Does Azolla control mosquitoes?

Many people have told me that azolla can be used to control mosquito populations.  This is somewhat true, and has been proven experimentally to be possible under certain situations, but not for the reasons that people often claim.  Strangely enough, the way that azolla works is better than the way that people often say that it works.

Azolla starting to cover the water surface

Mosquito larvae live in water, but they must come to the surface to breathe air.   Most species of Australian mosquitoes have a specialised breathing snorkel or tube at their tail end, they spend much of the day at the surface with this breathing tube sticking out of the water.  Quite often people speak of azolla’s ability to control mosquitoes by it forming a dense mat which reduced the ability of the larvae to reach the surface to breathe, theoretically suffocating them.

I have read no evidence of azolla reducing the survival of immature mosquito larvae of any of the species of mosquitoes that are common in Australia. 

So how does azolla help to lower the numbers of mosquitoes? 

I have read a few experiments which have tested the suffocation theory using some of the species of mosquito that are common in Australia as well as one of the species of azolla that is common in Australia.  None of the studies I have read indicated that larvae respiration was hindered by azolla in any way.  All the studies I have read indicate that mosquito larvae either find a naturally occurring gap or simply push their breathing tube up between the azolla as if it wasn’t there.  Poking a snorkel up through azolla also protects them from being seen by predators!  Never listen to anyone who says that mosquitoes are suffocated by azolla, they have not done any research and are talking nonsense.

Having a few azolla plants floating here and there with mostly open water does nothing to control mosquitoes.

Now that the ways in which azolla does not control mosquitoes is out of the way let’s look at how azolla can and does help to control mosquito populations.

feeding duckweed and azolla to chickens

I have grown duckweed for many years.  Each time I move house I bring some with me.  I like the little plants floating happily on water.  I have heard how great it is as a poultry feed, but have never been able to get poultry to eat much of it.

I have tried floating duckweed on water in a container in their yard, they sometimes nibble a little but really don't eat much of it and not deliberately.  I have tried giving duck weed to them in a heap fresh, or dry, or fresh mixed with normal feed, or dry mixed with normal feed.  Usually they would peck around it and eat very little of it.

This was rather frustrating as everyone says how great duckweed is as a poultry feed.  Oh well, I keep growing it as I still like it.  Duckweed has other uses apart from poultry feed so this isn't a great loss.

This last summer I gave the chickens some azolla, and they ate it all quickly.  I gave it to them floating on water and they ate every last piece.  Every time I gave them more azolla they ate it all pretty fast.

Azolla in a container of water, it doubles each few days so I scoop it out to feed to chickens

Strawberries - Ever Bearing, Day Neutral, June Bearing

Strawberry plants are often described on the internet as ‘June bearing’, ‘everbearing’ or ‘day neutral’. Even though we usually don’t use these terms in Australia we are starting to see them more often and people sometimes ask me about them so I thought I would write a post explaining the differences.

Before I start, try to keep in mind that this distinction is not absolute, not all varieties fit neatly into any one category, some varieties switch categories depending on the growing conditions, many can send up an occasional flower throughout the growing season, also being in Australia means that internet descriptions such as ‘June bearing’ may be confusing as they will more likely crop in December.

Strawberries will not flower or fruit if the temperature is too high or too low. If your climate is too hot or dry or cold you may not actually be able to tell the difference between any of these three as the possible fruiting window may be small. If you live up in the tropics or down south will also change fruiting time drastically.

Now that is out of the way, let me explain the differences between June bearing, everbearing, and day neutral strawberries.

Various Strawberries

Four leaf clover, so much good luck

We have a lot of clover in our lawn from time to time.  I encourage it to grow in the lawn.  Clover sequesters nitrogen from the atmosphere and makes it available to other plants.  It increases the fertility of the soil plus when I mow them and compost them they increase the nitrogen level in the compost.  Clover is high in protein and my guinea pigs and chickens like to eat it (plus I could eat it if I wanted to).  Bees and other pollinators appreciate the flowers.  When it gets too dry it dies off, but it self seeds and readily pops up when the rains return.  I don't see anything that is not to like about clover.

The other day I saw a 'four leaf' clover.  These are pretty common, far more common than most people realise.  I quickly had a look around and picked fifteen 'four leaf' clovers and eight 'five leaf' clovers, the kids convinced me to take a photo of them.  There were plenty more in the patch, but I didn't bother to pick them.  We don't do anything with them so picking seems like a waste of time.

In the past I once got the kids to help and we picked 48 'four leaf' clovers before I mowed the lawn.  There were probably plenty more around, but we got a little bored of looking for and finding so many of them.

'Four leaf' clover

Four leaf clover

Growing chilli the in Canberra region

I am constantly amazed at how little knowledge people have about growing food.  Ironically foodies appear to have the least knowledge about where food comes from.  I am writing this post to help clear up some of the most common misconceptions that I hear about chillies and capsicums. 

Let me explain how growing chillies in a cool climate such as Canberra is relatively simple. I grow everything organically and make compost to feed the soil.

Big and mild chilli - easy to grow

Fruit and Berry harvest times in Australia

I wrote a guide detailing the vegetable days to harvest from planting a seed.  It has many different vegetables, as well as strawberries and a few other edible things.  That guide has been very useful for me to plan when to plant seeds, to know how long it takes after flowering until a tomato is ripe, and other things like that.  Each year harvest time does vary a little depending on the weather that year.

That guide is very useful for vegetables, so I made a quick chart of the harvest dates for various fruits and berries in my garden over the past few years.  I have all the dates in a spreadsheet, but that gets a little difficult to find, so I thought a quick chart may be more useful to help me plan garden things.

This chart is only representative of fruiting times in my current garden in cool temperate Australia over the past two years.  It is not guaranteed to be representative of other gardens, or other climates, or other varieties of the same fruit tree.

As some plants get larger and more established the harvest will likely increase.  Igloo's seed grown apricot tree for example will likely have a longer harvest as it grows larger and bears more fruit. Some years the harvest will be larger or smaller than others.

Keeping all of the above in mind, this chart should help me to plan harvests, help me decide on new varieties of berry to grow to increase berry season, and things like that.

Fruit and Berry harvest guide

Fruit and Berry Harvest Guide

I also have a bunch of fruit trees and berries that I didn't record, I plan to update them at some stage in the future.

Nashi pear 'Nijisseiki' - it has provided huge crops over what felt like a very long season
Dwarf pomegranate - used to fruit but it hasn't flowered the past few years for some reason
Feijoa - currently too small to flower
Huonville crab apple
Pink lady apple
'White fruited' mulberry
Thornless Gooseberry 'Captivator'
Jostaberry

Plus there are probably a few other things that I have forgotten about.

I will possibly sell some of these berries and trees through my for sale page when I have built up numbers of them.

Mulberry tree from cuttings the easy way

White Mulberries (Morus alba) are one of the easiest fruiting trees to grow from cuttings.  Anyone can do it and nothing is needed other than access to a white mulberry branch and some water.

White mulberries are incredibly useful plants: they are simple to grow and high yielding, the fruit is delicious easy to pick and often very abundant, they provide great shade, they grow very fast, the leaves are edible, leaves also make a nice 'tea', they can be used as high protein fodder for livestock and silkworms, all things considered they are an amazing tree.

I have grown mulberries from cuttings a few times now, I photographed my latest effort to show how simple it was.

Mulberry tree that I grew from the cutting below