Site Blog #4

This past week on the farm we had the annual Farm Day on October 2nd and had a really good turnout. I was able to learn a lot about the harvesting and processing of sorghum cane into molasses. Unfortunately, I was not able to get as much information as I needed for this week's blog post because my uncle who owns the farm had a stomach bug and my grandfather was very busy and left for a 2 week-long trip on Sunday. I do plan on going back and adding information for this week's discussion post once my grandfather returns and I can interview him. Because I have no idea what ecological disturbances have occurred specifically on the farm. However, I will be discussing ecological disturbances that have happened locally that I know of.  

Scraps from the sorghum that is fed to cattle

 An ecological disturbance is any change in environmental conditions that leads to a change in the ecosystem. These disturbances are relatively quick in action but leave a great effect on the structure of an ecosystem. An ecological disturbance that has happened in my area is a wildfire that happened near Roan Mountain in 2016. This was good for the area's soil because it allowed new nutrients to be added back into the ground. However, it was an act of arson so it was not good for the people's houses that were burned down. There are other ecological disturbances that threaten the Western North Carolina region. These include wildfires, drought, and ice storms. Any disruption of the natural state of an ecosystem can affect agriculture drastically in the area. An example of this is if it were to flood in a heavily farmed area, there would be a disruption in the amount and quality of the food harvested and flooding could strip the soil of nutrients. 

At my site, which is Harrell Hill Farms, our cattle would be greatly affected by any ecological disturbance but luckily if it floods we are able to move them into pastures that have higher elevation. There was actually an instance of a cow being struck by lightning this year during a very big thunderstorm and it basically exploded. It was pretty disturbing and I have the picture at the bottom of this blog but be warned that it is gruesome. 

Some production benefits of disturbances for human management are roads and energy. Roads make it easier and faster because we are able to distribute the crop to make places easier than we did back in the old days. Energy has made production better because we can harvest and plant more through the use of technology. However, roads create runoff from the cars that go into waterways and can also affect the amount of pollution in the soil. Roads and energy both cause air pollution which affects the health of the crops.  I do not think that the effects will ever be reduced but they could be reduced by making cars that produce less pollution.

Viewer discretion advised