Landrace gardening versus herbivores

I'm in my first year of gardening, but did a whole lot of reading before I ever planted anything, and got completely sold on the "landrace gardening" concept.

Part of that concept is that plants should evolve pest resistance if you just don't bother protecting them from pests. Sounds great to me, so I left my garden completely unfenced (besides the cattle fence at the property line). Then I met the rabbits and the pack rats. They eat every single sunflower as soon as it gets to about 6 or 8 inches tall. Beans are gone before they grow their second set of leaves. Lettuce gets wiped out when it's barely done germinating. All but one melon plant was gone within a week of sprouting, and then the one surviving plant had all its flowers eaten. I wouldn't mind a very low survival rate in the first year, but it sucks to have to start from scratch on multiple entire species. The only plants I grew that I'm still fairly hopeful will produce seed are the squash; I guess they just don't like the hairy leaves or something. Some of the casualties are certainly due to my inexperience as a gardener, but that will be less of a problem next year, while the critters are gonna be the same.

So apparently, I was way too optimistic about this. Did I just have really bad luck, or did I fundamentally misunderstand what's meant by pest resistance?

On a related note, is there any such thing as an affordable rodent-proof fence? These pack rats are particularly aggravating, due to their habit of cutting down a plant and then just leaving it sitting there, not even eating it. WHY?!?

Welcome to the wonderful world of gardening.

Most folks don't get into landrace until they have a few years under their belts..  Its okay that you are sold on the idea.

When soil healyh is built up, pests are not so much a problem.  Maybe work on building soil while you are getting into landracing.

Just my thoughts ...

I'm aware that I'm jumping into the deep end, but that's kinda my style with most things

I'm definitely hoping to improve soil health as well, but how would that have any effect on rabbits and rats?

Welcome to Permies!

When I interpret Landrace pest resistance, I'm thinking of insect based pests. I could be off, but I'm new to Landracing as well.

I'm thinking if you growing delicious edibles, you are not going to be the only thing wanting to enjoy it. I found that my small garden was attracting quite a bit of nearby wildlife due to the ease of access. I am not in a place where I can mass plant and just accept the losses from wildlife.

I do not have rodent/packrat experience, but just putting chicken wire around my gardens on thin posts was enough of a deterrent for rabbits and deer. I have raised garden beds so I just tacked the posts to the outsides of them and fashioned a gate to gain entry out of some spare cedar boards and more chicken wire.

How big of a garden are you growing? I've started creating pollinator gardens with some edibles in them that I don't mind losing as I appreciate seeing the wildlife.

yep. using landracing techniques to combat herbivores (especially macro/non-insect herbivores) requires basically two things:  enough variation in your plant population in attributes that affect that herbivory (which in modern bean lines, for instance, may not exist when it comes to rabbits, i.e., they will happily eat any and all beans), and enough individual plants that that variation can show (some get eaten and some don’t). in your situation it sounds like you either don’t have enough variability, or enough plants, or both.

if your herbivore population is very high, you might need to plant an astronomical number of plants and write off most of them, especially at the beginning of the process when the attributes that would discourage herbivory haven’t shown up much yet.

i also agree with a bit of fencing being a big help

I'm thinking if you growing delicious edibles, you are not going to be the only thing wanting to enjoy it.

I definitely had exactly this thought when all the lettuce disappeared. Like, yeah of course another mammal is also going to think those are some tasty leaves. I'm less inclined to eat an entire sunflower plant, but to each their own I guess.

How big of a garden are you growing?

This year it's fairly small, but I'm not limited by space per se; I have more acreage than I could possibly cultivate by hand. The main limiting factor is that my only irrigation system is carrying a watering can around, and it's not unusual to go weeks without significant rain here. So I could only go big with plants that have extremely low water needs.

in your situation it sounds like you either don’t have enough variability, or enough plants, or both. if your herbivore population is very high, you might need to plant an astronomical number of plants and write off most of them

I live adjacent to several thousand acres of public land, in the middle of nowhere, so the population of any wild animal that lives in this region is pretty high. Definitely very high compared to the "typical" gardener in the suburbs or something. I was hoping that the abundance of natural habitat in every direction would make my garden less of a magnet, but apparently that's not really how it's working out.

