Mr. Lund - my husband started beekeeping this spring in SE Michigan. To support him and the honeybees, I planted a pollinator garden. I then discovered your videos on the monarch butterfly decline which emboldened me to order 3 packs of milkweed seeds (which I stratified beginning in early April and planted in June.). I am so happy to report that I found 3 large caterpillars today in one of my new milkweed beds and also additional ones from mature plants that we have in our field. I am now raising them according to your video series and am hopeful they achieve chrysalis stage within a week or so. They are voracious little eaters! I see that I am indeed making a difference by planting the new milkweed, and for that I am so happy. Thank you Mr. Lund for your terrific videos!
Thank YOU, Lisa, for taking this to heart and doing what you can to help them out! And thank you also for testifying that yes, if you plant it, they will come. I wish you luck with both your Monarchs and your bees. They need all the help they can get too!
yes, they do come!!! my school planted a native schoolyard habitat with plenty of narrow leaved milkweed (southern CA species) , and there are about 18 caterpillars out there as of Monday. LOVE your milkweed and monarch video series, especially music choices. I'm germinating seeds now... thanks for excellent teaching experiment
It definitely helps, first year i had 1 puny plant and a monarch caterpillar was munching on it, those plants have grown, i had 7 caterpillars in the Fall, and 7-9 more in March. Very pleased!
Absolutely! I live in an urban setting, not many green spaces around me, but I used an abandoned, empty tree pit (6’x6’) in the sidewalk in front of my house to make a pollinator garden. In that garden I planted 3 milkweed plants along with some other flowering natives. This year is the first year that I’ve had milkweed and I have had numerous caterpillars on my plants. I wasn’t expecting to see any in the first year, but I decided to help raise them in an outdoor cage. I currently have 4 five instars, 4 three instars, and 6 eggs. I am also saving the seeds that my milkweeds are producing to help “spread the love” throughout my urban landscape.
Hi, milkweed is the key. I always noticed the tons of butterflies we were getting and I continued building my perennial garden w/ alot of native and attractive flowers for them. A few miklweed plants showed up so we cultivated them as well, receiving a lot of attention from the Monarchs and other species. Once I began this intense interest in our Monarch Butterflies we found milkweed everywhere in our front pasture that gets the most sun of all. A bonus was the two caterpillars that we rescued and one will be released late, like late October. Since we already had the soft net cage, I have placed a little container holding the milkweed branches in their own water piks! It works great. They last longer and clean up is easy, (but I haven't gotten to the point reaching forty or fifty Monarch cats!). THANKS for all you do for them, the planet and all creatures on earth....including humans. Milkweed IS vital and so are the migrating & pollinators of the earth. It is apparently considered to be a vital indicator of how successfully wildlife is doing, along with the bees.
Hey rich So, in August 2018 I went out to my humongous milkweed patch and my other little ones to search for eggs. The total of monarchs was 144 eggs, 3 1st instars, 2 second instars, and 11 fifth instars! Great video!
Discovered your videos, planted milkweed and we found 4 eggs the next day! My babies are all in crysalis stage as of today. My 7 year old and I have enjoyed this so much. Oh, and planted parsley and yesterday we found 4 Swallowtail eggs! So exciting!
Swallowtails haven't been the most cooperative for me, so good luck with them. Good that you have some parsley going for them already. They can certainly be fun. Glad that you've also got your 7 year old into check out nature to this level!
I planted milkweeds last year and have been surprised at how many eggs and caterpillars I've seen on them. Due to low apparent survival rates I've started removing the eggs and raising them indoors. Your Monarch series are really great. You have such a dedication.
Thanks T! I appreciate you being a part of this, and glad these videos could help. If you have questions as you go, I try to respond to comments promptly! Good luck!
Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge of these magnificent creatures with all of us. I ventured out to my local butterfly farm today called Idlewild Butterfly farm here in Kentucky and got my first milkweed plant, it's fairly large and had two Monarch butterfly eggs on it that I've found so far, complete with two ladybugs and numerous ladybug eggs. After watching your videos, I cut the two eggs from the leaves as you instructed, placed them in a container and am hoping to raise these guys. Great thing you and your family do for these tiny beings.
DMEBiller That's excellent! Take care of those eggs, as this time of the year, that's likely the generation that will be heading to Mexico. A larger thank you to yourself for taking on the challenge!
what i do is i have a bunch of 309 milkweed in my garden and in my butterflyhouse i have 167 plants for them to eat fresh and i still collect leaves but i found out that putting it on a fresh plant protected from predators is the best method.
I transplanted some swamp milkweed seedlings into my far backyard because the seedlings were taking over a flower bed. I just ripped them out - the seedlings come out intact. I pulled up grass in the backyard & tamped the seedlings down. They were growing larger the next day. When they were transferred for a week and were about 7 inches tall they were covered in eggs! All the eggs hatched and they ate the weeds down to a nub. They were only 3rd I started so I transferred them all to milkweeds in the other parts of my yard
Planted milkweed this year first time... only a few plants grew nicely, others probably too close. I found no eggs, but all of sudden other day 5 big Monarch Caterpillars.. bought them inside and within 2 days I have Chrysalis. I thought it was a complete failure even though I saw Monarchs around the house. But it Works!!! I found a bunch of Wild Milkweed nearby that I plan on getting seeds from later this year.. Next Year.... Look Out!
I’ve planted 10 milkweed plants last year in my yard to help the monarchs and also raise the monarchs.. last year may 2017 through Jan 2018 I raised and released 50ish monarch butterflies. Since I live in North Florida I found some really late eggs in what I had left of my milkweed in mid winter here. We had a really bad cold spell for about 5 days straight of freezing temps in December 2017 I just looked at my milkweed plants and found 2 caterpillars. 1 In 3rd Instar and 2 in second instar.. am happy to say they both survived but I didn’t have enough milkweed to feed them.i had an emergency as my milkweed outside turned brown and died but my nursery up the road from me was able to keep 2 milkweed plants alive from the 5 days of freezing temperatures. I purchased 1 plant and luckily it had enough fresh milkweed leaves to get both caterpillars to Chrysalis form and both were released on our warmest days in mid January and am sure they’ve survived as we have not had another freezing temp since before 1st was released! Looking forward to this new year and how many healthy monarchs I can raise and release
That's definitely some commitment! I too am looking forward to the summer. In the meantime, though, much to do in the spring. I hope you have time to check out the other videos that are being released (both recently, and soon to come). While not about Monarchs, I hope they have something to appeal to all!
