Mark Wyborny

28 years ago I began burning brush into charcoal and keeping things mowed. Added seeds of new fodder and anti parasite plants for pastures. I began to have harder times with drought and the soil lost fertility.  A few years ago I stopped burning except to vanish non biodegradable household waste. I began stacking all brush into piles.The brush piles act as fungi web feeders and perreneal compost. I allowed the pastures to grow all year whatever they wanted to and stopped mowing until late winter. This allowed maximum biomass production, deep rooted plants to aid perculation into my pastures. Mowing only in late winter there is no chance of killing land turtles, fawns or other often mown wildlife. The topsoil rapidly accumulated humus and the beneficial fungi colonized every niche. The new plants that colonized were mostly edible and all were beneficial.  My gardens are often made by electric fencing parts of the pasture. Of course the wide variety of plants improved soil structure and kept water from washing away animal nitrates and manure. This once annual mowing and no more brush burning has made the biggest difference in my soil. I found turning my brush piles  into biochar was detrimental to my soil building and the brush piles gave hibernation homes and nesting shelter to wildlife. Blackberries thrive up and over the brush piles because they hold moisture and nutrients.

Milky spore does work for Japanese beetle grubs. I haven't had very many beetles in the 5 years since I spread it out in late summer. Armadillo are designed for anteating though. I keep them around because they prefer to exclusively consume fireant mounds. The fireants have no organic methods of control that I know of except our only anteater north of the Mexican border. The armor they have is absolutely useless against predators, but stops ants from stinging them.I live in the country so I dont have an ornamental lawn and would rather have Armadillo cultivation than step in a fireant mound.

I have kept bees in bear habitat over 50 years. Technology has advanced into something that actually works perfectly. All that need be done is purchase a solar energizer.  Some fiberglass push in stakes. A push in T shaped ground rod and a roll of highly visable polywire. I use a S 100 gallagher solar energizer, it will powerfully  shock miles of fence and since I'm in the northern side of the equator I face it south for all day sun. I often turn it off in daytime too and never have had to buy a 20 dollar replacement battery yet either. Bear hibernate in winter so I put it away then. I only need one strand at knee high and that is 100% effective! When its early Spring and I have not put the fence back up yet a bear might push one or more of the approximately 50 hives over and eat some combs, start feeling stings and run away bawling in pain. It usually takes a week or two until they get craving sweets enough to try again but they dont like painful stings. They are all sensitive to pain and cry loud even when shocked. One strand at knee high scares them and they dont come back ever again, especially since they remember the time they were painfully driven away bawling with bees all over them. I figure it hurts them a few days just like it does me when I get badly stung. If you are where bears still exist then you will need a fence but the entire investment costs less than one fully mature beehive does and if you buy a quality energizer it will last decades as mine has. It requires that you make certain to keep all things from touching the wire. If grass grows up to your knee high wire it will shock the grass instead of the bear. I also keep cattle horses and deer from knocking over my hives with that knee high strand. The animals only need shocking once to fear the fence wire but they must see it. That's why you need a colorful polywire not bare metal wire. White yellow or orange is perfect.  Metal wire is invisible and they dont know where or why the barrier is there. I have bought other energizer brands and was sorry because there are no regulations on the accuracy of the jouels power in USA nor the quality of the components. Gallagher invented the electric fence to keep his horse from destroying his fancy car. He does make the best. Also make sure there is no plastic under the wire because I've seen one video of a lazy guy who had plastic sheets under the wire to keep the grass from growing. If you step on plastic and touch the wire you won't even get a shock.  He made a youtube video showing his fence didnt work but he turned off comments so nobody was allowed to tell him the victim's feet must touch the ground to get shocked by the wire instead of plastic. There is no reason to make something that is made to injure with tetanus rusty nails because you or someone else will surely step on them and might lose a foot like one of my friends did.