In any case, seems pretty clear in hindsight that I didn't have nearly enough plants for a totally unprotected strategy to have much of a chance. A lot of the seeds I bought were labeled as landraces, so in theory diversity should be high for those at least. But I think having that label on them made me a bit too confident in their ability to survive a rather aggressive selection strategy.

just putting chicken wire around my gardens on thin posts was enough of a deterrent for rabbits and deer

I don't know if chicken wire has small enough holes to keep the pack rats out. They're called "rats" but at least one of the species that lives around here is closer to mouse-sized, so I'd probably need to use something more like hardware cloth. Still not the most expensive material, but I'm also not even sure it would work; seems like it'd be pretty easy for them to climb up and over. If it at least keeps the rabbits out, though, I guess that's still better than nothing.

I don't know if chicken wire has small enough holes to keep the pack rats out. They're called "rats" but at least one of the species that lives around here is closer to mouse-sized, so I'd probably need to use something more like hardware cloth. Still not the most expensive material, but I'm also not even sure it would work; seems like it'd be pretty easy for them to climb up and over. If it at least keeps the rabbits out, though, I guess that's still better than nothing.

Perhaps you can test out what works by buying a small amount, making around a 2'x2' fenced in area, and putting some exceptionally tasty things in there. See if anything manages to get in?

While I haven't started landrace gardening myself, I have been reading a lot on the subject. I think your goals might be a bit lofty. You are trying to develop landraces that grow well in your area AND your gardening style. You aren't trying to return domesticated crops back to the wild (which I feel like would need to happen if there is any hope of keeping other mammals out). But you are trying to develop lines that work well for you. Perhaps a bit of fencing is what is needed for your area and garden style. Unless you can bring in some kind of rodent control animals. But that depends on your gardening style. I think you are going to have a really hard time keeping minimally processed edibles tasty while keeping herbivores out. You could end up with veggies that now require cooking, have very thick skin, hair etc., but is that what you want to be eating and gardening and processing???

You aren't trying to return domesticated crops back to the wild (which I feel like would need to happen if there is any hope of keeping other mammals out)

Yeah, this makes sense. I'm still hanging on to some hope that I could grow half-wild crops like amaranth, without having to do much besides spread seed. I didn't mention amaranth above because it's not really getting eaten all that much. It's just struggling because of some other unknown factors, that are probably summarized as "I don't really know what I'm doing." I had the same hopes for sunflowers, but kinda messed up and only planted one variety of those this year. So maybe that's still worth a shot next year with more diversity and maybe attempting some crosses with wild plants.

You could end up with veggies that now require cooking, have very thick skin, hair etc., but is that what you want to be eating and gardening and processing

Very, very good point. I'm starting to think of this as two separate sorts of projects. One is to create a landrace garden, small enough that I can afford to fence out my competitors. The other is to try to improve my local wild edibles (primarily amaranth/pigweed, sunflowers, and lambs quarters) by adding domesticated versions to the mix, and trying a mass planting strategy once I can get together enough seed for that.

Perhaps you can test out what works by buying a small amount, making around a 2'x2' fenced in area, and putting some exceptionally tasty things in there. See if anything manages to get in?

Good idea, I've got some spare 1/4 inch hardware cloth lying around that I could try this with.

Josh Warfield wrote:I'm in my first year of gardening, but did a whole lot of reading before I ever planted anything, and got completely sold on the "landrace gardening" concept.