Where do I start? Apparently the purchase of only 3 milkweed plants about 3 weeks ago, now I have a nursery of cats with absolutely no prior knowledge. Day 1 - My boyfriend and I wanted to "attract butterflies" to the yard and brought home 3 plants from our local extension's fall plant sale. Day 2 - We had a monarch show up and stayed for 2-3 days. (not sure if it was the same one all 3 days, but I believe so). We kept checking the plants daily just to be sure they we not being invaded by pests and that they were happy in their new ground. By about day 7 we gasped when we saw a bunch of little cats. In hindsight, and THANKS TO YOUR VIDEOS, I am confident those cats were not from eggs laid after we got the plants home but rather that there were eggs already present before we got the plants. I found your videos while I was on a frantic mission to learn anything I could about protecting my cats after one horrible day I went out to photo the largest cat on the bush and a wasp was making a meal of it. My heart broke. I truly respect the food chain and nature's balance, and I even respect the role wasps play in an organic garden, but upon closer inspection that wasp had eaten quite a few and he was sure to make my plants a regular dinner spot. Your videos were instantly engaging as I have a huge passion for all things science and biology, but add to that..cool graphic tees and Mike Patton and now not only am I a huge fan, I have convince my boyfriend that you are happily married and of no threat, and now he is a fan as well. So this is as much a HIGH FIVE and a BIG THANKS as it is a little progress report. Week 3 - We are now completely obsessed with and determined to find wild milkweed and even considering planting patches in our local wildlife preserves. We aren't sure if it is frowned upon, but we are a tad gangster when it comes to nature. We have 3 "chrysalides" (we agree it is better than "chrysalises") and today we finally got to watch a cat go from "J" into chrysalis completely, and your are right... it is AMAZING! We have containers everywhere with all stages and when we went yesterday to get more groceries for the kids, we enthusiastically scoured the plants of our organic grower for plants with the most eggs. You have empowered us immensely with your relatable videos and presentation. We still have lots to learn, but it is truly a passion to be a part of it all. Now for a question..Here is a concern of mine: Before I realized how quickly the cats could devour a couple of leaves, I went out for the day and upon return I immediately check and they had run out of food. I was a little nervous that I didn't know exactly how long those few had been without or how they would react to it. I immediately put fresh leaves in their containers, but 2 of the larger ones never came down from the top and the next thing I knew they began to "J". Then I woke up to one of the smaller ones that apparently feasted all night and was out of food and had made its way to the top. The small one is nowhere near ready to pupate, but it occurred to me that being out of food may cause them to move to the next stage. Then I saw a comment in this thread to that very topic. Is it true that they will pupate too early if they are without food for any period of time? In my case it could have been 10 minutes or 3 hours. I am not certain.
+ROCKnFACES Now that is what I call a comment! Ha! Mike Patton is a musical genius. Pleased to hear you enjoy him and recognized him (as a Patton fan always will). I try to make the music somewhat (or a lot) fit the idea of what's happening in the video. That being said, let me first say, in a wildlife preserve, emphasis is on the "preserve" and when we say preserve it, we don't just mean taking away from it, but adding to it. If there isn't a lot of milkweed there already, how do you know that having a patch of it won't attract certain insects (milkweed parasites) that could find other things in the preserve that it then gets a foothold population in? I can respect "gangsta botany", so to speak, but perhaps hands off the preserve? Maybe even better is to see what neighbors might be interested in planting with you. If you wish to do this long term, having some others doing it with you can provide you with not only extra leaves should you need them, but also, it helps spread the education of the cause. Even if they turn down planting any, they at least find out about the plight of the monarch! Planting milkweed in my front yard has helped show and promote the idea to neighbors that it is not a "weed" but a worthy addition. Just an idea you can work with and taste out. There's, of course, other options too in natural fields you might find, but I can only speculate, not exactly knowing where you're from. On to the next part, with when the cat goes into chrysalis, there's likely a combination of factors. What signals to the cat "it's time" is something I don't know for sure, and I don't know if science has uncovered that or not. But, from my own experience, I know that it isn't always food that need be the factor. I've had some J-hang when there was still plenty of food present, but they were much smaller than other cats who still felt like eating. I would chalk it up to variation within the species. It's certainly possible that it could have eaten more food and grew more, but I would have to trust nature that the cats only decide to J-hang when they feel it's right. (They are, after all, more of an expert on the subject than any of us!) So, while giving more food may have resulted in that one eating more, I don't think that we could say that the lack of food is what caused it. I've had some run low, or out of food during a day trip away, but have never had any start J-hanging because of it, to my knowledge. You may have just had a smaller kinda guy/gal. If you're enjoying the science in these vids, and you enjoy also the graphic tees and such, give a look to the Indy Labs at home science videos on this channel that I do, and pass the science on to others who might enjoy them too! That's the series I'm hoping to be able to do more with (NOT to say monarch videos are going away!) Thanks for checking them out, and send any further questions my way!
+MrLundScience Ha.. glad you enjoyed the comment. **Sigh** you make a good point about planting in the preserve. We are in South Florida and everything grows like weeds down here, and I think that means we will have year round milkweed. Last year we discovered our specific Milkweed variety in the preserve but when we went back to search the same location it could not be found, hence the motivation to want to replenish it. I will consider asking permission. Right now, we need to streamline our system before we do much else, as I feel we have our hands full. We have also collected at least 1000 seeds and still have a number of pods ripening on the plants. We just started germinating what is probably way too many seeds, but we are excited. Yes... Patton is a musical genius, and what a treat it was to be getting my nerd on and have Patton of all voices sing the scene. Your own "genius" cred went through the roof with that little tidbit. I will definitely be following your vids. You are a smart, articulate, cool presenter with very interesting topics... Science must be your students' favorite class. It is probably good that you haven't take this to Facebook, because the comments would be too much to keep up with. You would be in the ranks of my beloved Alton Brown. Keep "droppin sciene like Galileo dropped the orange"!
+ROCKnFACES Thanks for the encouraging words. Facebook has caused a lot of teachers problems. I'm still resisting for the time being. If you get some awesome shots of your monarchs, put them on the channel. It can be worth while to video document your results. Whether you do or not, good luck to you and your boyfriend in your efforts, and know that the monarchs unconsciously appreciate it. Just to be on the safe side, you have also seen the "Planting Milkweed" vids too, right? Those can show you the way I get my common milkweed seeds started, and I'm pretty confident it's not that much different for Florida native species. I'm willing to venture that the nature preserve will say no. I may be wrong, but they tend to not want to give anyone a green light on such a thing, as it might open the door to a miscommunication and cause a problem with what winds up in the preserve. Still, good luck with any effort in that department! Thanks for the Beastie Boys reference. I'd have to draw the conclusion with 85% confidence that if you like the Beastie Boys and Mike Patton, you are no stranger to a large influence in my life, Henry Rollins.
Yeah... We actually decided at first glance that you resemble Rollins. Glad you got the BB reference, kinda knew you would. I am half joking about asking permission, but I may just be only twice removed from the person who might give the thumbs up. We'll see. I am a determined and resourceful optimist when it comes to fulfilling an ideal. Yes, we watched the planting milkweed video which is when we started germinating our seeds. I will be sure to level progress photos and clips. I just uploaded the pupation video from today to my TH-cam account so it should be finished uploading in another 97 hours.. (takes forever to upload for some reason). I am having a heartache tonight as I set my cats outside for a bit and one of the containers with a cat about to "J" was blown off the table and the lid came off and the cat broke free. It isn't looking so great right now as he/she is now back on the bottom barely moving. :-(
+ROCKnFACES I certainly empathize with your situation. I can see how someone could beat themselves up over that one. But, I would ask you to consider this: Did you do everything you could in your power, with the knowledge you had at the time? Didn't you also not give up? As it sounds, you did everything you could at the time. What more could be asked? If you have many monarchs that you help, it will be unreasonable to expect there to never be any mistakes. And it's the mistakes and learning from them that help prevent future ones. I encourage you to keep at it, as you are definitely helping. For introducing you to an expert who is accessible, I would have to say, for the most part, I don't know many. Much of my monarch education has came from website review, and trying it out for myself. If there's one person, though, I know knows more than me and can be accessed, it would be Mona Miller, who I mention around 12:15 in the Planting Milkweed Part 3 video. Check that out. She's part of a Facebook group, and I know that they can offer much help. She also has a channel with many videos on it. th-cam.com/users/Meadow231 I hope that helps!
