Gee, if we can’t get the farmers to rotate their crops, maybe we can get them to rotate their chemicals. The Illinois Natural History Survey Reports (February 1991) notes that entomologists have long advised farmers that the best way to control corn rootworms is not to plant corn on the same land year after year, but instead to plant another crop such as soybeans) every other year or so. However, “several million acres of corn in Illinois are grown annually as continuous monocultures.” As a result corn rootworms show up for dinner, and the poisonous soil insecticides used against them become progressively less effective because soil microbes break them down faster each year. So if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. One survey research entomologist has spent five years confirming that “the rotation of [the pesticide] fonofos with either carbofuran or terbufos slowed the development of enhanced biodegradation and improved the control of corn rootworms.”
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Wanted: one bilingual Korean environmentalist, to be on call at any hour of the day or night. From Natural Area Notes (Winter 1990): “In Sand Ridge Prairie, a 25-year-old, 70-acre nature preserve [near Calumet City], the illegal collecting of bracken/fern (Pteridium aquilinum) fiddleheads by Chicago-area Asians (especially Koreans) is a continuing problem facing steward John Purcell. John confiscated four bags this year of the young, unfolding leaflets, but neighbors told him that a lot of harvesting was going 7on at night by flashlight. When approached, the poachers often (pretend they?) speak no English.”
What you could have done on Valentine’s Day if you’d only known: attended the Chicago Botanic Garden’s evening lecture on flower reproduction, entitled “Sex and Violets.”
Four aldermen failed to vote on more than 50 of the 180 contested City Council roll calls between April 1989 and November 1990, according to the Citizens Information Service: Victor Vrdolyak (10th), William Henry (24th), Theris Gabinski (32nd), and Sheneather Butler (27th). Gabinski was reelected with 79 percent of the primary vote, and Vrdolyak retired. Henry and Butler are in trouble: both finished second in their wards, with well under 40 percent of the vote.
