I have just finished reading an online book "Chemicals, Humus, and The Soil" written by Donald P. Hopkins. This book is available through the agriculture library at
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It seems to me that Mr Hopkins makes a very strong case in favour of using the fertilisers that are not permissible under the "rules" of organic gardening. Although Mr Hopkins has discussed this matter in the context of commercial farming it seems to me that as home growers we are also looking for best yield for least cost (direct and labour) and that the arguments he presents are mostly just as valid for home growers as for commercial.
Mr Hopkins emphasises to a very great extent the need for large amounts of organic matter in the soil but is also convincing in his argument that the amounts of humus that are required to provide sufficient nutrients for the high density planting that both home and commercial growers favour is difficult for the home grower and expensive to the point of impossibility in the case of the commercial grower to obtain.
I wonder if anyone else has read this book and can comment on the validity of the arguments put forward by Mr Hopkins.
Also, are there any peer-reviewed studies regarding the "taste" of organic vs. non-organic produce (presumably these would be double blind trials) and the bio-availability of nutrients in organic vs. non-organic produce. Obviously, I would prefer at least abstracts to be available via the internet.
Umm , I think different people garden for different reasons. Having a vegetable garden is an optional activity for most people these days and those that have them do so for different reasons.
Some of the ideas are;
1) it is a relaxing activity,
2) greater variety of foods,
3) greater variety of types,
4) reduced agricultural chemical intake,
5) self reliance,
6) skill development,
7) other.
G'day, I'm glad you jumped in Terry, a bloke could earn a PH.D answering this one in detail!
China Wingham NSW
p.s. Ivan, yours is a fair post, but while you are at your library, also check out a book by the name of 'The One Straw Revolution', also interesting reading.
I haven't read the book but I adopt the philosophy of "ideology grows no potatoes"
By all means take the long view and care for the soil, air and water, and animals and ourselves. Let's do this using the best information at hand. Accept that the resources of the earth are limited and need to be managed carefully.
There is very good evidence that maintaining organic matter in the soil is important, that broadacre monoculture using synthetics has drawbacks and for many other ideas espoused by organic grower.
Consider the converse too: I recently listened to a great heap of claptrap about why "natural" pyrethrins should be used to kill insects instead of synthetic. These people were discussing the issue most seriously.
If you are going to kill insects then be aware of the consequences of killing them and make a good decision whether it is worth it or not. Don't waste time on the ideological question of whether the poison came out of a test tube; it's still poison. It is more useful to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
It would be similarly stupid to think that you can get sustainable good results with only "chemical" fertilisers and just as stupid to never use them under any conditions.
The correct answer is "It depends". There are two aspects of non-organic gardening, pesticides and fertilizing. Here in Michigan many pests, present further south, are simply absent due to cold winters, and one can really go organic on that count. The only recurrent problem I have is with vine borers. So if I were willing to go without zucchini, and accept some ragged holes in my collards and kales, I could indeed be perfectly organic (I cover the zucchini and accept the holes, if you are keeping score).
As far as organic matter it is true that, past 10 or 20%, there is a diminished advantage in adding more. When you do add more, you gain moderate amounts of fertilizer and the increased levels of humus increase the plant's overall health and therefore resistance to several stresses, including drought and pests. It is also possible that you gain in micronutrients content by using compost.
I have to wonder how sweeping a statement one could make re: viability. Suppose I needed extra N and P in my yard (or in my commercial farm), I could do that with a a single box each of bone meal and bloodmeal, which are viable organic amendments for a farm as well. No need to drag a ton of leaves across the yard or bring twenty dumptrucks into the farm. I would also like to know if any kind of rock dust is organic or not, since it is mined after all.
Besides the more restricted choice of veggies (and more limited productivity) for a farmer at a given location and time, there is the more strict rotation that organic agriculture forces you into, which, as a farmer, will diminish your ability to follow the market. There is the obvious improvement in water quality and the lesser evolution of major pests. If your goal is to have a garden with carefree, healthy veggies, that grow well in your locale, and without insisting on growing varieties which need chemicals, organic is certainly a viable way of gardening.
When you are organic, in a sense, you are taking care of several problems (soil conditioning, fertilizing, reducing weeding and watering, improving plant health and vegetable nutrient content) with the single act of applying two inches of compost in the spring. It is very efficient for the home gardener.