In a follow up to my comment that Monarchs prefer young plants, have found a study conducted by Michigan State University indicating that the amount of eggs laid on young fresh plants as opposed to older mature plants with rougher leaves is as much as ten times greater.
Yes, they will scour the ground for fresh new plants. They spend so much time on the ground that I thought there was something wrong with the butterfly. But she flew just fine and was determined to check out every blade of grass (so to speak) and find every inch of fresh milkweed in the yard. As seen these videos, they will seek and find the milkweed. Type of milkweed is not as important. They will pick the one with green shoots at the time.
Help! My milkweed garden was mistakenly treated with insecticide and my monarch caterpillars are dying! Is there anything I can do to save my milkweed? I just started raising them indoors a month ago, released my first butterfly, and now I am devastated. Will bleaching the leaves help? Jacksonville FL
That definitely sucks. Very sorry to hear that this happened. As a chemist, we have a saying: dilution is the solution. If I were in your shoes, I'd do the following: 1) Check the plants for any and all Monarch eggs and caterpillars (and chrysalides, if you can find them). 2) Once collected, very generously and thoroughly spray down your flowers/plants that were affected. Do it way more than you think you need to. Then, do it again. Get every nook and cranny you can find. 3) For any eggs you find, bleach treat them, and rinse very thoroughly. (My video on "OE Parasite Prevention" shows how to do this.) 4) For any caterpillars you raise, bleach treat the leaves. (My video on "Preventing NPV & Other Infections" shows this.) 5) For any caterpillars that have already eaten tainted milkweed, there's not much you can do but hope for the best. I'd keep them separate, and give them all a fighting chance, but go into such knowing that some or all may be lost. Very sorry that this happened. I wish you luck!
Bought seeds last year and this Spring we had terrible late frost and really cold nights through June. (🇨🇦Zone5) My attempt to grow from seeds was a fail 🥺 HOWEVER I've been rewatching your videos over the past 2 days since Monarchs are in the news again. Started to look around our property edges and found some but the biggest healthiest plants were wedged behind the rain barrel between our shed and wood pile. For sure shady for most of the day. I decided to look under the leaves and I'm pretty sure I have eggs!!!!! Smart Monarch found the shady spot during these awful heatwaves. I'm going to hopefully banned and save seed and get a whole bunch more going next year. I think it's time for some gorilla seed sowing out around my community 😉
+kentuckmn The easy answer is that aphids like milkweed. I find aphids all the time. I have not experienced them causing any problems with the caterpillars or eggs. However, aphids can attract ants, and some ants will munch down a monarch egg. As for soapy water on the plant, that might cause some chemical harm to the caterpillars if they are then eating the leaf and ingesting the soap residue. I'd avoid that in the future. Thanks for being a part of the much needed help of the monarchs!
In total? No. I can say that, as expected, once the 4th generation has emerged, the numbers are the largest they'll be for the year. How they compare to last year, I'm not sure, but due to the storm that occurred during their migration north, it's likely to be considerably lower than last year. Brace yourself for the count that will be released around January/February from Mexico. I don't predict it will be good news.
They indeed do not. For starters, the North American populations are only a portion of the total species. There are Monarchs in South America and even Australia. As far as North American Monarchs, this site has a decent blog on the topic, and includes a map showing known and suspected migration routes: www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/monarch-butterfly-migration-rebounds
That's good news for their survival. I have a stand of "Tuberosa" in my garden, but would like to get another variety that blooms later. I'm in New York.
@@MrLundScience También tenemos una población estable de mariposa monarca en las Islas Canarias. El clima nos permite el cultivo y mantenimiento de la Asclepia durante todo el año y la mariposa Monarca se beneficia de eso. Deshovan durante los 12 meses y l@s que cultivamos la planta hospedera disfrutamos del cuidado de éstas y las orugas todo el tiempo. Gracias por su trabajo. Unas lecciones impagables
I would say (as would others), it's best to stick with milkweed species that already are native to your region. Common Milkweed has the widest range, and thus, you might already be in such a region. Also, that plant has some rather broad leaves compared to other species. Here's a page that shows its range: www.everwilde.com/store/Asclepias-syriaca-WildFlower-Seed.html When in doubt, try a search with the milkweed species name, plus the word "range" and see if it's native to your area. Good luck!
After watching a couple of your videos, I seeing a major difference between your Monarchs and the West coast Monarchs. I've never seen them lay eggs in abundance like you've been documenting. They rarely will lay more than 1 egg per plant. Laying so many eggs, they're destroying themselves as they would have all died if you didn't intervene. Although, I have read they will go into Pupa early if they run out of food.
David Dube The female I "kidnapped" who laid 93 eggs for me is a special case, I think we can agree. With the 38 eggs on my mother in law's plants, that WAS a rare surprise. I too find in the wild usually one egg per plant if any. Sometimes I'll find two eggs per plant, but there's no guarantee it's from the same monarch. Over the 5 summers I've been doing this, only maybe two other times have I found an "egg dump" of about ten on a plant. This batch of 38 was a shocking surprise. When I get home and find just a couple on my plants in my yard, that's more the norm.
If you plant nectar plants that attract Monarchs Mr. Lund, that will increase the egg-laying possiblities by Monarchs. :-) I recommend that to new people getting into raising Monarchs. :-)
johnifly I fully agree. We have many cone flowers and butterfly bushes in our yard, and in the last week, we've had eggs on our new milkweed every other day.
Hey Mr. Lund, just wanted you to know that I DO appreciate you making all these videos on raising Monarchs and planting milkweed and the details involved. Wanted you to know, if I didn't tell you before, that all of the "TH-cam" links to your videos are in the "Files" section of my group "Monarchs and Milkweed." I would really be honored if you checked out my group on Facebook and to ask to join. I will aprove you if you do. Your wealth of knowledge would be a GREAT help in my group. Every day I approve members to the group and we are almost up to 2,600 members and they all have a zeal in planting milkweed and in raising the Monarchs. Besides, they are also VERY HELPFUL in answering questions and you would be a valuable addition to our group! I hope you consider. Here's the link: facebook.com/groups/688389397869570/
johnifly Greetings! I appreciate the appreciation! It is greatly appreciated! I am not part of the Facebook revolution. I'll explain why through a message to your account, but if I WAS, I'd ask to join your group immediately!
You have to show the eggs produce alot of adult butterflies. Especially late summer butterflies that migrate to the overwintering sites. This video shows monarch production at a milkweed wholesale nursery is poor: th-cam.com/video/x9Dz8X5Wb7o/w-d-xo.html Therefore the nursery plants are not boosting the size of the migratory population that will migrate to Mexico.
