by a number of
caragana hedges and deciduous trees. Caragana arborescens is a dense,
prickly bush with small, yellow flowers typical of the pea family. In
the late summer sun the seed pods crackle and pop, flinging their
seeds onto dusty gravel roads and somerfallow fields. Caraganas were
planted to form a protective barrier, sheltering yards and fields
from harsh winter and summer winds. They separate our yard from the
wheat field directly south of our home. As children we sucked sweet
nectar from the blossoms, but when the wood was cut or broken it gave
off an acrid smell that caught in the back of your throat. The
branches have thorns that ravage summer-bared arms and legs and the
bushes hiss malevolently with grasshoppers and caragana beetles. Love
it or hate it, caragana is an integral part of our prairie
agricultural history. The aging bushes are being integrated into a
new model of shelterbelt plantings which includes a plan to help
support native bees. This new eco-buffer model has international
implications which is being promoted as part of a Canadian plan to
improve and protect biodiversity. The bad news is the federal
government is about to cut the very program that developed the
revolutionary eco-buffer model.
When
I make my weekly phone call to my mom in Cactus Lake, she gives me
the weather report and the bird report. If it's been cold and
snowing, I can hear the weariness creep into her tone of voice and I
worry about her. I don't like to think of mom and dad driving to
their Christmas parties and square dances on icy roads with blowing
snow. I worry about their spirits getting low from feeling trapped
and snowbound in their tiny isolated hamlet. Mom's bird report is in
actuality the bird-feeder report in which she recites the roll
call of recent visitors: red polls, wax-wings, downy woodpeckers and
blue jays. My mom knows her local flora and fauna: birds, trees and
wildflowers. When recent contestants on The Great Canadian Race could
not name a single one the provincial flowers as part of a challenge,
my mom hooted derisively at their abysmal lack of knowledge. "They
didn't even know the Alberta wild rose," she is laughing so hard
on the phone she can hardly spit out the words. Mom was a teacher in
Cactus Lake's one-room schoolhouse. At that time, the provincial
flowers would have been an important part of the patriotic elementary
curriculum, but it was mom's father, Grandpa Clark, who inspired her
love for nature and helped her develop a sharp eye for birding.
Fred
Clark was a soft-spoken, gentle man I barely remember from childhood.
In my favourite photograph, grandpa Clark is standing beside a
beehive that is stacked with supers that reach above his head--a
lovely little visual joke that would make those in-the-know smile. On
the day that I understood that there was no way a beekeeper would
really stack working hives that high, I felt he revealed part of
himself to me--the quiet trickster. Mom says he was passionate about
planting trees and loved the way they attracted the prong-horned
antelope to his farm. "He planted trees until the day he died,"
she says proudly. My grandfather farmed near the town confidently
named Conquest, Saskatchewan which over the years became known as the
Caragana Capital of Canada. Those who grew up with caraganas might
not think this was something to be proud of, but I think it's worth
taking another look at this shelterbelt standard.
As
I grew up with parents and grandparents who lived through The
Depression I had always wondered why farmers didn't plant more bushes
and trees between fields to keep the top soil from blowing away. When
I worked in England in the 1990's and saw the beautiful dense
hedgerows between fields, I couldn't understand why that model wasn't
taken up on the prairies. I know the extreme cold and drought
prohibits the growth of British hedgerow species, but surely there
must be local bushes that would perform a similar function. The land
around Cactus Lake is rolling prairie with large cultivated fields
relieved by small ponds ringed with native bushes and trees. These
are the ponds where I spent summer afternoons crouching on my
haunches dipping a mason jar into the water to collect snails and
other critters. The brackish smell of the water was layered with the
comforting scent of wet willow bark and wild mint. Red-winged black
birds sang "conkaree!" from cat-tails while their
yellow-headed cousins did impressions of squeaky screen doors.
Spotted fauns napped in the dappled shade of trembling aspens and
porcupines nibbled roots in the shadows. These ponds and bluffs were
islands of biodiversity in a sea of monoculture made of acres of
wheat, barley, rye, mustard, and rapeseed crops. I felt sure there
were plants from the pond bio-zones and wild bluffs where we picked
Saskatoon berries that could be extended out to help shelter crops
from the harsh elements while increasing wildlife habitat.
What
happened in the early years of prairie settlement was the cultivation
and propagation of a bush that originated from Siberia. You guessed
it--Caragana arborescens aka the Siberia Pea Tree. It was the most
affordable option at the time because it was a survivor species and
it could be grown from seed. And grow it they did--millions of
Caragana bushes were grown at the Experimental Farm in Indian Head,
Saskatchewan. William Cram was
appointed as the horticulturalist at Indian Head Experimental farm in
1945. His promotion of planting trees to protect farms, fields and
gardens and yards earned him the nickname 'Caragana Bill.'
Farmers from the three Canadian Prairie provinces could apply to the
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration Shelterbelt Centre for
trees, depending on need and farm size (and their willingness to put
in the time and labor needed to plant the trees). Farmers like my
Grandpa Clark benefited from the wealth of experience and knowledge
from the staff at the Indian Head Farm and from the scores of tree
seedlings they received from the shelterbelt program.