Part of that concept is that plants should evolve pest resistance if you just don't bother protecting them from pests. Sounds great to me, so I left my garden completely unfenced (besides the cattle fence at the property line). Then I met the rabbits and the pack rats. They eat every single sunflower as soon as it gets to about 6 or 8 inches tall. Beans are gone before they grow their second set of leaves. Lettuce gets wiped out when it's barely done germinating. All but one melon plant was gone within a week of sprouting, and then the one surviving plant had all its flowers eaten. I wouldn't mind a very low survival rate in the first year, but it sucks to have to start from scratch on multiple entire species. The only plants I grew that I'm still fairly hopeful will produce seed are the squash; I guess they just don't like the hairy leaves or something. Some of the casualties are certainly due to my inexperience as a gardener, but that will be less of a problem next year, while the critters are gonna be the same.

So apparently, I was way too optimistic about this. Did I just have really bad luck, or did I fundamentally misunderstand what's meant by pest resistance?

On a related note, is there any such thing as an affordable rodent-proof fence? These pack rats are particularly aggravating, due to their habit of cutting down a plant and then just leaving it sitting there, not even eating it. WHY?!?

Couple of comments:
1) "should evolve pest resistance" You will still have to protect your plants from animals, unless you want to landrace towards plants that are inedible/poisonous to animals, and inedible/poisonous probably to yourself as well. Or you have to make your garden  area bigger, so critters can't eat it all. If you have corn, deer don't walk too deep into corn fields, so if you have a 50 row corn field, the outside rows are devoured, but the inside rows are safe. You seem to have a big garden area, so you could focus on low input seeding. For instance, sunflowers: buy a pack of sunflowers seeds they sell as bird food from the garden center, sprinkle it over a wide area and even if the birds eat 90%, you will still get a nice patch of sunflowers.
2)"while the critters are gonna be the same" Incorrect, critters will change each years, some will be there each year, like deer or field mice, but you creating a garden impacts the ecosystem, pests from last year will have attracted predators this year which may attract other animals that may become your new pests.
3) "I wouldn't mind a very low survival rate in the first year, but it sucks to have to start from scratch on multiple entire species." Yeah, that sucks, been there, but it will teach you the species that will thrive without neglect (hopefully without (2) changing the success) and the ones that will need a little more help during the season. For me, watermelons work really well, I can just drop seeds in the soil, no water/weeding, as long as I give them landscape fabric to climb over (as they have small leaves, they can't compete with my weeds). Squashes don't work well, unless I plant them on a place I buried compost or manure. Squash doesn't need landscape fabric as the big leaves dominate the weeds...

Good luck,

M

I agree with everything Maarten said.

In addition, I think that you are not supposed to completely neglect your first grex; you are aiming at a 30-50% survival rate. This may mean watering a little bit, if rains are really low, or protecting against animals, if these are problematic.
Crop after crop, you will collect traits that increase their survivability, then you will be able to care less and less.

If your survival rate is 100% that's also bad, because you are not selecting for survival traits, but you can still select for other desirable traits.

I always interpreted the pest aspect to mean insects instead of mammals but I could be wrong.  Fencing is a necessity here as we have lots of deer.  This year moles have made a myriad of tunnels under the new garden and mice have used them as a means to feast on seeds and seedlings.  Baby bunnies can squeeze through the fence and are using my beans for snacks. Oddly the seem to have a love for hyacinth beans as they've devoured every plant while leaving the adjacent climbing beans alone... for now.

Unless I protect it, I cannot harvest comfrey as the deer will eat it down to stubs every single time as well every hosta and daylily I have.  At one time I grew a good bit a long the edge of the woods for them to munch on and may resort to doing that again in an attempt to entice them away.  Maybe you could plant a few crops to entice them away from your main garden area.

Michelle..yes. When referring to pests and landrace, one is usually referring to insects.  

I have developed 2 landraces that I grow year after year. One is a red tomato about the size of a ping pong ball. It’s resistant to our local  fruit flies (med, oriental, melon), and moderately resistant to powdery mildew, though it will succumb when the plant is over mature at around 9 months of age. Plus it is mostly crack resistant. The other is a pumpkin/winter squash type with strong resistance to pickleworm moth and moderate resistance to powdery mildew.