"Ray Drouillard" wrote in news:c0osk0$19gge2$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-193109.news.uni-berlin.de:
It's this sort of anectodal evidence, Ray, that I'm curious about - one of my friends had a load of vegies from my totally organic garden last year and maintained how much better they were than the chemically grown ones. Yet I genuinely couldn't say definitely one way or the other ... sure, they were nicer but was that just a matter of being 5 minutes old versus being at least 5 days old?
From what I remember from high school agriculture some 30 years ago, if you apply chemical fertilisers direct to a (basic) soil, then your plants only have a short time (the time it takes to leach through) in which to take up the nutrients, etc that the chemical provided.
Adding organic matter to the soil provides an enormous amount (relative) of places/sites for the chemicals to be bound/held/delayed so there is a greater store of chemical for the plants to later take up and the chemical is less easily leached out of the soil.
So Mr Hopkins ideas have been adapted in modern agriculture.
"Organic" to me is a system of certification and thus something is "organic" if it is certified to be organic. End of story.
Some farmers are making a living being organic famrers. End of story about cost, etc. So that answers your question in the subject.
Okay, we are forced to live in a capitalist world and the capitalist world just exploits resources to enable some people to maximise the amount of money they make at the expense of other people and the environment.
So, not all farmers can afford to be successful organic farmers. because as you say, the cost of that organic matter can be too high. If you look at the nutrient cycle as per human activities, we have a few 1000 (?) farmers growing food, that is 99% shipped to capital cities for sale (99%) and consumption (95%)(Yes, some of it goes back - weird). So basically our cities are drowning in shit each year. To prevent this happening, we pump it out to sea. What %? and What % is now sold as landscape fill, etc?
So, if a farmer wants to do what is right by the environment, they then have to pay for cartage of that organic matter back to his farm, which for most means that the costs of farming inputs are too high and they would not have a commerically viable farm. Note, that book was written in 1948 and transport infrastructure has greatly changed since then.
Instead, farmers tend to produce organic matter on the farm by growing other crops, e.g, sub-clover with crops to directly provide nitrogen, pastures that stock eat and defecate, etc.
As a home gardener,
1) I compost all food scraps and if I am feeling energetic, shred and compost the newspaper, etc. Worry about energy cost of shredding and have only just workerd out that it all had a ph of 5, which is why is made negligible difference.
2) obtain bulk animal manures, (e.g horse and chicken), occassionally as chance and carrying capacity allows. Actually, I know where I can get trailer loads of stable stuff for free (Cobboty, NSW), but I have to let it stand for weeks as the horses are regularly wormed and it has a very large component of sawdust, so I tend not to.
3) buy commercial compost off the chicken farmers and mushroom farmers and use that. Costs, but easily to handle, store (bagged) and use. and it worked on the tomatoe this summer as we had a nice crop. however, the beans were awful.
As I understand it, someone did some blind tests to prove or disprove the claim that home-grown veggies taste better, and the results basically were that even the home growers couldn't tell their own produce from supermarket bought produce. I don't know whether this was cooked, raw or a mixture of both.
But I don't care, there's nothing to beat the smug feeling of knowing that you grew what you're eating.
Why would these exist? It almost impossible to do anyway, because everything (soil, slope, aspect, ph, watering, handling, storage, cooking) affects taste and it would be impossible to produce the amount of raw material that could be considered to be identical to generate statistically valid results.
Anyway, I grew tomatoes this year "organically" and they tasted s**te, like cardboard. These were the Roma seedlings our neighbour gave us. In the same plot, self seeded, grew one cherry tomato plant that tasted beautiful.
Similar story with the potatoes. a neighbour gave us a butter plate size potato they had they had sprouted, so it was split and planted along with our usual range of potatoes. Again, it was bland compared to the Keflers, Desire, etc that we also planted.
The problem of taste is largely a result of modern agriculture selecting varieties that are quick growing, handle easily and store easily. Taste is the last thing they care about.
For the home gardener, if you want taste, look at heritage seeds and varieties.
