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 WRE
now offers customers a truly organic lawn and landscape maintenance
program ...a healthy alternative to synthetic pesticide, herbicide
and fertilizer treatments.
The program will
feature lawn and soil bioassay testing, organic fertilizers, compost,
compost tea, and Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) accepted
weed and insect control methods. No synthetic pesticides, herbicides
or fertilizers will be used in this program.
WRE owner Frank Crandall feels this companywide shift in lawn and
landscape care is the right thing to do for many reasons.
“We have
used many organic practices in the past, but much of the lawn care
program has been based on a non-organic approach,” he noted.
“Pesticide regulations continue to become more stringent every
year, and their use has been linked to many health problems and
water quality problems.”
Frank has received
his NOFA Organic Land Care Accreditation after completing their
tough five-day course offered on NOFA Practices for Design, Construction
and Maintenance of Ecological Landscapes. |
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WRE's
objective is to become the leading organic landscape firm
in Southern New England over the next three years. This
will be accomplished through adoption of organic methods
and techniques in our lawn-care program, planting and installation
of plants, raising organic plants at our nursery, passively
heating our greenhouse, adopting alternative energy means
(solar, wind, passive heating, E85/Ethanol and bio-diesel
vehicles), recycling landscape supplies, manufacturing compost,
brewing compost tea, collecting and re-using runoff water
in cisterns, highlighted by the WRE Landscape Design Center
Showcase featuring sustainable plantings, maintained without
pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
The company
will run a “split business” for the next three
years, offering a traditional lawn care program to those
who request it.
WRE will
meet NOFA standards by having separate equipment (spreaders,
back-pack sprayers, etc.) for all organic applications.
Within a three-year span of time, however, only organic
lawn care products and methods will be used,
“It's
my mission to fully adopt the NOIA Organic standards at
the nursery and in both the landscape installation and landscape
maintenance divisions,” Crandall promised.
“Already
almost 50 percent of our clients have requested the organic
lawn care and another 15-20 percent have expressed interest.”
Nearly all of WRE's commercial properties have gone organic.
By the
end of this summer, WRE will have formalized their process
for making organic compost and will offer customers a compost
tea that can be sprayed on lawns and landscape plantings
as an organic alternative to synthetic fertilizers.
By the
year 2007, it is the company's goal to eliminate the use
of all synthetic pesticides, recycle all plastic nursery
pots, collect and recycle runoff water for irrigation in
the nursery, adopt alternative energy sources (wind, solar,
water), and replace vehicles with hybrids as they become
available.
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Principles
of Organic Land Care:
Protect
and enhance the
natural elements that exist
on a property and do no harm.
Work
with natural systems.
Encourage
and enhance
biological cycles involving
microorganisms, soil flora and fauna, plants and animals.
Maintain
and increase
the long-term health of soils.
Use
renewable resources
from local sources.
As
much as possible,
work within a closed system
with regard to organic matter
and nutrient elements.
Avoid
pollution in
the case of landscapes.
Protect
the diversity
of land and its surroundings
native plants and wildflower
habits.
Consider
the wider social
and ecological impacts of materials used
and landscape created. |
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Compost
Tea Extractor
The
most recent step WRE has taken in its march to being a “green”
company is the addition of a Winslow T2 compost tea extractor.
Compost Tea is the process of washing beneficial microbes
off compost aggregates contained within good testing compost.
(Good compost is defined as compost that contains a diverse
population of beneficial fungi, bacteria, protozoa, nematodes,
mycorrhizal fungi, and, in some cases, microarthropods.)
Compost tea is a “brewed” procedure in which
a given amount of compost is placed in a filter bag. Food
is then added to allow organisms to propagate within the
solution.
Compost
Tea can be made at the rate of 275 gallons every 15 minutes
with the T2 Extractor. When the material is made, it can
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be
applied immediately to the soil as a drench. A drench is
usually applied to the soil where the natural foods within
the soil will activate and awaken the organisms so that
they perform their work.
Advantages to compost tea include:
• Foliar feed and stimulate the plant growth cycle.
(A foliar is put on the growing surfaces of a plant.)
•
Protect the plant from foliar disease and deter pests by
consuming and occupying the infection sites, and by consuming
the exudates or sugars a healthy plant may secrete.
•
Release soil minerals – this is done by the natural
actions of the microbes in the soil, but can also be done
by stimulating the plant to grow by foliar feeding and by
microbes releasing carbon dioxide on the leaf surfaces.
When the plant is growing better, more sugars will be released
in the rhizosphere or area with the root zone, which stimulates
more microbial growth, which in return releases more soil
nutrients for plant growth and the predator/prey relationship
between those microbes release nitrogen and nutrients as
well.
•
Build soil structure by forming micro and macro aggregates
when bacteria release an alkaline slime that binds the soil’s
smallest micro aggregates. When fungi sends out the thread-like
hypha that gather these micro aggregates and form larger
macro aggregates. When these two types of aggregate are
formed, spaces are formed within the soil that allows air
and water to be collected.
•.
Protect the plant against disease by out competing or consuming
them |
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