When it comes to herbivores, I’m not sure how one would go about creating landrace vegetables resistant to herbivores, but still edible to humans. Perhaps Joseph Lofthouse might have some ideas or insight.

I have to protect my veggie plants from feral pigs, feral goats, wayward cows and horses, plus my own sheep and chickens. Field fence (because it is cheaper to fence 20 acres) in conjunction with electric fencing does the job. Occasionally we have feral pigs destroy unprotected garden beds, but the main garden areas are adequately protected from them. We keep a few chickens running about the farm to gobble up centipedes and coqui frogs, so I only grow tempting veggies inside the protected garden area. Feral pigs do the most damage, because they can destroy the place in one night. So we keep a baited pig trap in a likely spot, and harvest a free pig whenever one comes by.

So many good thoughts here, this forum is great. If I remember correctly, in Joseph's book there were some examples of resistance to mammals, but more along the lines of "corn too tall for raccoons to reach" which is just an entirely different scenario than a rabbit eating seedlings, now that I think about it more. That sort of lodged in my brain though, and morphed into a perhaps somewhat magical line of thinking, that plants will become resistant to anything at all if allowed to experience the selection pressure. Next year I'll choose a couple of more realistic challenges to focus on, rather than basically everything all at once.

After several people mentioning deer, I now feel very lucky that the deer don't seem to be an issue for me (unless they've come in only at night, and somehow not left a single track.) My only guess is they're less comfortable coming close to my living space, because it's not like there's any shortage of them in the area. And a proper deer fence is probably even more expensive than a rodent fence.

Also, this may not have much bearing on landrace strategizing one way or the other, but within the last week or so I've suddenly seen birds of prey patrolling the area nearly every day. I don't know if it's just the seasons changing, or if I attracted more rodents and the rodents attracted more birds. Either way, I hope the birds have themselves a nice feast!

I'm working on two resistances to large pests in my field corn. The crows like to land on the stalk and peck the tip of the ear apart and eat their fill. But they seem unable to do that when the ears are fat and tight, with many tough layers of leaf protecting them. So I'm selecting for that (whether I want to or not) while I also increase the local bluejay population by supplying feed, and they tend to chase their larger cousins off. The raccoons knock my stalks over so that they can get the ears. I don't think it's possible to make ears that they can't get into, but they don't seem able to knock all the stalks down. So I (or they) are selecting for fat stalks that serve me but not them. Last year they got ~80% of my harvest. We'll see what happens this year!

I'm not really sure how my plants are going to evolve a means to survive deer-browse. It's mostly a problem in the shoulder seasons, so maybe it's that some plants that can recover from early rough treatment and go ahead to produce a harvest early enough that I get it in before the autumnal hunger sets in for the deer. Or maybe I'll shoot them since they attack so many plants that solutions don't seem as easy to manage as the corn situation.

"After several people mentioning deer, I now feel very lucky that the deer don't seem to be an issue for me (unless they've come in only at night, and somehow not left a single track.) My only guess is they're less comfortable coming close to my living space, because it's not like there's any shortage of them in the area. And a proper deer fence is probably even more expensive than a rodent fence."

I hope you have lots of adjacent gardens or lots of corn fields in close proximity to your property, because if not, to paraphrase Fields of Dreams, if you build it, the deer will come.

I have lots of deer pressure, so I build a double 5-foot fence (4 feet distance in-between), with T-posts and chicken wire, not cheap, but does the work just as much as a proper deer fence and much cheaper.

I have a vole problem, but by "feeding them" abundant sun chokes, they only cause me issues with other root crops and when I plant seeds, they leave my trees alone. So, I just have to: 1) have a special place for my potatoes they cannot access and 2) knock their population down with traps/... just before planting season. They don't bother me the rest of the year, so I leave them alone the rest of the year, actually I'd prefer to have a big population the rest of the year, as it attracts its predators, so hopefully at some point I will stop having to knock the population down myself and they will do the job.

So, for me, a deer fence makes sense, a rodent fence does not. But your circumstances may differ, or differ for now .

M