There
were other hedgerow and windbreak species grown and shared by the
centre including: lilacs, willow, green ash, Siberian larch, spruce
and poplar. Initially shelterbelts were planted to create farmyards
for the early settlers for shelter from snow, sun and wind and to
provide relief from the wide open spaces on the prairie. The prairie
that the first settlers tilled had been covered by native plants that
colonized the rich soil left behind by receding glaciers. Once this
delicate grassland ecosystem was destroyed, the topsoil became
vulnerable to drought and erosion which is in part what caused The
Depression. Shelterbelts are a primary part of a multifaceted
strategy towards topsoil preservation.
In
favourable years, prairie food and flower garden flourish in the
micro-climates created within successful shelterbelts. Planting a
shelterbelt around a farmyard 5 rows deep with 2 rows of conifers can
reduce the heating bill by 25%.There is the added benefit of trapping
water from melting snowbanks which can be diverted for livestock and
gardens. Buffer zones were grown to prevent erosion and keep snow
from blowing from the fields onto the roads. Shelterbelts can act as
livestock fences and protection from the elements. They are also used
to create a barrier between fields and ponds, bogs or riparian areas.
One of my childhood friends has planted a shelterbelt around her
family farm yard to insulate it from the traffic noise. In addition
to their spiritual and aesthetic value, shelterbelt plants can have
cultural and monetary value as cosmetic, medicinal and food plants.
William
Shroeder, one of the current horticulturalists at the Indian Head
Farm specializes in breeding poplars. Perhaps we should call him
"Poplar Bill." I phoned him to ask if caraganas can be an
invasive species after reading that goats were recently brought in to
Wascana Park in Regina to keep them under control. He explained that
apart from the sterile cultivars, caraganas can be invasive in
habitats such as parkland in northern Saskatchewan. Folks plant them
around their cabins where there are no biological controls to check
their growth. On the grasslands the land is tilled beside the bushes
which them from spreading. Permaculturalists a looking at caragana
bushes with renewed interest because of its hardiness in drought and
winter, its ability to fix nitrogen in the soil and its potential as
a food plant. I haven't eaten caragana "peas", but they
have been used as chicken feed and famine food for humans. The leaves
have been used to make a blue dye. I aske Bill if he's ever seen
caragana used for chicken seed. "I saw a farmer in Kindersley
put chickens in mobile cages along the caraganas. They ate the
grasshoppers that were attracted to the bushes."
The
good news is that Poplar Bill and his colleagues have developed a new
shelterbelt model called eco-buffers based on the more natural model
of the prairie bluffs where I spent my childhood exploring and
daydreaming. These are composed of the bushes and trees that support
the Western Bumblebee which has almost been extirpated from western
Canada. (The Western Bumblebee is Bombus Occidentalis, aka the
white-butted bumblebee, not to be confused with the Canadian
white-tailed bumblebee, Bombus moderatus, which is not to be
confused with the British white-tailed bumblebee, Bombus Lucorum.)
Not that Caragana isn't a bee plant. Au contraire--being in the pea
family, bumblebees love it, and it was an important prairie honey
plant in the mid twentieth century when Caragana hedges were in their
prime. However Caragana only blooms during May and June, leaving a
dearth of bee forage for rest of the year.
The
new eco-buffer model has been constructed with ecological bee experts
such as ecologist Mark Wonnek. The plants
have been chosen to help provide a continuous supply of flowers for
nectar and pollen and to provide other materials bees need such as
plant resins and leaves of species that leaf-cutter bees use to make
their nests. By creating soil conditions for ground-nesting bees,
these new eco-buffers will provide support for our ailing
pollinators. As farming machinery reaches peak size, heritage
windbreaks planted in the former shelterbelt model at Conquest have
been removed to accommodate the new mega-tractors. My cousins were
very upset at the loss of trees and bushes that our ancestors had
planted. (As we reach the era of peak soil and peak oil, I imagine
tractors will become smaller and more fuel efficient and those
wind rows that were removed will be sorely missed.) Rather than being
planted in homogenous straight rows the new eco-buffers could be
integrated naturally into the topography of a farm within a
"precision farming" paradigm. This will create an
aesthetically pleasing fluidity in the landscape that will allow the
machinery room to maneuver and antelopes the freedom to travel
between the biodiverse eco-buffer habitats (at least the ones that
aren't bordered by livestock fences).
While
the government in Nebraska is offering new grants to help their
farmers replace and renew their aging shelterbelts, the federal
Conservative government here in Canada has decided to shut down the
112 year old shelterbelt program at Indian Head. At a time when that
program has developed a key solution to some of the major problems
with current agricultural models, funding has been cut and jobs are
being axed. Our ancestors have planted over 610 million trees
sequestering megatonnes of carbon. The legacy of the program is
priceless.
While
the research and development program at Indian Head will continue,
the government wants a private nursery to take over the shelterbelt
program and farmers will have to pay market value for their trees and
bushes. (Will the new eco-buffers have to be supported by
crowd-sourced funding?) Many of us have benefited from the knowledge,
labour and experience fostered at Indian Head. Our ancestors created
the landscape of our childhood with these bushes and trees. We need a
government that continues to invest in this legacy. We need to let it
be known that we want a government that values the ecology and food
security of our country. Please sign the online petition and send the
Honourable Gerry Ritz, the Minister of Agriculture in Ottawa a card
letting your views be known.
Constituency
Office
1322
- 100th Street
North Battleford, SK S9A 0V8
ritzg(at)sasktel(dot)net
Ottawa
Office
781
Confederation Building
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
