A new online encyclopedia wants to give all living things on Earth their own
web sites. Even the mosquitoes and leeches. Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
A new online encyclopedia wants to give all living things on Earth their own
web sites. Even the mosquitoes and leeches. Rebecca Williams reports:
The Encyclopedia of Life is like MySpace for bugs, birds and bottom feeders.
There are bios, photos and videos of 30,000 species on the site. But
the scientists who run the site are planning pages for every species on
Earth. All 1.8 million of them.
Jesse Ausubel helps manage the encyclopedia. He wants you to be able to
pull up the site on your phone or Blackberry while you’re on a hike. Like a
field guide to find out what that funny looking bug is.
“But it’s also for scientists looking for large patterns in nature – if you want to study all plants that have purple coloring or all
animals that live at least 60 years.”
Ausubel says in a few months, they’ll launch the interactive version of the
Encyclopedia. Experts will make sure the science is accurate. But if you
want to blog about your favorite spider, there’s room for that too.
Public health officials are stepping up their concerns about global warming.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Public health officials are stepping up their concerns about global warming.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Some predictions about rising global temperatures look at the potential threat to the environment
and wildlife, but the American Public Health Association says with more scientific evidence of
climate change, it’s time for local health departments to talk to people about the potential threat to
humans.
Environmental Studies Professor Jonathan Patz was a key author of a recent UN paper on
climate change. He says higher temperatures could lead to more heat waves, smog and
infectious diseases:
“…Carried by insects or water-borne diseases, if we’re talking about not only warming
but extremes of the water cycle and potential for contaminating our drinking water systems.”
The Public Health Association will take about six months to develop recommendations
for dealing with the human health impacts of climate change.
It’s that time of year when the sound of lawnmowers and weed whackers fills the air. A tree expert says trees that are bumped by mowers or scraped by string trimmers can be seriously damaged or killed. The GLRC’s Fred Kight has the story:
Transcript
It’s that time of year when the sound of lawnmowers and weed whackers fills the air. A
tree expert says trees that are bumped by mowers or scraped by string trimmers can be
seriously damaged or killed. The GLRC’s Fred Kight has the story:
If your trees could talk, they might be saying “keep that lawnmower away from me!”
Trees that are wounded by lawn equipment become vulnerable to disease, decay and
insects. Urban Forester Ann Bonner says often just one swipe with the trimmer can slice
into a young tree’s thin bark, killing it in no time:
“Some easy ways to protect your trees would be plant shrubbery, or ground covers,
flowers around the base of your trees, or simply mulch them. Planting mulch around
your trees not only will keep the grass away, but it will also help moderate the moisture
and climate extremes that are pretty common.”
Another way to protect trees from lawnmowers and string trimmers is to place plastic
tubing around the base. For the GLRC, I’m Fred Kight.
Anyone who drives a car in North America likely has
an engine block molded from sand. Fairmount Minerals supplies 400-thousand tons a year of industrial sand to manufacturers like Ford Motor. Fairmount prides itself as an environmentally responsible company. Now they’re going beyond what’s required to restore land for wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Allen reports:
Transcript
Anyone who drives a car in North America likely has an engine block molded from sand. Fairmount Minerals supplies 400,000 tons a year of industrial sand to manufacturers like Ford Motor. Fairmount prides itself as an environmentally responsible company. Now they’re going beyond what’s required to restore land for wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Allen reports:
“Okay, we’ll go all the way to the east side of the property…”
Craig Rautiola comes from a family of Finnish rock miners in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He looks like he could have played linebacker on his high school football team. Now he manages four sand mines for Fairmount Minerals near the Lake Michigan shore.
“You can see a front-end loader on your right, it’s just doing a little cleanup work right now…”
Rautiola’s red Ford pick-up bounces over a rough track past a network of conveyor belts, pipelines, and silos, and 100-foot-high pile of sand. The 350-acre site is called Wexford Sand.
(Sound of heavy machinery)
Previous owners dug into the gently rolling hills to remove the sand, then left the land exposed, but Rautiola says his company has a different approach.