4af Greetings again! Just to recap and we can be on the same page, here are some previous comments you have given, all of which were on the Raising Monarchs Part 1 video: "It’s not possible for monarch butterfly enthusiasts to increase the wild monarch population. Why? Because approximately 3 billion milkweed plants still grow in the wild and support the existing population of 100 million fall migrant monarch butterflies. So that means roughly 30 plants produce 1 fall migrant butterfly. So even if enthusiasts planted 100,000 more milkweeds during the next 5 years, only about 3,333 more butterflies would be produced - not even 1/100th of one percent more than already exist!" "looks like I need to set up a video camera next to giant fields of planted milkweeds like these one www.imagegainer.com/images/PaulCherubini/threec.jpg so that everyone can see how few wild monarchs they attract and how few monarch caterpillars can be found on them." "none of the "plant milkweed save the monarch" businesses has posted even one photo of a large patch of milkweed they successfully grew from seed in a wild place such as a roadside, railway line, creekbank, or pasture. Nor have they posted proven planting instructions that others could follow. They're just interested in making millions of dollars selling $60 flats of potted milkweeds to home gardeners along with a $33.00 certification and sign for the garden." I really want to be as respectful as I can here, as I think discussion of this complex problem is necessary if the citizen science we are trying to do is to be effective. Thus, I welcome the different point of views that you are bringing to the table, and as I hope I've clearly stated, I respect your skepticism. That being said: 1) Concerning your first quote, you still did not give any source as to how you have counted the number of milkweed plants. I would still like to know where you acquired that number. Your statement that it takes 30 plants to produce 1 migrant monarch greatly hinges on that "3 billion" value. My patch of 7 milkweed has already produced (naturally, without my help) 4 monarchs, which emerged three and two days ago. (Two were female.) If they are migrants, your back of the envelope calculation is already pretty far off. If they aren't migrants, the number of migrants those two females produce is highly likely to be more than 4. The point being, your 30 plants equaling 1 migrant estimate doesn't seem to match what I've seen first hand. Anyone else reading this care to chime in? Have your milkweed plants produced more than 1 fall monarch for every 30 plants? 2) Concerning your second quote, and your comment on this video, I did click on the link and saw the field, and I also viewed your video, equally of two fields which seem to have low or no monarch activity. I don't really understand why you are showing this. Nowhere in my video series, be it "Raising Monarchs" or "Planting Milkweed" do I encourage planting fields of milkweed. Likewise, nowhere do I encourage financially supporting milkweed farms. Perhaps the fields you are visiting provide us with helpful data as we try to understand this complex problem, and it turns out that fields of milkweed isn't the solution. Perhaps backyard milkweed and small spot locations is. Based upon the daily comments and messages I've gotten, many have been having success in their backyards thanks to milkweed they planted. I can't help but notice a strong difference between those fields you refer us to and home backyards is that those fields don't seem at all to be near nectar producing flowers, other than the milkweed themselves. Sure, nectar is provided by the milkweed plant. But in our backyards, usually if someone is planting milkweed, they are doing it among a variety of nectar flowers. I have cone flowers throughout my yard...and I have eggs on my milkweed. My mother in law has cone flowers in her garden...and she has eggs on her milkweed. The milkweed fields you reference have little variety nearby, it would seem. Perhaps that is a factor. I fully admit, I do not know. What I do know, though, is that yes, people are having success in their backyards. You've visited fields within your region. It seems illogical to claim that what you are witnessing applies to all of North America. I question very much if you've read the success stories people are leaving in the comments of my videos. They come in from all over the U.S. and some from Canada. Shouldn't that success speak louder to you than a couple of fields you've visited, confined to just within your one region? 3) I went ahead and posted a video that clearly shows the eggs that are being laid on home grown plants. I thought that would be rather strong evidence that planting milkweed gives monarchs options, and success can and does happen. Now you tell me, "You have to show the eggs produce alot of adult butterflies." To be blunt, no I don't. The claims you made in your previous comments were along the lines of the idea that planting milkweed won't attract monarchs significantly, and that our backyard efforts are futile, and we can expect the same lack of success that apparently milkweed farms in Oregon are having. My video clearly debunks that. The monarchs are attracted to the milkweed we are planting, and they are laying eggs. Again, feel free to read the comments of my videos and see more for yourself. I don't know what the goal would be of showing "the eggs produce alot of adult butterflies." The first claims you made were that our efforts wouldn't attract monarchs and get them to lay eggs. I debunked that, and now you claim that I need to show that those eggs make it to adulthood, and the migrant generation at that. This tactic is called "moving the target". If I were to make such a video that shows these eggs making it to adulthood, the next move of the target could be that I have to then prove that they make it to Mexico. One last thing that is worth mentioning, I think, is that while there are many to the west of the Rockies using these videos to inspire them in helping their monarch populations, I showed in the very first video that these two series are focused on the east of the Rockies population. It's quite possible that the answer to helping the western monarch population is not the same answer to helping the eastern population. I just want to reiterate so that it's clear, I respect fully your views and your evidence that milkweed farms aren't doing much. I just disagree that my channel is the best place to try and make that point. You are obviously concerned with the monarch butterfly as well, and I want to commend you and tip my hat to you on that front. If we were to sit down and enjoy some coffee together, we might find we have much more in common than we do different. Thank you again for your feedback!
MrLundScience the greatest density of home garden planted milkweeds in the USA can be found in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, but the sizes of the monarch fall cluster sites in those cities has not been increasing www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/WMTC-Data-1997-2014.pdf And that's because the home garden milkweeds are producing so few extra butterflies.
4af Duly noted. It would seem you don't care to comment on the multitude of points I bring up. I have my own hypothesis as to why you ignore them. I won't waste time giving thorough replies any longer. My last words on this with you will be this: The milkweed farms you bring up and the San Diego and L.A. milkweed gardens you refer to only seem to demonstrate that the monarch butterfly is an animal which we don't fully understand. To take those two examples (farms and the fall cluster sites in those areas) and jump to the conclusion that planting milkweed anywhere in North America is a waste of time is ridiculous. "It’s not possible for monarch butterfly enthusiasts to increase the wild monarch population." - 4af comment on the "Raising Monarchs Part 1" video. No scientist worth their weight in bottled water would ever make such a rash conclusion based on such small amount of isolated regional and short term evidence.
Jessy Zich That ring on the left hand in the video isn't just a fashion statement. Sorry! Bright side: Business opportunity! YOU could start the first "Entomologist Mingle" dating site!
Mr. Lund - my husband started beekeeping this spring in SE Michigan. To support him and the honeybees, I planted a pollinator garden. I then discovered your videos on the monarch butterfly decline which emboldened me to order 3 packs of milkweed seeds (which I stratified beginning in early April and planted in June.). I am so happy to report that I found 3 large caterpillars today in one of my new milkweed beds and also additional ones from mature plants that we have in our field. I am now raising them according to your video series and am hopeful they achieve chrysalis stage within a week or so. They are voracious little eaters! I see that I am indeed making a difference by planting the new milkweed, and for that I am so happy. Thank you Mr. Lund for your terrific videos!
Thank YOU, Lisa, for taking this to heart and doing what you can to help them out! And thank you also for testifying that yes, if you plant it, they will come.
