The Good Life – May-June 2024

WRITTEN BY: JEFFREY MILLER
As a kid growing up on a small farm in southcentral Minnesota, my
memories of milkweed linger. When we moved back to farm, following
my grandparents passing, dad started small. He only sprayed the
soybean crop once, and any weeds that popped up after that and
before harvest were handled the old-fashioned way, by “walking the
beans.” We would each tackle a couple of rows and walk down them,
pulling any plants that didn’t belong there out of the dark soil. I always
cringed when I found milkweed, as the latex would make my hands
sticky. However, any milkweed not found in the soybean fields was
safe. There seemed to be a lot more Monarch butterflies each year too.
What is a Milkweed?
There are a number of native milkweeds, all belonging to the
Asclepias species. An herbaceous perennial, milkweed has broad
opposite leaves, color flower blooms and seed pods that produce silky,
windblown seeds. Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on the plant.
The “milk” produced when a milkweed is broken is a latex substance.
Compounds called glycosides are poisonous to most other animals.
Not only does the monarch caterpillar have resistance to the toxin, but
the ingestion of the compounds also makes them toxic to predators!
In an interesting coevolution, the milkweed responds to caterpillar
activity by growing new plant tissue at a more rapid rate.
6 | THE GOOD LIFE