I wonder who did the study. I wonder what veggies were used. Radishes and lettuce might be difficult, but I have yet to see a store-boughten peach that comes even close to one that was picked ripe from the tree (as opposed to being picked green and ripened after being severed from its source of sugar). The same sort of goes for tomatoes. It isn't as much an issue of vine-ripening, but there is a taste that comes with home grown tomatoes that is missing in the store-boughten fare. Perhaps buying some of the $3.00/pound premium tomatoes would fix that, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Plus it's just plain damn fun to go out to the yard and pick your lunch and cook it fresh off the plants... :-) Tastier too. :-d At least in my experience.
Sometimes tho' I have to wonder if it's worth the water bills!
There is nothing on gods green earth more heavenly than a VINE RIPE tomato fresh off the vine! Most sweet 100 cherry tomatoes never even make it into the house. Eat them puppies right off the vine, sun warmed. ;-d
Fresh picked string beans steamed right off the vine run a close second.
I think it is more of a question of freshness. Really, but that's just my opinion. I also just love to go and pull fresh onions for that day's brunch.
"shazzbat" wrote in news:c0p2em$e2a$ snipped-for-privacy@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk:
Yes, absolutely!
The fulfilment of a dream of some years of growing my own vegies is the reason I started in the first place - just for the "smug" factor.
Unfortunately growing vegies will be actually be of quite some economic importance to me by this time next year and hence my interest in factory fertilisers versus non-factory - I'm sure I will be able to realise my needs without factory fertiliser but if using factory fertiliser will be cheaper in terms of land, currency and labour and doesn't necessarily sacrifice health and/or taste then I'm all for it.
This is some use of the word "smug" with which I'm not familiar
Terry Collins wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@woa.com.au:
Oh yes! I'm not arguing at all against those people who can do it - I honestly believe that if it was possible for all farms to be independent of factory fertilisers then that would be best.
Although I agree to a certain extent with your statement I don't think I used that point as a thesis. If I did it was completely unintentional - much as I dislike the fact, I have accepted that I am living in a capitalist country and that not everything that is done in the name of capitalism (or any other form of politics-ism) is necessarily good for the world.
This is one of the points that the book makes as I'm sure you know. I'm aware that transport infrastructure has changed since then but so has the requirements of a commercially viable farm. That is, as the population has continued to grow we have either of more product per hectare being required or more hectares being required. In either event, it seems to me that whatever cost efficiencies have been gained in transport will be lost through the greater bulk of material being used.
I wasn't aware that this is large-scale practise. Thanks.
From the snipped advice regarding composting, I also compost what I can and am looking at getting in grass clippings and chook manure to build up the sand that I currently have.
Perhaps I erred by mentioning the book but I wanted to be clear that I was not being "anti-organic" and that my questions had, at least, a reasonably sensible basis.
Terry Collins wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@woa.com.au:
Thanks Terry - that sums up nicely what I have been thinking but I was curious about the "chemical taste factor". From the replies to date, that seems to have been settled fairly well as well for me.
If that is the case, work out how much your motor vehicle costs to run, because you will need to factor that into everything you do food wise.
The cheapest food is bulk buying at the markets. The early markets where all the grocers buy, not the retail/paddy's type. the problem then becomes with what to do with 40kg bags of carrots, etc. which you can always compost 50% {;-).
Otherwise, start looking around for supplies of organic matter; manure and compost.
Perhaps a local restaurant won't mind you taking vege scraps away. If you are going to handle meat scraps, you really have to know what you are doing with composting as it can smell = problems with neighbours.
Look at race tracks, they are generally quite happy for people to take the manure away.
Generally, a farmer is required to produce more with less. So their yield per acres has to be up and they have less workers and bigger machinery. And as a general rule (at least in this country - Australia) they also require more land.
To give you an example. After WWII, my wife's uncle obtain a soldier settler grant and started dairy farming with 40 head and two farm assistants. By the time he retired/sold out, he was milking 200 head by himself.
The land exception is agriculture that is really an industrial process, e.g. chickens for meat and eggs, aquaculture (modern, not farm dams), mushroom growing, feedlots (cattle, pigs), some vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers) etc.
Transport wise, modern trucks are far more powerful, thus carry more faster, which means the driver is more efficent, but also B-doubles also means that the driver is also able to carry a double load. This all reduces the cost component of transport. the increased amount is more to do with population growth and the sad fact that Australia largely imports any manufactured item.
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