“We have a vision of the future that we can run a responsible operation and make a reasonable profit and provide a good product to society, but we can do so in a way that we can restore land to better than original. And we really believe that. I know that sounds like some marketing statement but we really believe that we can do a better job with this piece of land than versus the way we accepted it in the beginning.”
But to get at the sand operators still have to clear about five acres of woods a year. They used to put back the topsoil, grade the land, plant some grass and call it good. Now Rautiola says they’re getting more creative.
“We’re getting a lot more sophisticated in how we define restoration. Restoration today means getting creative with our topography trying to create water features, trying to get diverse with plant species, diverse with insect life.”
The restoration includes a series of ponds kept aerated to support fish and amphibians year around.
There’s an irrigated nursery where three thousand seedlings are under cultivation to see which ones will thrive.
Rautiola used to count success by watching deer and wild turkey return, but now he sees songbirds and shorebirds as indicators of restoration that’s working. That’s because birds require diverse habitat.
“This mature forest might be great for a scarlet tanager, but an indigo bunting would rather be over in the blackberry bushes. Over to the north we had over a hundred bank swallows just a month ago. We’re trying to attract other threatened species like osprey.”
Rautiola brought in experts to show him how to get more diversity on the site. One of them is Kay Charter. She started Saving Birds Through Habitat. The group runs a small wildlife education center in northern Michigan.
Charter says native species of grasses, plants, and trees produce the most diversity. They attract a variety of insects preferred by birds and other small critters.
“You’re going to have Yellow Warblers in here, you’ll have Common Yellowthroats in here, you’ll have Willow Flycatchers in here, you’ll have all kinds of things in there… Catbirds.”
Charter has documented forty species of songbirds and shorebirds nesting at Wexford Sand. She says that’s pretty amazing for an industrial site, but she insists the effort is necessary to lessen the impact on wildlife. She notes some worldwide populations of songbirds have declined fifty percent in the last forty years.
“I think it’s important for the future of our planet. We all have to be involved in conservation or we’re in greater trouble than we’re in today because mining does take something out of the land. But if you can put it back in a way that is used by many species then you don’t leave the footprint that you might otherwise have left.”
Fairmount Minerals has given Craig Rautiola free reign to restore the site at Wexford Sand, and he’s going all out with the effort because he believes it’s the right thing to do.
Kay Charter of Saving Birds Through Habitat hopes the company’s commitment catches on with the whole industry.
“I think it can give all of us hope that business and corporations and companies in this country aren’t all filled with greedy people at the top.”
On a ridge perched eighty feet above the floor of the sand mine is a stand of one-hundred-year-old sugar maples. Underneath the trees is a million dollars worth of sand in today’s market. And they say it’ll stay there. What they call “Maple Island” will be the centerpiece of their restoration.
Starting January first, the U.S. will let farms and certain
other businesses use more of the pesticide methyl bromide. But
environmentalists may go to court over the issue. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Starting January 1st, the U.S. will let farms and certain other businesses use more
of the pesticide
methyl bromide. But environmentalists may go to court on the issue. The Great
Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Methyl bromide is used to sterilize soil before planting and to fight invasive
insects that come
into the U.S. on wooden pallets. But scientists say emissions of methyl bromide
harm the ozone
layer. In the 1980s, the U.S. agreed to phase out use of the compound, except for
critical cases
where there are no feasible alternatives.
Methyl bromide use is only a third of what it was in 1991. But the Bush
administration wants to
let that figure rise to 37 percent this coming year. David Doniger is with the
Natural Resources
Defense Council. He says he doubts whether more methyl bromide is needed.
“The problem is the critical use exemptions have mushroomed… way out of control.
So we’re
going backwards.”
The U.S. has agreed to reduce use of methyl bromide in 2006… but critics say that
promise may not be kept. The NRDC says it’s likely to challenge the 2005 plan in
court. An
Indiana company is one of the nation’s largest suppliers of methyl bromide.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.