I love crossing things too, but you will get an adapted landrace without any crossing whatsoever just by saving seeds from your best surviving and most productive plants. Subspecies happen without crossing. I've grown Jamaican sorrel in zone 7 for example. 15 years ago the plants barely had time to even make pods before freezes and I'd only get one plant to even make a few mature seeds. Now this year and last all of mine make mature pods and seeds by june. My leaves are completely different from the original also. Beans are hard to naturally cross. I've grown beans side by side for decades and still have the original kinds. I hold fast to the fact that my beans have adapted to my region better each generation of seeds saved. If you only save seeds from the mother stallard pods with the most beans per pod you will have more beans per pod the very next year. I've done wonders in 26 years with a tomato variety I have. I just save the best tomato and from the best plant. Each year it becomes noticeablely better in every way. My tomato and my Jamaican sorrel are landrace to my region now. With crossing you get a hybrid, with time you get a landrace.  Most important of all is simply selection of the mother plants. You will also find bizarre mutations you might wish to select for that just happen even in pure stock. I am 59 and grew my first beans at 4. I think rancho gordo has the best deals on beans but alot of them won't even produce beans at all in my area due to photoperiod I suppose. The only lima to produce in Alabama black eyed lima. You gotta find what grows in your area and tastes best and stick to saving seeds to get your landrace. If you cross your landrace then the next year it is very possible you will lower resistant traits and they will suddenly become prone to pests and sensitive the harshness of your climate. This happened in India when a large chemical corporation talked local farmers into investing in so called improved cotton. Thousands of local farmers committed suicide because of debt from crop failure.

I have percheron horses and raise yards of honeybees.  I use electric fence and barb wire to contain horses. One  beehive will cost around 500 dollars and need maintenance every 10 days at least until wintertime. A good Gallagher solar charger good enough for elephant costs less than one beehive and requires no beekeepers. You'd need dozens and dozens of beehives an honeybees don't leave their hives on cold days rainy days or at night. That leaves alot of escape time for the horses. Beside that when stung who knows which direction they will run. Probably they will continue running forwards.  

The use of wire is an excellent method and 100% effective with an electronic fence energizer.  One that is made by Gallagher for keeping livestock contained. Very inexpensive too.
The use of bee colonies instead is a terrible idea because the beehives will not always sting. The elephant will have to knock over the hive first. The people will quickly learn the value of the beehives and consider them just more property to protect from elephant damage. They will shoot the elephant for just getting close to the beehives. Beehives are not cheap. Electric fences are proven effective and are inexpensive.  

You can put your hives on stands on a mat or carpet which makes it necessary for the larvae to crawl across it to reach the soil to pupate. In the Summer when beetles are breeding the mat kills the larvae in seconds if the temperature is over 85 degrees. Otherwise the sweet  larvae rarely make it past the lizards toads birds and assassin bugs who learn to patrol the mat. I put predatory nematodes on the soil at the edge of the mat and they thrive under the mat. I don't use pollen substitute patties in the summer. The beetles lay eggs in it. I remove extra unused comb and make certain the extra honey is harvested so the bees don't waste time guarding it from robbers and ants. Some of my colonies have adapted genetics to chew the hive beetles to death and those hives never have a single one while others ignore the beetles completely and still others build little propolis jails. The problems come once a large honey filled hive dies and the beetles get to breed in it. A dozen beetles becomes a thousand larvae and if all those make it to the soil  you'll get a thousand beetles all at once flying into and overwhelming your hives. This happened to me when I had a neighbor spray poisons on his cattle pasture /hay field. He killed alot of my colonies each time he sprays and if I didn't remove the dead hives in a day or two they will breed the hive beetle to teeming hoards. The most important thing is to never allow the dead hives to produce larvae. Clean them up fast. I use a large solar wax melter. I put the beetle frames in it and they cook in seconds. The solar melter attracts beetles at night who lay eggs inside because of the beeswax smell of pollen and brood. Each day their eggs cook to no avail. It's an excellent beetle trap. I could talk bees all the time so sorry.