[Leps-l] Unpublicized Monarch Overwintering Sites

[Roger Kuhlman]

Heck I do not see a lot of milkweeds growing in farm fields where GM crops and hercides are used in southeast Michigan. These fields are neat, clean and tidy and are essentially mono-cultures of the cropped species only. I do not see how such situations are good for Monarch reproduction. Things have not always been so here in the past when you used to find a lot of Common Milkweed both along the edges of fields and in the fields themselves.
 
Roger Kuhlman
Ann Arbor, Michigan
12/29/2013
 
> From: monarch at saber.net
> Date: Wed, 25 Dec 2013 16:32:05 -0800
> To: leps-l at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: [Leps-l] Unpublicized Monarch Overwintering Sites
> 
> On Dec 25, 2013, at 1:49 PM, Charles Covell wrote:
> 
> >  Photos of containers of Roundup were included in the story. 
> 
> Way back in 2007 the milkweed that used to grow within crop fields in the 
> upper Midwest had already been killed off by Roundup 
> http://imageshack.com/a/img690/6708/xq6c.jpg yet the monarch population 
> in the upper Midwest remained relatively high* until the drought and heatwave of 
> 2012.   So it's entirely possible that in 2014 or 2015 monarch numbers
> in the upper Midwest could recover to  2007-2011 levels because there 
> havn't been any major reductions in the amount of milkweed available for 
> the monarchs to use in the upper Midwest since 2007.  There has been
> some milkweed loss on Conservation Reserve Program acreage (due
> to conversion to row crops) but milkweed plants growing on CRP
> acreage are so festooned with predators that monarch egg and caterpillar
> survival is poor.
> 
> *this high in south-central Minnesota:
> 
> 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4e3S2sm13g
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJCnU7PB9to
> 
> 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpEyRuh4lwg
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iatYTlT1qYQ
> 
> Paul Cherubini
> El Dorado, Calif.
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