I wish you luck with both your Monarchs and your bees. They need all the help they can get too!
yes, they do come!!! my school planted a native schoolyard habitat with plenty of narrow leaved milkweed (southern CA species) , and there are about 18 caterpillars out there as of Monday. LOVE your milkweed and monarch video series, especially music choices. I'm germinating seeds now... thanks for excellent teaching experiment
It definitely helps, first year i had 1 puny plant and a monarch caterpillar was munching on it, those plants have grown, i had 7 caterpillars in the Fall, and 7-9 more in March. Very pleased!
Thanks for providing some further evidence! I'm excited that the Michigan season rapidly approaches.
Absolutely! I live in an urban setting, not many green spaces around me, but I used an abandoned, empty tree pit (6’x6’) in the sidewalk in front of my house to make a pollinator garden. In that garden I planted 3 milkweed plants along with some other flowering natives. This year is the first year that I’ve had milkweed and I have had numerous caterpillars on my plants. I wasn’t expecting to see any in the first year, but I decided to help raise them in an outdoor cage. I currently have 4 five instars, 4 three instars, and 6 eggs. I am also saving the seeds that my milkweeds are producing to help “spread the love” throughout my urban landscape.
Hi, milkweed is the key. I always noticed the tons of butterflies we were getting and I continued building my perennial garden w/ alot of native and attractive flowers for them. A few miklweed plants showed up so we cultivated them as well, receiving a lot of attention from the Monarchs and other species.
Once I began this intense interest in our Monarch Butterflies we found milkweed everywhere in our front pasture that gets the most sun of all. A bonus was the two caterpillars that we rescued and one will be released late, like late October. Since we already had the soft net cage, I have placed a little container holding the milkweed branches in their own water piks! It works great. They last longer and clean up is easy, (but I haven't gotten to the point reaching forty or fifty Monarch cats!).
THANKS for all you do for them, the planet and all creatures on earth....including humans. Milkweed IS vital and so are the migrating & pollinators of the earth. It is apparently considered to be a vital indicator of how successfully wildlife is doing, along with the bees.
Hey rich
So, in August 2018 I went out to my humongous milkweed patch and my other little ones to search for eggs.
The total of monarchs was 144 eggs, 3 1st instars, 2 second instars, and 11 fifth instars! Great video!
Wowzers! That's quite the numbers!
I live in SE PA and this season so far (the monarchs have been here since April) I have gotten 155 EGGS!
Discovered your videos, planted milkweed and we found 4 eggs the next day! My babies are all in crysalis stage as of today. My 7 year old and I have enjoyed this so much. Oh, and planted parsley and yesterday we found 4 Swallowtail eggs! So exciting!
Swallowtails haven't been the most cooperative for me, so good luck with them. Good that you have some parsley going for them already. They can certainly be fun. Glad that you've also got your 7 year old into check out nature to this level!
I planted milkweeds last year and have been surprised at how many eggs and caterpillars I've seen on them. Due to low apparent survival rates I've started removing the eggs and raising them indoors. Your Monarch series are really great. You have such a dedication.
Thanks T! I appreciate you being a part of this, and glad these videos could help. If you have questions as you go, I try to respond to comments promptly! Good luck!
Awesome!!! I have Milkweed growing in my yard so I am going to transplant those little buggers to my garden! Blast the naysayers!
Officially blasted.
Right on! I absolutely love your videos! If you plant it, they will come!
Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge of these magnificent creatures with all of us. I ventured out to my local butterfly farm today called Idlewild Butterfly farm here in Kentucky and got my first milkweed plant, it's fairly large and had two Monarch butterfly eggs on it that I've found so far, complete with two ladybugs and numerous ladybug eggs. After watching your videos, I cut the two eggs from the leaves as you instructed, placed them in a container and am hoping to raise these guys. Great thing you and your family do for these tiny beings.
DMEBiller That's excellent! Take care of those eggs, as this time of the year, that's likely the generation that will be heading to Mexico. A larger thank you to yourself for taking on the challenge!
MrLundScience :)
what i do is i have a bunch of 309 milkweed in my garden and in my butterflyhouse i have 167 plants for them to eat fresh and i still collect leaves but i found out that putting it on a fresh plant protected from predators is the best method.
I transplanted some swamp milkweed seedlings into my far backyard because the seedlings were taking over a flower bed. I just ripped them out - the seedlings come out intact.
I pulled up grass in the backyard & tamped the seedlings down. They were growing larger the next day. When they were transferred for a week and were about 7 inches tall they were covered in eggs! All the eggs hatched and they ate the weeds down to a nub. They were only 3rd I started so I transferred them all to milkweeds in the other parts of my yard
Planted milkweed this year first time... only a few plants grew nicely, others probably too close. I found no eggs, but all of sudden other day 5 big Monarch Caterpillars.. bought them inside and within 2 days I have Chrysalis. I thought it was a complete failure even though I saw Monarchs around the house. But it Works!!!
I found a bunch of Wild Milkweed nearby that I plan on getting seeds from later this year.. Next Year.... Look Out!
Aw yeah. Testify!
Thank you so much for making this. That person is still posting lies to so many articles. This helps!
I’ve planted 10 milkweed plants last year in my yard to help the monarchs and also raise the monarchs.. last year may 2017 through Jan 2018 I raised and released 50ish monarch butterflies. Since I live in North Florida I found some really late eggs in what I had left of my milkweed in mid winter here. We had a really bad cold spell for about 5 days straight of freezing temps in December 2017 I just looked at my milkweed plants and found 2 caterpillars. 1 In 3rd Instar and 2 in second instar.. am happy to say they both survived but I didn’t have enough milkweed to feed them.i had an emergency as my milkweed outside turned brown and died but my nursery up the road from me was able to keep 2 milkweed plants alive from the 5 days of freezing temperatures. I purchased 1 plant and luckily it had enough fresh milkweed leaves to get both caterpillars to Chrysalis form and both were released on our warmest days in mid January and am sure they’ve survived as we have not had another freezing temp since before 1st was released! Looking forward to this new year and how many healthy monarchs I can raise and release
That's definitely some commitment! I too am looking forward to the summer. In the meantime, though, much to do in the spring. I hope you have time to check out the other videos that are being released (both recently, and soon to come). While not about Monarchs, I hope they have something to appeal to all!
Lo l love that last statement...
So many butterfly videos but not one talks about leaves shriveling up with the eggs on it when you pick the leaf with the eggs.
Where do I start? Apparently the purchase of only 3 milkweed plants about 3 weeks ago, now I have a nursery of cats with absolutely no prior knowledge.
Day 1 - My boyfriend and I wanted to "attract butterflies" to the yard and brought home 3 plants from our local extension's fall plant sale.
Day 2 - We had a monarch show up and stayed for 2-3 days. (not sure if it was the same one all 3 days, but I believe so).
We kept checking the plants daily just to be sure they we not being invaded by pests and that they were happy in their new ground. By about day 7 we gasped when we saw a bunch of little cats. In hindsight, and THANKS TO YOUR VIDEOS, I am confident those cats were not from eggs laid after we got the plants home but rather that there were eggs already present before we got the plants.
