Weed control
Last week I was at Nutrilite’s Lakeview farm in California. Located on a prehistoric lakebed, it’s now primarily a research farm where new plant varieties, organic farming techniques and other research innovations are tested for use on our larger farms in Washington State, Mexico and Brazil. We do grow crops there, though, and the mix includes alfalfa, pomegranates and carrots.
It’s winter now in Lakeview and that means the alfalfa fields need weed control. Weed control on a sustainable organic farm can be done a couple different ways. During the winter we use sheep.
There’s actually a shepherd that lives in the neighborhood and he transports his flock throughout the western region of the U.S. to find grazing land. But two or three times a year, from December to February, the sheep come to Lakeview. He walks them a short two miles through town to our alfalfa fields and they go to work.
A flock of 5000 sheep are fenced into a nine and a half acre field and they eat everything – the alfalfa, the weeds – right down to the nubs. When they finish there’s nothing left on the surface, except the natural fertilizer they leave behind, of course.
Alfalfa roots are strong. They extend around six feet into the soil. So when the days begin to warm again in the spring the alfalfa shoots back through the ground and flourishes, thanks to the efficient work done by a hungry flock of sheep just a few months earlier.
thats good stuff. natural way of life.
life is really simple, we tend to complicate it.
thanks Amway staff for keeping us up to date.
This is so cool!! If we just let nature play it will take care of its own the way it was intended! True organic-nature and Scinece @ Nutrilite – setting the example
Joel,
For the sake of transparency, I think it’s time you come clean: are those sheep the actual Lakeview sheep, or did you get your sheep pic the way the rest of us city folk do, by running a Google image search?
Seriously, though: what we’re looking at here is not only a great natural weed control device, but the source (though not the actual sheep) of the vitamin D in our new Vitamin D3 with K2 product: lanolin (a kind of fat-like wax) is extracted from sheared sheep’s wool, and exposed to ultraviolet light, which catalyzes the transformation of cholesterol in the lanolin to vitamin D. Our bodies produce vitamin D in the same way: when warm sunlight (you need both infrared and ultraviolet rays) hits cholesterol just under our skin surface it’s transformed into vitamin D. And in either case, no sheep are harmed in the process!
Marc
Howdy, Marc! Yes, those are the genuine artcle — sheep from Lakeview taking a break from their judicious grazing in our alfalfa fields. And who knew how incredibly valuable sheep are? Obviously, you did. Thanks for the extra info!