Regenerative Pest Control

Spring time is such a hopeful time. I love it right now, watching all the green buds starting to burst open. However, I also know that I've had a lot of problems with insect pests in the past and that for some of my plants this beautiful start is all shot to pieces by the time we get to summer. As an organic gardener, there are loads of natural pesticides to choose from that are safe for kids and pets and biodegrade quickly, causing no long term problems for wildlife.

However, as I've been learning from John Kempf and the Advancing Eco Agriculture Team, there is a better way!

John's regenerative approach is all about setting up a healthy growing system that naturally eliminates pests. It's like us working to keep our bodies fit and healthy to avoid being vulnerable to winter bugs - we eat well, we get exercise. In gardens, it's the same - for vibrant health, plants need to get better nutrition and interact more with the world around them. John explains this really clearly as a four step journey to full health. I definitely recommend checking out the webinar he gives on this, but for those who prefer to read, here's a summary:

So there are four stages of health and four sets of pests. As you help your plants advance from one stage to another, the pests fall away, one by one. Knowing this, you can get out into your garden straight away to see what stage of health your plants are at.

Stage 1 is all about gaining complete photosynthesis in order to stop your plant from accidentally feeding soil based fungal pathogens, such as fusarium and verticillium wilts, which give you yellowing, stunted and wilting plants.

Most plants are only photosynthesising at around 25% of the rate they could be. This means a difference in the type of sugars they produce - at this rate, they produce the type of sugar that attracts fungal pathogens in the soil, such as verticilium and fusarium. Increase the photosynthesis and the plants no longer do this - they produce more of the complex carbohydrates that support beneficial soil life.

The shortfall is due to not having enough of the minerals plants need for photosynthesis - they need Magnesium, Iron, Manganese and Nitrogen. Phosphorous is also important for this stage of health.

Minerals can be added naturally using a liquid seaweed extract, sprayed directly onto the leaves of your plants. For acid loving plants, such as rhododendron and camellia, you can buy special seaweed extracts tailored for this type of plant (containing extra iron). If you want to know for sure this is working, photosynthesis levels can be checked using a refractometer - these cost around £20 online. They give a brix reading for your plants, with normal, poor health being at 3-5, whereas with good levels of photosynthesis you will find readings of 12-15 or more.

With level 1 complete, level 2 is now up for grabs:

Stage 2 is about cleansing the sap in your plant of food for some major insect pests - if you have problems with larval pests, aphids or other sap sucking insects then you need help here.

Like stage 1, this stage is also about mineral balance. As well as producing sugars with photosynthesis, plants also make proteins and amino acids, which are vital to their growth and vitality. However, without enough of the right minerals, plants are left with part of the building blocks for amino acids and proteins - the nitrates and ammonium, but can't process them any further, meaning these substances are left floating around in their sap. This is like setting out a buffet for those sap sucking pests as nitrates and ammonium are exactly what they love to eat, so they head straight over to gorge on your plants. Pests here include aphids, leafhoppers, whitefly and spider mites.

The answer is the same as for stage 1 - feed your plants the minerals they need - in this instance it's Magnesium again, along with Sulphur, Molybdenum and Boron. A seaweed spray to leaves should do the trick.

Stage 3 is all about shielding - plants at this stage of health are able to put up shields on the leaf surface to protect themselves from airborne fungal and bacterial pathogens, including mildew, blight and rust.

At this stage, plants have achieved a solid symbiotic relationship with microbes in the soil. They are gaining the vast majority of their nutrition in the form of microbial metabolites. They are getting such good levels of nutrition in fact that they are able to store an excess as lipids - as oils and waxes. These are what make the protective shields on the leaf surface. Expect to see rich, green, glossy leaves. Excess lipids are fed into the soil via the root system to feed microbes.

We can help our plants reach this stage of health by feeding the soil with microbial innoculants. These include home made, well rotted compost, aerated compost tea and proprietary innoculants, which come in either powder or liquid format - both of which can be added to cans of water to simply water into the soil.

You can conduct a fairly simple test at home to give you a bit of an idea of how healthy your soil microbial populations are. This is called the slake test and it tests for soil aggregate stability. If the aggregates (small clumps) are quite stable, this indicates microbes are really active and are busy doing lots of what they do naturally - gluing tiny soil particles together into larger clumps. The more stable these are, the more abundant your microbes must be.

Stage 4 is about increasing production of some of the most complex plant chemicals - secondary metabolites. These are the essential oils, the terpenes, tanins and other substances that the plants use to actively keep themselves and their neighbours healthy. At this stage of health, plants are able to protect themselves from beetles, nematodes and viruses.

To gain this stage of health, plants need the correct microbes to be present in the soil and on plant surfaces above ground too. We can help our plants get to this stage of health by adding microbial innoculants, as for stage 3. In addition, it might be worth trying to source some healthy soil from an equivalent habitat in the wild (woodland/rocky scrub/wetland etc) and using it to make an aerated compost tea. This method enables you to seed your land with microbes that may be missing. Make sure to get the landowner's permission to take some of their soil!


So I will be putting all of this to the test over the coming months and years and will keep you updated. I'm really excited about getting going with this. Dealing with pests in this way completely turns pest control on its head. Instead of looking at pests as a problem to be eliminated, I'm looking forward to looking more carefully at which pests or diseases I have in which areas as it's going to tell me what is wrong with the soil in that part of the garden. Using the four steps above, I'll straight away know what the cure is likely to be and can feel confident that my work is bringing the yard here back up to full health.