I found your videos while I was on a frantic mission to learn anything I could about protecting my cats after one horrible day I went out to photo the largest cat on the bush and a wasp was making a meal of it. My heart broke. I truly respect the food chain and nature's balance, and I even respect the role wasps play in an organic garden, but upon closer inspection that wasp had eaten quite a few and he was sure to make my plants a regular dinner spot. Your videos were instantly engaging as I have a huge passion for all things science and biology, but add to that..cool graphic tees and Mike Patton and now not only am I a huge fan, I have convince my boyfriend that you are happily married and of no threat, and now he is a fan as well. So this is as much a HIGH FIVE and a BIG THANKS as it is a little progress report.
Week 3 - We are now completely obsessed with and determined to find wild milkweed and even considering planting patches in our local wildlife preserves. We aren't sure if it is frowned upon, but we are a tad gangster when it comes to nature. We have 3 "chrysalides" (we agree it is better than "chrysalises") and today we finally got to watch a cat go from "J" into chrysalis completely, and your are right... it is AMAZING! We have containers everywhere with all stages and when we went yesterday to get more groceries for the kids, we enthusiastically scoured the plants of our organic grower for plants with the most eggs. You have empowered us immensely with your relatable videos and presentation. We still have lots to learn, but it is truly a passion to be a part of it all.
Now for a question..Here is a concern of mine: Before I realized how quickly the cats could devour a couple of leaves, I went out for the day and upon return I immediately check and they had run out of food. I was a little nervous that I didn't know exactly how long those few had been without or how they would react to it. I immediately put fresh leaves in their containers, but 2 of the larger ones never came down from the top and the next thing I knew they began to "J". Then I woke up to one of the smaller ones that apparently feasted all night and was out of food and had made its way to the top. The small one is nowhere near ready to pupate, but it occurred to me that being out of food may cause them to move to the next stage. Then I saw a comment in this thread to that very topic. Is it true that they will pupate too early if they are without food for any period of time? In my case it could have been 10 minutes or 3 hours. I am not certain.
+ROCKnFACES
Now that is what I call a comment! Ha!
Mike Patton is a musical genius. Pleased to hear you enjoy him and recognized him (as a Patton fan always will). I try to make the music somewhat (or a lot) fit the idea of what's happening in the video.
That being said, let me first say, in a wildlife preserve, emphasis is on the "preserve" and when we say preserve it, we don't just mean taking away from it, but adding to it. If there isn't a lot of milkweed there already, how do you know that having a patch of it won't attract certain insects (milkweed parasites) that could find other things in the preserve that it then gets a foothold population in? I can respect "gangsta botany", so to speak, but perhaps hands off the preserve? Maybe even better is to see what neighbors might be interested in planting with you. If you wish to do this long term, having some others doing it with you can provide you with not only extra leaves should you need them, but also, it helps spread the education of the cause. Even if they turn down planting any, they at least find out about the plight of the monarch! Planting milkweed in my front yard has helped show and promote the idea to neighbors that it is not a "weed" but a worthy addition. Just an idea you can work with and taste out. There's, of course, other options too in natural fields you might find, but I can only speculate, not exactly knowing where you're from.
On to the next part, with when the cat goes into chrysalis, there's likely a combination of factors. What signals to the cat "it's time" is something I don't know for sure, and I don't know if science has uncovered that or not. But, from my own experience, I know that it isn't always food that need be the factor. I've had some J-hang when there was still plenty of food present, but they were much smaller than other cats who still felt like eating. I would chalk it up to variation within the species. It's certainly possible that it could have eaten more food and grew more, but I would have to trust nature that the cats only decide to J-hang when they feel it's right. (They are, after all, more of an expert on the subject than any of us!) So, while giving more food may have resulted in that one eating more, I don't think that we could say that the lack of food is what caused it. I've had some run low, or out of food during a day trip away, but have never had any start J-hanging because of it, to my knowledge. You may have just had a smaller kinda guy/gal.
If you're enjoying the science in these vids, and you enjoy also the graphic tees and such, give a look to the Indy Labs at home science videos on this channel that I do, and pass the science on to others who might enjoy them too! That's the series I'm hoping to be able to do more with (NOT to say monarch videos are going away!)
Thanks for checking them out, and send any further questions my way!
+MrLundScience
Ha.. glad you enjoyed the comment.
**Sigh** you make a good point about planting in the preserve. We are in South Florida and everything grows like weeds down here, and I think that means we will have year round milkweed. Last year we discovered our specific Milkweed variety in the preserve but when we went back to search the same location it could not be found, hence the motivation to want to replenish it. I will consider asking permission. Right now, we need to streamline our system before we do much else, as I feel we have our hands full.
We have also collected at least 1000 seeds and still have a number of pods ripening on the plants. We just started germinating what is probably way too many seeds, but we are excited.
Yes... Patton is a musical genius, and what a treat it was to be getting my nerd on and have Patton of all voices sing the scene. Your own "genius" cred went through the roof with that little tidbit.
I will definitely be following your vids. You are a smart, articulate, cool presenter with very interesting topics... Science must be your students' favorite class.
It is probably good that you haven't take this to Facebook, because the comments would be too much to keep up with. You would be in the ranks of my beloved Alton Brown.
Keep "droppin sciene like Galileo dropped the orange"!
+ROCKnFACES
Thanks for the encouraging words.
Facebook has caused a lot of teachers problems. I'm still resisting for the time being.
If you get some awesome shots of your monarchs, put them on the channel. It can be worth while to video document your results. Whether you do or not, good luck to you and your boyfriend in your efforts, and know that the monarchs unconsciously appreciate it.
Just to be on the safe side, you have also seen the "Planting Milkweed" vids too, right? Those can show you the way I get my common milkweed seeds started, and I'm pretty confident it's not that much different for Florida native species.
I'm willing to venture that the nature preserve will say no. I may be wrong, but they tend to not want to give anyone a green light on such a thing, as it might open the door to a miscommunication and cause a problem with what winds up in the preserve. Still, good luck with any effort in that department!
Thanks for the Beastie Boys reference. I'd have to draw the conclusion with 85% confidence that if you like the Beastie Boys and Mike Patton, you are no stranger to a large influence in my life, Henry Rollins.
Yeah... We actually decided at first glance that you resemble Rollins. Glad you got the BB reference, kinda knew you would. I am half joking about asking permission, but I may just be only twice removed from the person who might give the thumbs up. We'll see. I am a determined and resourceful optimist when it comes to fulfilling an ideal.
Yes, we watched the planting milkweed video which is when we started germinating our seeds. I will be sure to level progress photos and clips. I just uploaded the pupation video from today to my TH-cam account so it should be finished uploading in another 97 hours.. (takes forever to upload for some reason).
I am having a heartache tonight as I set my cats outside for a bit and one of the containers with a cat about to "J" was blown off the table and the lid came off and the cat broke free. It isn't looking so great right now as he/she is now back on the bottom barely moving. :-(
+ROCKnFACES
I certainly empathize with your situation. I can see how someone could beat themselves up over that one. But, I would ask you to consider this: Did you do everything you could in your power, with the knowledge you had at the time? Didn't you also not give up?
As it sounds, you did everything you could at the time. What more could be asked? If you have many monarchs that you help, it will be unreasonable to expect there to never be any mistakes. And it's the mistakes and learning from them that help prevent future ones. I encourage you to keep at it, as you are definitely helping.