To prevent invasive insects from getting into the country, officials want to increase the application of methyl bromide to wooden pallets. (photo by Kevin
Connors)
However, by using methyl bromide, some scientists say we are damaging the ozone layer.
The USDA wants to increase the use of methyl bromide to keep invasive insects from getting into the country. But some environmentalists are fighting the plan, saying the chemical will do more harm than good. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach explains:
Transcript
The USDA wants to increase the use of methyl bromide to
keep invasive insects from getting into the country. But
some environmentalists are fighting the plan, saying the
chemical will do more harm than good. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has more:
The U.S. Agriculture Department wants to nearly double the
use of methyl bromide. The compound is used as a pesticide
to fight invasive insects that come into the U.S. on wooden
pallets. But scientists say methyl bromide is harmful to the
stratospheric ozone layer. The Natural Resources Defense Council
plans to sue the government over its plan. David Doniger is with
the NRDC. He says more use of methyl bromide might reverse advances
made in protecting the upper atmosphere.
“The ozone layer has been badly hurt. It’ll take a long time – 50 years –
to fully heal it… and only if we get rid of all the ozone depleting chemicals.”
Doniger contends the Indiana company that’s a key producer of methyl bromide
has many other products and wouldn’t see any job losses if the government
plan is halted. The USDA argues there are no feasible alternatives to methyl
bromide, so the government says the chemical deserves an exemption from a
1987 international treaty that targets ozone depleting compounds.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.
Largeflower bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) is one of the wildflowers declining at many of the sites studied by University of Wisconsin researchers. (Photo courtesy of Dave Rogers, UW Herbarium)
Don Reiter manages wildlife at the Menominee Tribal Forest in northeastern Wisconsin. The forest retains a healthy diversity of plant life, and has a low deer population. (MPR photo/Stephanie Hemphill)
University of Wisconsin researcher Tom Rooney says forest and wildlife managers should try to maintain a diversity of forest types, and not favor deer or any other particular species. (Photo courtesy of Tom Rooney)
Most of us think of the white-tailed deer as a graceful and cherished part of the natural scene. But it turns out when there are too many deer, it’s bad for some of the plants in the forest. New research suggests deer may be a prime culprit in a worrisome loss of rare plants in the woods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
Most of us think of the white-tailed deer as a graceful and cherished
part of the natural scene. But it turns out when there are too many
deer, it’s bad for some of the plants in the forest. New research
suggests deer may be a prime culprit in a worrisome loss of rare
plants in the woods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:
Gardeners in many suburbs and rural areas know deer are good at
mowing down hosta, tulips and other favorite plants. In the woods,
deer munch on the small plants that live on the forest floor… plants
such as orchids, lilies, and other wildflowers.
Fifty years ago, researchers at the University of Wisconsin surveyed
hundreds of acres in the state, and made careful records of the plants
on those sites. In those days, the deer population was a lot lower
than it is now. In the last couple of years, two biologists went back to
many of those same sites and counted the plants living there now.
Tom Rooney says at most sites they found fewer different kinds of
plants.
“It tends to be the same species occurring over and again on the site.
You’re losing the rare species and picking up more and more
common species.”
He says they tried to link the decline in rare species to the fact that
the forest is getting older. But they found no evidence for that.
Instead, lead researcher Don Waller says the evidence points to
deer, which have increased dramatically over the last fifty years.
“The worst changes we’ve seen, ironically were in a couple of state
parks and a protected natural area, that showed losses of half or
more of species in 50 years. However, in these sites there was no
deer hunting, implying high densities of deer may be causing a lot of
the effects we see in the woods.”
Plants that rely on insects for pollination declined more than other
types of plants. Waller thinks it might be because the insect-
pollinated plants have showy flowers, which could catch the eye of a
wandering deer. As the flowering plants decline, the insects and
birds that rely on them for food could decline as well – bees, moths,
butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Waller says it’s worrisome because scientists don’t know how
particular insects and plants work together to support each other.
