Big trees live a thousand years, fruit trees get sick: Liu Dongqi and the Tree Nerd team apply old-tree wisdom to agriculture
"If you tie a person to a cross and lock them in a tiger cage, what happens? They get eaten! Trees are the same. It just stands there quietly, and all kinds of pests and diseases come to eat it. People who follow conventional farming spray chemicals to serve as its defense force. But think about it: how does a tree a thousand years old come to be? It doesn't get sprayed, many creatures feed on it, so how does it manage to live a thousand years?"
"This principle is exactly what organic farming should pursue. In nature, what is a tree's way of protecting itself?" Tree doctor Liu Dongqi had just finished giving thanks, fertilizer and a salute to the great camphor tree of Jiji, Nantou, and was hurrying on to inspect a nearby contract-farmed tea garden. Each year he treats more than a hundred old trees, and a little over a year ago he also began stepping into the fields of fruit trees and tea trees. Under the name "Tree Nerd," he works alongside farmers to explore the scientific methods of organic cultivation, hoping to apply the wisdom of thousand-year-old giant trees to fruit trees and tea trees.
At first he was asked by farmers to diagnose fruit trees, but he plunged headlong into agriculture. Liu Dongqi laughs, "Because I felt that if I can heal thousand-year-old trees, what are a few decades-old fruit trees?" But after jumping in, "I found it was a completely different story."