For introducing you to an expert who is accessible, I would have to say, for the most part, I don't know many. Much of my monarch education has came from website review, and trying it out for myself. If there's one person, though, I know knows more than me and can be accessed, it would be Mona Miller, who I mention around 12:15 in the Planting Milkweed Part 3 video. Check that out. She's part of a Facebook group, and I know that they can offer much help. She also has a channel with many videos on it. th-cam.com/users/Meadow231
I hope that helps!
In a follow up to my comment that Monarchs prefer young plants, have found a study conducted by Michigan State University indicating that the amount of eggs laid on young fresh plants as opposed to older mature plants with rougher leaves is as much as ten times greater.
Yes, they will scour the ground for fresh new plants. They spend so much time on the ground that I thought there was something wrong with the butterfly. But she flew just fine and was determined to check out every blade of grass (so to speak) and find every inch of fresh milkweed in the yard. As seen these videos, they will seek and find the milkweed. Type of milkweed is not as important. They will pick the one with green shoots at the time.
Help! My milkweed garden was mistakenly treated with insecticide and my monarch caterpillars are dying! Is there anything I can do to save my milkweed? I just started raising them indoors a month ago, released my first butterfly, and now I am devastated. Will bleaching the leaves help? Jacksonville FL
That definitely sucks. Very sorry to hear that this happened. As a chemist, we have a saying: dilution is the solution. If I were in your shoes, I'd do the following:
1) Check the plants for any and all Monarch eggs and caterpillars (and chrysalides, if you can find them).
2) Once collected, very generously and thoroughly spray down your flowers/plants that were affected. Do it way more than you think you need to. Then, do it again. Get every nook and cranny you can find.
3) For any eggs you find, bleach treat them, and rinse very thoroughly. (My video on "OE Parasite Prevention" shows how to do this.)
4) For any caterpillars you raise, bleach treat the leaves. (My video on "Preventing NPV & Other Infections" shows this.)
5) For any caterpillars that have already eaten tainted milkweed, there's not much you can do but hope for the best. I'd keep them separate, and give them all a fighting chance, but go into such knowing that some or all may be lost.
Very sorry that this happened. I wish you luck!
What kind of Milkweed did your Mother-in-Law plant? Doesn’t look like Common to me.
Thanks
Bought seeds last year and this Spring we had terrible late frost and really cold nights through June. (🇨🇦Zone5) My attempt to grow from seeds was a fail 🥺 HOWEVER I've been rewatching your videos over the past 2 days since Monarchs are in the news again. Started to look around our property edges and found some but the biggest healthiest plants were wedged behind the rain barrel between our shed and wood pile. For sure shady for most of the day. I decided to look under the leaves and I'm pretty sure I have eggs!!!!! Smart Monarch found the shady spot during these awful heatwaves. I'm going to hopefully banned and save seed and get a whole bunch more going next year. I think it's time for some gorilla seed sowing out around my community 😉
why do I have aphids on my milkweed. I used soapy water and sprayed them all off, but still concerned they will come back.
+kentuckmn
The easy answer is that aphids like milkweed. I find aphids all the time. I have not experienced them causing any problems with the caterpillars or eggs. However, aphids can attract ants, and some ants will munch down a monarch egg. As for soapy water on the plant, that might cause some chemical harm to the caterpillars if they are then eating the leaf and ingesting the soap residue. I'd avoid that in the future.
Thanks for being a part of the much needed help of the monarchs!
My question to you Rich is have you ever come across any solid scientific research that Monarchs prefer one type of milkweed over another?
Do you know if the monarch population is growing, as off 10/2016?
In total? No. I can say that, as expected, once the 4th generation has emerged, the numbers are the largest they'll be for the year. How they compare to last year, I'm not sure, but due to the storm that occurred during their migration north, it's likely to be considerably lower than last year. Brace yourself for the count that will be released around January/February from Mexico. I don't predict it will be good news.
Do ALL the Monarchs follow just one migration route all at the same time?
They indeed do not. For starters, the North American populations are only a portion of the total species. There are Monarchs in South America and even Australia.
As far as North American Monarchs, this site has a decent blog on the topic, and includes a map showing known and suspected migration routes: www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/monarch-butterfly-migration-rebounds
That's good news for their survival. I have a stand of "Tuberosa" in my garden, but would like to get another variety that blooms later. I'm in New York.
@@MrLundScience También tenemos una población estable de mariposa monarca en las Islas Canarias. El clima nos permite el cultivo y mantenimiento de la Asclepia durante todo el año y la mariposa Monarca se beneficia de eso. Deshovan durante los 12 meses y l@s que cultivamos la planta hospedera disfrutamos del cuidado de éstas y las orugas todo el tiempo. Gracias por su trabajo. Unas lecciones impagables
Does the variety of milkweed I plant matter?
I would say (as would others), it's best to stick with milkweed species that already are native to your region. Common Milkweed has the widest range, and thus, you might already be in such a region. Also, that plant has some rather broad leaves compared to other species. Here's a page that shows its range: www.everwilde.com/store/Asclepias-syriaca-WildFlower-Seed.html
When in doubt, try a search with the milkweed species name, plus the word "range" and see if it's native to your area.
Good luck!
+MrLundScience Can it only be found in the US?
Monarchs seem to show some preference for young fresh milkweed plants for some reason.
Nice
After watching a couple of your videos, I seeing a major difference between your Monarchs and the West coast Monarchs. I've never seen them lay eggs in abundance like you've been documenting. They rarely will lay more than 1 egg per plant. Laying so many eggs, they're destroying themselves as they would have all died if you didn't intervene. Although, I have read they will go into Pupa early if they run out of food.
David Dube The female I "kidnapped" who laid 93 eggs for me is a special case, I think we can agree. With the 38 eggs on my mother in law's plants, that WAS a rare surprise. I too find in the wild usually one egg per plant if any. Sometimes I'll find two eggs per plant, but there's no guarantee it's from the same monarch. Over the 5 summers I've been doing this, only maybe two other times have I found an "egg dump" of about ten on a plant. This batch of 38 was a shocking surprise. When I get home and find just a couple on my plants in my yard, that's more the norm.
If you plant nectar plants that attract Monarchs Mr. Lund, that will increase the egg-laying possiblities by Monarchs. :-) I recommend that to new people getting into raising Monarchs. :-)
johnifly I fully agree. We have many cone flowers and butterfly bushes in our yard, and in the last week, we've had eggs on our new milkweed every other day.
Hey Mr. Lund, just wanted you to know that I DO appreciate you making all these videos on raising Monarchs and planting milkweed and the details involved. Wanted you to know, if I didn't tell you before, that all of the "TH-cam" links to your videos are in the "Files" section of my group "Monarchs and Milkweed." I would really be honored if you checked out my group on Facebook and to ask to join. I will aprove you if you do. Your wealth of knowledge would be a GREAT help in my group. Every day I approve members to the group and we are almost up to 2,600 members and they all have a zeal in planting milkweed and in raising the Monarchs. Besides, they are also VERY HELPFUL in answering questions and you would be a valuable addition to our group! I hope you consider. Here's the link:
facebook.com/groups/688389397869570/
johnifly Greetings! I appreciate the appreciation! It is greatly appreciated! I am not part of the Facebook revolution. I'll explain why through a message to your account, but if I WAS, I'd ask to join your group immediately!