“As we’re losing parts of the ecosystem, we’re really not sure what
their full function is, they might play some crucial role we’re not aware
of and only too late might we become aware of the fact that this loss
led to an unraveling or threats to other species.”
Waller says the only places they studied that still have a healthy
diversity of plants are on Indian reservations. The Menominee Tribal
Forest in northeastern Wisconsin is pretty much like it used to be fifty
years ago.
(forest sounds under)
In this forest, there are only about ten deer per square mile. That’s
about as low as the deer population gets in Wisconsin. It’s not that
the tribe is hunting more deer; it’s the way the forest is grown.
Deer find lots to eat in young aspen woods; there’s less for them to
eat where pines and oaks and maples grow. Don Reiter is the wildlife
manager here. He says in the 360 square miles of the Menominee
forest, there’s really four different types of woods.
“We have pulpwood, we have northern hardwoods, white pine, red
pine, and again, the forest ecosystem as a whole, there’s plenty of
food out there for the deer.”
And because there aren’t too many deer, young pines and hemlocks
– and orchids and lilies – have a chance to grow.
In the upper Great Lakes states, wildlife officials have been trying to
thin the deer herd for several years. That’s because state officials
have been aware deer were causing problems by eating too many
plants. The recent study provides dramatic evidence.
In Minnesota, for instance, hunters are shooting four times the
number of deer they shot fifty years ago.
Steve Merchant is forest wildlife program consultant for the
Minnesota DNR. Merchant says the agency has liberalized its rules,
to encourage hunters to kill even more deer. But the number of
hunters hasn’t gone up in recent years. And lots of private
landowners post no-hunting signs.
“We need to have some help from people, people still need to get out
and hunt deer, and landowners need to provide that access for
people to harvest deer.”
Merchant says Minnesota is gradually trying to restore pine forests,
which were cut down for lumber and replaced with fast-growing
aspen. More pine forests could cut down on the deer population…
“But as long as we still have the strong demand for the aspen
markets that we do, and we manage those aspen forests in a
productive manner for wood fiber, we’re going to create a lot of good
white-tailed deer habitat.”
Merchant says it would take decades to change the woods enough to
reduce the deer population. And in the meantime, we’re losing more
and more of the rare flowers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
A fish sample from this summer's BioBlitz in Ohio. (Photo courtesy of the Geauga Park District)
Volunteers line up to examine the day's catches. (Photo courtesy of the Geauga Park District)
Netting butterflies during BioBlitz 2003. (Photo courtesy of the Geauga Park District)
Hundreds of tiny plants and animals live in our city parks. But most people are too busy enjoying themselves to bother thinking about the critters… let alone to get down on their hands and knees and look for them. Now a campaign is underway to get people to take a closer look at what’s living in their neighborhood parks. The effort is called a “BioBlitz.” It pairs volunteers with scientists. They go into natural areas and see how many different species they can identify. The idea is to show the important role city parks can play in preserving diverse wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray attended a BioBlitz and has this report:
Transcript
Hundreds of tiny plants and animals live in our city parks. But most
people are too busy enjoying themselves to bother thinking about the
critters… let alone to get down on their hands and knees and look for
them. Now a campaign is underway to get people to take a closer look at
what’s living in their neighborhood parks. The effort is called
a”BioBlitz.” It pairs volunteers with scientists. They go into natural
areas and see how many different species they can identify. The idea
is to show the important role city parks can play in preserving diverse
wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Patty Murray attended a
BioBlitz and has this report:
A small crowd of people is gathered around a table at a picnic shelter.
They’re not reaching for the mustard. Instead they’re watching Bob
Howe open a metal, shoe box-shaped trap… to see what comes out.
“Yeah, there he is, a masked shrew.” “Wow.”
Howe is a Professor of Applied Science at the University of Wisconsin,
Green Bay. He’s at Baird Creek Park… dumping the little, brown
masked shrew into a clear plastic display cage. It darts under a pile
of grass, probably wondering what the heck’s going on.
