Spirit Fall 2020 Edition 29
HOWMILKWEED PROTECTS MONARCHS
itself is protected with those toxins as well.”
BY JOB VIGIL jvigil@nptelegraph.com
Rather than being camouflaged, monarch
Monarch caterpillars feed on milkweed, but the plant also provides them with a defense mechanism against predators. Julie Peterson, field crops entomology specialist at the West Central Research and Extension Center in North Platte, said milkweed plants contain some noxious chemicals. “They have these cardiac glycosides, which is basically a toxin for insects,” Peterson said. “Then that milk is actually like a type of latex.” She said the chemicals in the milkweed are toxic and the sticky latex can gum up the mouth of anything that eats it. The monarch and other insects that eat milkweeds are able to detoxify or sequester those toxic chemicals. “That’s actually one thing that the monarch butterflies are able to do,” Peterson said. “When they’re feeding on the plant as a caterpillar, they ingest those toxins from the milkweed plant and they sequester the toxins. “They basically store the toxins in their own body, and then that makes the caterpillars themselves toxic, and that protects caterpillars from being eaten.” In some studies, Peterson said, the caterpillars were given to blue jays to eat. “They’ll taste them once and then they’ll spit them out because they have these toxins and they taste very bad,” Peterson said. “The caterpillars keep those toxins in their bodies until they become butterflies, and the butterfly
caterpillars and butterflies are brightly colored for protection against predators. “The coloring of the caterpillar is called aposematic coloration, usually that bright orange and red in nature,” Peterson said. “Especially in insects, that means, ‘hey, I am gross tasting, I am protected with these toxins, you don’t want to eat me.’” Peterson said monarch caterpillars are quite restricted on what they can eat — just milkweeds. “There are actually 17 different species of milkweeds in Nebraska,” Peterson said. “There’s more diversity than you realize. But what we usually see and what we know of is the common milkweed, which is that typical one that you see along roadsides.” Choices of milkweed varieties depend on soil conditions, she said. “These species are native to our environment, she said. “These are species that have been around in our ecosystem for a long time.” She said they are not invasive but can be a concern for farmers. “We try to control them with being in the roadside ditches or maybe in non-irrigated pivot corners where you’re not producing crops,” Peterson said. “We try to encourage growing them there and to not spray them when they are in those corners.”
“(Dad) went from a really big-budget program to ‘what can we do with my life savings?'" Dekleva said. “In order to get sales, they had to focus on low-volume, high-value products. That’s where Ogallala Comfort came into being and we started selling down comforters and pillows.” The products are crafted in Ogallala. The long-term plan was to create a new agriculture based on milkweed. “As we learned more about the agricultural aspect of doing milkweed,” Dekleva said, “milkweed, being a weed, wants to do what it wants to do. If you want it to grow, it says, ‘I don’t think so.’ If you want it to go away, it’s like ‘I think this looks like a great spot.’” Ogallala Comfort received the Innovator of the Year Award from Nebraska Business Development Center in April. Debbie Dekleva, left, is the general manager and owner of what is now three companies, Herb and Karen Knudsen. Herb, founder of the original company, died in April. Photo courtesy of Ogallala Down
Dekleva said the company’s efforts turned to conservation.
“Since milkweed has been sold as the food source of the monarch butterfly, what we did is we started paying communities for milkweed pods so it would protect the monarch habitat in their areas,” Dekleva said. “Milkweed likes to grow in biodiversity. It doesn’t like the monoculture kind of way that we’re used to doing agriculture.” The pillows and comforters are made with a combination of goose down and milkweed fiber. The fiber is extracted from milkweed pods at the plant in Ogallala. Dekleva said the company has developed a milkweed balm, as well as other products, and she has started a nonprofit to expand the possibilities of uses for milkweed through collaborative efforts. “I started a nonprofit in North Platte — Sustainable Monarch — because we did so many monarch conservation activities, the reason we named the company Monarch Flyway,” Dekleva said. “Our vision is to have so many uses for milkweed that you have a flight path from Mexico to Canada because people are protecting that habitat.” For more information on Monarch Flyway, check out the Facebook page at facebook.com/monarchflyway and the Ogallala Comfort website at ogallalacomfort.com.
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