PEST PRESSURE? (or natural progression?)

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]What's ripening YouTube?

[00:00:03]Matthew Reese, Punta Gorda, Florida, Peace River Organics.

[00:00:07]So today I want to talk about um succession.

[00:00:14]And I'm not going to talk about succession that humans plan out. I want to talk about natural succession.

[00:00:22]So in this this part of my property, there's a lot of uh mature trees that are here.

[00:00:28]Uh we've got Java plum, we've got these these water oaks.

[00:00:34]That's the kind of the predominant overstory. There's some cabbage palms in here.

[00:00:39]And what I've started to notice here is that somebody, not me, somebody else is farming here.

[00:00:46]And I think it's either raccoons, could be squirrels, could be rats.

[00:00:51]I'm not exactly sure.

[00:00:53]But what I'm noticing is that they have a succession plan.

[00:00:58]And I'll show you what I mean.

[00:01:00]So here got a big oak tree, big Java plum.

[00:01:06]And I've planted a few things here. You know, I put I put those clumping bamboos there.

[00:01:12]I planted a little citrus in the shade cuz I was doing kind of a shaded citrus experiment. Some of you guys have probably done that as well.

[00:01:22]And most everything Well, I probably planted the bananas, too.

[00:01:25]But what I'm seeing is that the uh the animals are planting as well.

[00:01:30]Here's a pretty cool example.

[00:01:33]This pineapple right here, believe it or not, I did not plant that pineapple.

[00:01:41]Somebody, more than likely, stole a pineapple out of my pineapple patch when I had I had used to have one nearby and dragged it over there and the head laid in the duff and rooted and there's there it's growing.

[00:01:54]It's been there ever since.

[00:01:56]They've also been doing that with mangoes.

[00:01:58]And what you'll notice is that a lot of times you'll have seedlings coming up like this, pretty close or within the drip line of another tree.

[00:02:13]And it doesn't seem like that would be a great spot for a mango tree. You got to remember, [snorts] when a mango tree's young, it needs the shade. It doesn't I mean, maybe it can survive in full sun. I I definitely have sprouts coming up in the grass and all other all other places, but when they're young, they're just trying to get roots in the ground. They're just trying to get started.

[00:02:36]And then later, when they have a little bit more mass to them, they can take the sun. And hopefully, I think this is the succession plan of the of the uh my critters here is hopefully if and when the Java plum or the oak checks out, the mango will come back in and it'll have a replacement. Here's an interesting one here. This is You see there's a mango tree that's literally it's almost growing like underneath the buttressing and then here's another one here.

[00:03:08]Again, growing out from the very base.

[00:03:12]And what's interesting here, this is a this is what a typical seedling mango looks like, very lanky, very straight up and down.

[00:03:18]Check out this.

[00:03:23]This is not something you normally see.

[00:03:25]I don't know how old this seedling is. I would guess it's probably about 3 years old.

[00:03:31]It's in full shade.

[00:03:34]And it's fruiting.

[00:03:37]Pretty weird.

[00:03:39]But uh I don't know if if you guys watch Jeff Lawton, he talks about everybody farms or everybody gardens.

[00:03:47]I definitely think that's true.

[00:03:49]Um I had a I had a comment or a question recently about the ants and how [clears throat] do I deal with them or how do I work with them.

[00:04:00]And uh mostly I just kind of stay out of their business cuz in my opinion, the ants are doing something that is that they're fulfilling their function. They're doing what they're supposed to do.

[00:04:11]The ones that we have here mostly or or most of the ones that I interact with are the fire ants.

[00:04:18]And what they're usually telling me is is go away.

[00:04:23]Stay back, we're doing something here.

[00:04:25]Um here with a property that that gets pretty wet at times, usually what they're doing is finding the high ground or creating the high ground.

[00:04:36]So usually they're mining around, they're looking, they're pulling sand or other materials out of the ground.

[00:04:45]They're leaving these tunnels and they're creating high spots.

[00:04:51]And I think that's actually a pretty viable function.

[00:04:54]So what they're doing is creating the opportunity for water to infiltrate when it does rain. So, you know, when you get really dry, the soil gets hydrophobic, they're creating inlets and channels for the water to get into the ground instead of shedding off to the the swales.

[00:05:10]They're also creating high spots where in the future, some type of plant will be able to survive the high water cuz it'll have just a little higher spot.

[00:05:22]I've [snorts] noticed that the the fire ants will a lot of times come up into the mulch sometimes.

[00:05:27]I've had people complain about that.

[00:05:29]To me, what they're doing is they're building little islands. They're starting their They're basically like the earth workers. They're just really small, so we can't really see exactly what they're doing. But I think they're a beneficial element.

[00:05:42]They are difficult to deal with if you're trying to pattern your farm in a certain specific way.

[00:05:49]So that's you know, that's something you know, they don't work on our scale time-wise or size-wise. So, you know, we're we're we're we're we're living in two different worlds. It's kind of hard to understand them sometimes, but they are providing a function. They're fulfilling a function and they're doing it by their own nature. They're That's That's how they That's how they work. Same thing, there's the ants that'll uh farm the aphids and you'll get the powdery mildew and the uh what's the other thing?

[00:06:20]Oh, the mold. You get the mold on all the leaves. Usually that's on the under leaves. Usually it's on a tree that's pretty congested. It needs more air flow through the tree.

[00:06:31]>> [sighs] >> Now, I don't know exactly. I don't know. I don't I don't even know if I can know exactly what they're doing or why they're doing it.

[00:06:41]But what I think is that what they're trying to do is choke out some of the canopy, drop those leaves, and let more air in.

[00:06:50]I think it's a corrective process.

[00:06:53]And the ants are just part of it because like I said, they're farming the aphids.

[00:06:56]The aphids are uh creating conditions for this mold to come in.

[00:07:03]It's a whole system and everything is fulfilling its own function.

[00:07:08]And what I perceive to be happening is that they're actually trying to bring the tree back into health if they can.

[00:07:16]So, they don't have the ability to move the tree. They don't have the ability to cut down the tree, but they can work on defoliating, you know, they can work on bringing soil up. Like here's an here's an example with the fire ants.

[00:07:28]You know, this happened just I don't know if you can see it, but there's like a it's like a you know, 2-in mound of sand here and I'm seeing it Sometimes I'll see it in like really high traffic areas. So I think they're trying to decompact the soil. Like I said, to to get the so water can infiltrate.

[00:07:48]Sometimes they're trying to create a high spot when there isn't one nearby or sometimes they're trying to extend an area.

[00:07:57]But um it's pretty fascinating to see what nature can do and if we observe it, we can start to learn from it and it can influence how we fulfill our function. You know, our function mostly, in my opinion, is to steward the steward land. We're we're we're here to have a positive influence. We're here to create an environment that's suitable for us.

[00:08:22]Um we're here to spread seeds around.

[00:08:24]You know, what are our eyes and our all of our senses are geared towards finding fruits and finding things that, you know, that are appealing to us and we spread the seeds around and you know, that's part of part of our nature.

[00:08:36]We also have the ability to mobilize things cuz we you know, we're we're an animal or we're a human that we can walk around and take things from one place to the other, across things around. We can we we have a lot of abilities and a lot of intellectual capacity. So, our function's pretty pretty unique in nature.

[00:08:53]But um it's cool to be able to recognize some of the other elements of nature and how their functions um how they're interacting and how they're progressing things. Because I do think pretty much everything is progression.

[00:09:11]Even if it seems like a step back, it's still it's preparing for the next step forward.

[00:09:18]So, just wanted to share that. Hopefully that makes sense to you guys and we'll see you next time.