“There he is wow, he’s tiny.” ‘What is he?’
“He’s called a masked shrew. Sorex cinereus. It’s our smallest mammal in
Wisconsin. A very common species though most people never see them.”
The shrews are apparently rarely seen because they’re so small… not
even half the size of a toy rubber mouse you’d give your cat to play
with.
It’s obscure animals like this that the BioBlitz is all about.
Organizer Tammy Lee is with the group Great Lakes Forever. She wants
people to take time out from barbecuing… and think about the other
beings that share the park with them.
“And just to make them say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that yellow billed
cuckoo exists here or that salamander.'”
Lee says BioBlitzes are deliberately staged in urban or suburban parks –
not wildlife sanctuaries -to drive home the point that wildlife doesn’t
always
stay within the boundaries of a preserve. It’s in our own backyards.
“Somewhere that they can walk to, something they can go to, not
necessarily to look for biodiversity, but they might come here to play a
baseball game or play on the playground.”
“Hey do you guys want to help me catch some bugs?”
Volunteer Joan Berkopec is corralling a young brother and sister team.
She
hands the kids cloth nets and leads them beyond the merry go
round and the slide to a patch of waist high wildflowers.
They make a few sweeps with the nets, then sit on the grass to see what
they
came up with.
“Oh Lydia! You have a bunch of stuff in here. You have a
grasshopper.”
“Oh… everything’s getting away!”
The nature hunters lose a few flying insects out of their nets, but in
a matter of minutes they’re able to grab five or ten other funny
looking bugs and put them in sample jars.
They’ll take the bugs back to the Park Shelter where professional
scientists
will identify them. By the end of the 12-hour BioBlitz in the park
they’ll
have identified 571 different species.
Professor Bob Howe, recovered from the excitement of the masked shrew
discovery, thinks this park harbors more than 800 different types of
wildlife depending on the season.
“Well, one species that we suspect is nesting there is Wilson’s fowler, which
is a species found in just a few places in the entire state. We’ve also found
a number of what’re called forest interior bird species like scarlet tanager and wood thrush.
That indicates this forest is intact and quite a good habitat for breeding
birds.”
Not bad for a city park.
Howe says it’s important to have a lot of different species living
together.
Without certain trees, some birds wouldn’t come around. Without the
birds… certain insects would proliferate… and so on. Also, Howe
says city parks filter out all sorts of pollutants such as fertilizers
before they get
into lakes and streams.
More BioBlitzes are going on in Wisconsin this summer. The events have
also
been held in places like Chicago and in New York’s Central Park.
For the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Patty Murray.
The emerald ash borer has been destroying ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Virginia and Maryland – and the bug is spreading. Now, agricultural officials in Michigan are developing an early warning system. By detecting the insects early, they hope to slow or even prevent their spread. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
The emerald ash borer has been destroying ash trees in Michigan, Ohio,
Illinois, Maryland, and Ontario – and the bug is spreading. Now,
agricultural officials in Michigan are developing an early warning
system. By detecting the insects early, they hope to slow or even
prevent its spread. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:
Forestry agents will be designating a number of so-called trap trees in
every township in Michigan. The ash trees will act as sentinels. A
strip of bark will be removed from the trees, which stresses them and
makes them attractive to insects. A sticky substance called tanglefoot
will then be applied to the trees to catch the borers. Kara Bouchay is
with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
“Part of the struggle with having a borer that you can’t see most of
time because it’s underneath the bark, is when it’s in a low level
population, it basically flies under the radar. So the trap tree is a
way to bring it to a single location to detect it.”
If borers are found on a tree, all ash trees within a half-mile will be
destroyed to contain its spread. Bouchay says if the early detection
system proves itself, it will likely be implemented in other states as
well.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.
The Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle was introduced in 1916 to control aphids. It has since established populations around the country. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:
Transcript
Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It
looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it
invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is
it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:
Ann Sperling goes out to the vineyards every day to check for bugs. She’s the vintner
with Malivoire Winery. Malivoire is a small organic winery in the Niagara Peninsula in
Southern Ontario, just north of the New York State border. There’s one kind of bug in
particular that Ann is hoping she doesn’t see – the multicolored Asian lady beetle.