You have to show the eggs produce alot of adult butterflies. Especially late summer butterflies that migrate to the overwintering sites. This video shows monarch production at a milkweed wholesale nursery is poor: th-cam.com/video/x9Dz8X5Wb7o/w-d-xo.html Therefore the nursery plants are not boosting the size of the migratory population that will migrate to Mexico.
4af Greetings again!
Just to recap and we can be on the same page, here are some previous comments you have given, all of which were on the Raising Monarchs Part 1 video:
"It’s not possible for monarch butterfly enthusiasts to increase the wild monarch population. Why? Because approximately 3 billion milkweed plants still grow in the wild and support the existing population of 100 million fall migrant monarch butterflies. So that means roughly 30 plants produce 1 fall migrant butterfly. So even if enthusiasts planted 100,000 more milkweeds during the next 5 years, only about 3,333 more butterflies would be produced - not even 1/100th of one percent more than already exist!"
"looks like I need to set up a video camera next to giant fields of planted milkweeds like these one www.imagegainer.com/images/PaulCherubini/threec.jpg so that everyone can see how few wild monarchs they attract and how few monarch caterpillars can be found on them."
"none of the "plant milkweed save the monarch" businesses has posted even one photo of a large patch of milkweed they successfully grew from seed in a wild place such as a roadside, railway line, creekbank, or pasture. Nor have they posted proven planting instructions that others could follow. They're just interested in making millions of dollars selling $60 flats of potted milkweeds to home gardeners along with a $33.00 certification and sign for the garden."
I really want to be as respectful as I can here, as I think discussion of this complex problem is necessary if the citizen science we are trying to do is to be effective. Thus, I welcome the different point of views that you are bringing to the table, and as I hope I've clearly stated, I respect your skepticism. That being said:
1) Concerning your first quote, you still did not give any source as to how you have counted the number of milkweed plants. I would still like to know where you acquired that number. Your statement that it takes 30 plants to produce 1 migrant monarch greatly hinges on that "3 billion" value. My patch of 7 milkweed has already produced (naturally, without my help) 4 monarchs, which emerged three and two days ago. (Two were female.) If they are migrants, your back of the envelope calculation is already pretty far off. If they aren't migrants, the number of migrants those two females produce is highly likely to be more than 4. The point being, your 30 plants equaling 1 migrant estimate doesn't seem to match what I've seen first hand.
Anyone else reading this care to chime in? Have your milkweed plants produced more than 1 fall monarch for every 30 plants?
2) Concerning your second quote, and your comment on this video, I did click on the link and saw the field, and I also viewed your video, equally of two fields which seem to have low or no monarch activity.
I don't really understand why you are showing this. Nowhere in my video series, be it "Raising Monarchs" or "Planting Milkweed" do I encourage planting fields of milkweed. Likewise, nowhere do I encourage financially supporting milkweed farms. Perhaps the fields you are visiting provide us with helpful data as we try to understand this complex problem, and it turns out that fields of milkweed isn't the solution. Perhaps backyard milkweed and small spot
locations is. Based upon the daily comments and messages I've gotten, many have been having success in their backyards thanks to milkweed they planted.
I can't help but notice a strong difference between those fields you refer us to and home backyards is that those fields don't seem at all to be near nectar producing flowers, other than the milkweed themselves. Sure, nectar is provided by the milkweed plant. But in our backyards, usually if someone is planting milkweed, they are doing it among a variety of nectar flowers. I have cone flowers throughout my yard...and I have eggs on my milkweed. My mother in law has cone flowers in her garden...and she has eggs on her milkweed. The milkweed fields you reference have little variety nearby, it would seem. Perhaps that is a factor. I fully admit, I do not know. What I do know, though, is that yes, people are having success in their backyards.
You've visited fields within your region. It seems illogical to claim that what you are witnessing applies to all of North America. I question very much if you've read the success stories people are leaving in the comments of my videos. They come in from all over the U.S. and some from Canada. Shouldn't that success speak louder to you than a couple of fields you've visited, confined to just within your one region?
3) I went ahead and posted a video that clearly shows the eggs that are being laid on home grown plants. I thought that would be rather strong evidence that planting milkweed gives monarchs options, and success can and does happen. Now you tell me, "You have to show the eggs produce alot of adult butterflies."
To be blunt, no I don't. The claims you made in your previous comments were along the lines of the idea that planting milkweed won't attract monarchs significantly, and that our backyard efforts are futile, and we can expect the same lack of success that apparently milkweed farms in Oregon are having. My video clearly debunks that. The monarchs are attracted to the milkweed we are planting, and they are laying eggs. Again, feel free to read the comments of my videos and see more for yourself.
I don't know what the goal would be of showing "the eggs produce alot of adult butterflies." The first claims you made were that our efforts wouldn't attract monarchs and get them to lay eggs. I debunked that, and now you claim that I need to show that those eggs make it to adulthood, and the migrant generation at that. This tactic is called "moving the target". If I were to make such a video that shows these eggs making it to adulthood, the next move of the target could be that I have to then prove that they make it to Mexico.
One last thing that is worth mentioning, I think, is that while there are many to the west of the Rockies using these videos to inspire them in helping their monarch populations, I showed in the very first video that these two series are focused on the east of the Rockies population. It's quite possible that the answer to helping the western monarch population is not the same answer to helping the eastern population.
I just want to reiterate so that it's clear, I respect fully your views and your evidence that milkweed farms aren't doing much. I just disagree that my channel is the best place to try and make that point. You are obviously concerned with the monarch butterfly as well, and I want to commend you and tip my hat to you on that front. If we were to sit down and enjoy some coffee together, we might find we have much more in common than we do different.
Thank you again for your feedback!
MrLundScience the greatest density of home garden planted milkweeds in the USA can be found in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, but the sizes of the monarch fall cluster sites in those cities has not been increasing www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/WMTC-Data-1997-2014.pdf And that's because the home garden milkweeds are producing so few extra butterflies.
4af Duly noted.
It would seem you don't care to comment on the multitude of points I bring up. I have my own hypothesis as to why you ignore them. I won't waste time giving thorough replies any longer.
My last words on this with you will be this:
The milkweed farms you bring up and the San Diego and L.A. milkweed gardens you refer to only seem to demonstrate that the monarch butterfly is an animal which we don't fully understand. To take those two examples (farms and the fall cluster sites in those areas) and jump to the conclusion that planting milkweed anywhere in North America is a waste of time is ridiculous.
"It’s not possible for monarch butterfly enthusiasts to increase the wild monarch population." - 4af comment on the "Raising Monarchs Part 1" video.
No scientist worth their weight in bottled water would ever make such a rash conclusion based on such small amount of isolated regional and short term evidence.
P.S. Are you on Facebook?
+kentuckmn
I am not part of the Facebook revolution.
My friends all tell me I need to find someone who loves monarchs as much as I do. Any chance you're single? =)
Jessy Zich That ring on the left hand in the video isn't just a fashion statement. Sorry! Bright side: Business opportunity! YOU could start the first "Entomologist Mingle" dating site!