It was introduced to North American in 1916 to control help aphids on plants. In 1988 in
Louisiana, the ladybug population suddenly started to grow. Scientists still don’t know
what happened to make them reproduce so fast at that time. But in only six years, it
spread as far as the northern states and southern Canada.
The spread of the bug has been very bad for the grape and wine industry. Sperling is
nervous about these ladybugs because she was caught by surprise a few years back. She
didn’t know anything about the problems they would cause to her wine at the time.
“Typically there is a certain number of insects including wasps and things like that that
are harvested with the fruit and it doesn’t cause any problems in the processing. And in
2001 there were these Asian lady beetles and they infected, or affected, the flavor of the
wine, so that there were many wines from that vintage throughout the Niagara peninsula
that had the characteristic flavor and were not saleable.”
The big problem is that Asian ladybugs are the skunks of the insect world. Just like
skunks, they give off a bad smell to discourage predators. And they release a sticky
brown substance from the joints in their body when they’re stressed and they make a real
mess.
At harvest time, there’s a lot of commotion in the vineyards. That’s when the bugs get
really upset, and they leak all over the grapes. They also hang on to the grape clusters
and are pressed into the wine along with the fruit. Sperling says they had to dump half of
their 2001 vintage because it had a bitter taste and a bouquet of raw peanuts.
Because of this, the multicolored Asian Ladybug has become a big problem for wineries
in the Great Lakes region and in the Midwest. It’s such a pressing problem for the wine
industry that the Ontario Grape Growers Association has set up a special task force to
figure out what to do. Gerry Walker is heading up the task force. He says the ladybug
isn’t a problem this time of year, but the populations are being monitored to head off
potential problems during the harvest season.
“First of all, the bug usually is outside the vineyard for most of the season. It’s usually
located in soybean fields or forested areas. It has a wide host range in terms of what
aphid species it will feed on. It primarily feeds on aphids during the growing season,
populations build up and at the end of the growing season when cool temperatures occur
it cues the bug to look for hibernating wintering sites and also to fill up on sugars in order
to hibernate. And so they move to the vineyards as the grapes begin to ripen.”
Asian ladybugs are found across most of the southern part of North America –
everywhere that there is an aphid population.
And there is a connection between soybean fields and vineyards. Here’s why – aphids
like to eat soybeans, and the multicolored Asian ladybeetle likes to eat aphids. When the
soybeans are harvested, the beetles look for new food and move to the vineyards.
Mark Sears is an environmental biologist at the University of Guelph. He’s beginning a
study to find out the movement patterns of the ladybug. He says we can’t get rid of them.
All we can do is control them.
“This beetle’s been here long enough that there’s no way we’re going to eliminate it. We
just want to suppress its numbers so that it isn’t a problem, in this case, in the vineyards.
If we do a good job of suppressing aphids – we’re not going to eliminate them either, but
if we keep them at lower numbers then there’s less food available for beetle populations,
there will be fewer of them to move to vineyards. And therefore we should be able to
contain the problem, not the insect itself.”
Ann Sperling is one of many winemakers who’s happy to see that this major study of the
ladybug is being done. But the invasion of 2001 was also a valuable learning experience.
Sperling says they’re ready if it happens again. Malivoire Winery has bought a shaker
table to dislodge the bugs from the bunches of grapes. They’ll also hire more people to
sort the grapes by hand.
Some people in the wine industry don’t like to talk about the multicolored Asian ladybug.
They’re afraid of tainting the reputation of their wines. Ann Sperling agreed to talk about
it because she thinks there wouldn’t have been as much damage to their 2001 vintage if
they had been better prepared. They haven’t had any big problems since then.
If another large invasion happens now, Malvoire Winery is ready. Ann Sperling hopes
other wineries will learn from their experience.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.
