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  • From: Hugh Lovel <uai AT alltel.net>
  • To: Douglas Hinds <dmhinds AT acnet.net>, org-grow AT pd.org, market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Cc: sanet-mg AT ces.ncsu.edu, bdnow AT envirolink.org, ANA07968 AT nifty.com
  • Subject: Re: Microbial innoculants (was: Re: quetions)
  • Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 12:08:52 -0500


Dear Douglas, Sal, Bart, et. al.,

Finally on his death bed the great Pasteur acknowledged the primacy of the
medium over the innoculum. Seemingly he'd known it most of his life. One
HAD to have a suitable culture medium before a microorganism could be
cultured, and for any given strain the window of opportunity could be quite
sensitive and narrow. Find the right substrate and the right conditions,
however, and Voila!

During his agriculture course Rudolf Steiner was asked about culturing
microorganisms and kicking off composts with these. His response was this
probably would be of little worth, and that what was important was to
insert a small dose, island or seed of each of several composting
preparations now known in BD parlance as 502-507 into the heap. These he
indicated would radiate their effects throughout the pile and create the
conditions necessary for optimum composting.

I was fortunate in 1989 to attend the ACRES, U.S.A. convention in Kansas
City and to hear Dr. John Porter speak. Dr. Porter had spent decades
traveling the world as an environmental remediator cleaning up one toxic
disaster after another. As a microbiologist he isolated some especially
toxic cleanup capabable strains of microorganisms which he used in his
restoration of rivers, lakes and offshore problems. His near mantric finish
to each of dozens of success story vignettes was, "All it takes is life."
But he indicated during the question and answer period that the
microorganisms were not the key so much as was broadcasting fertilizers and
otherwise creating the requisite conditions for those microorganisms to
thrive. Once the conditions were properly adjusted remediation was
virtually assured. Special microorganisms were icing on the cake, a final
flourish that ensured high environmental quality.

What I'm talking about here is organization versus chaos. I could as well
say life versus death. According to physicists, who take extraordinary joy
from examining only what is lifeless and seem non-plussed when faced with
living organisms in vitro, the universe as a whole is running down. Usable
energy increasingly disperses and becoming unusable. From this Kantian,
materialistic viewpoint a living organism or an organized system such as a
vortex in air or water, a crystal growing in a solution, a mammal, a
hurricane or an ore deposit, all are ISLANDS of order within an ocean of
chaos. What makes them so? What brings order out of this ocean of miasmic
entropy?

Take a look at James Gleick's book, CHAOS: Making A New Science. It soon
becomes apparant that the universe expands, gravitates or is drawn in
whatever directions into patterns. These are dynamic patterns which grow
and reinforce themselves because they are resonant, or which disperse
because they lose this resonance and decay. From the equations of quantum
mechanics which describe where the electrons may be found enshrouding a
nucleus to Bode's Law and its permutations which astronomers use to
describe where planetary bodies occur in a stellar vortex, everything
manifest seems one way or another to be drawn into patterns within bounds.
The recently discovered boundary of the solar system, the heliopause, is an
example of this boundary phenomenon that gives rise to islands of order out
of chaos. Boundaries. Laminar flow in fluid dynamical systems. Vortexya!
The universal yin/yang.

Living organisms with their cell walls, skins or whatever are especially
successful at developing a high degree of order within their little islands
amidst the general chaos. It is interesting that the higher the complexity
of patterning the higher degree of order achieved in these islands, and the
more successful these islands are at drawing on the chaos around them to
create order. Thus Wilhelm Reich's rule that life force flows from lower
concentration to higher concentration. This was the rule he observed that
allowed him to develop his orgone accumulators, cloudbusters, medical DOR
busters and so forth. Like his fellow countrymen, Viktor Schauberger and
Rudolf Steiner, he even conceived of building motors operating on this
principle, and no doubt secret US military research projects are devoted to
this very thing.

You know, it makes one wonder. Why was it so easy for China to access our
neutron bomb secrets? What were we really hiding that made it expeditious
to bait the Chinese spies with neutron bomb info like a red herring dragged
back and forth across the path? Perhaps I shouldn't talk like this, but I
get frustrated with the general lack of thought to question the meanings of
world events. Why did we bomb the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade? Accident?
Really?

One can be certain the nightly news misdirects peoples' thinking, sometimes
promulgates outright lies and in general lulls folks into a false sense of
being well-informed. Well-informed of what? Stocked up on meaningless
phrases? What did it mean that the Shah tried to modernize Iran too fast?
For one thing, too fast by comparison to what? What WERE the Indians' of
Chiapas long-running frustrations with their federal government? Give ten
examples. People listen to the pap on the tube and don't give it any
thought. Myself I'm better informed in many cases and I don't even HAVE a
television set. Read in my book, A BIODYNAMIC FARM* what I say about the
Viet Nam War, which was my own initiation by fire. I just keep my ear to
the ground, observe human nature and think, think, think. So you can bet
the Air Force has experimental flying saucers. Why else would they have
long spent so much energy investigating all UFO sightings and debunking
them? Why so much emphasis on investigation and denial? Why, especially,
the denial? Bah!

However, back to the issue of life. Douglas has pointed up here that he is
unable to contemplate Reich's orgone accumulator techniques, which Petrik
used to supercharge his compost cultures until they were so rich in
complex, organizational patterns that they rivaled and frequently exceeded
Pfeiffer's Compost Sterter which contained the biodynamic preparations
502-507. This takes some explaining. It doesn't all follow easily from my
seed thought. It has to grow on you.

Here's what Douglas points up:

>HL> They [Petrik's cultures] were so charged up with life energies that
>they drew in more
>HL> life energy very strongly.
>
>That's a little hard to define. I sincerely think BD would do best to
>ground their claims in measurable units. Otherwise, we're just talking
>about preferences, and anyone can be emphatic. Defining the results as
>well as possible would be more likely to induce anyone interested to
>try it on his or her own.

Point well taken, Douglas. Myself I'm not too sure what measurable units to
ground things with. What we are dealing with here are holistic systems.
Patterns. Any tiny fragment of one of these holistic patterns reflects the
entire pattern. And since these patterns are dynamic and furthermore are
organized into systems of systems of systems, etc. of dynamic patterns it
doesn't make much sense to pull isolated measures out of this flux. I can
tell you the bottom line on my farm, however. Money. Income. Prosperity. If
the methods work prosperity ensues. I don't have to prove anything to
anyone other than my banker, do I? What do I care the intellectual
obstacles people with PhDs have to seeing how well my methods work? How
many folks do you know who even survive farming 16 acres in today's
America, let alone doing so for 25 years and getting more and more momentum
in the process? I CAN'T prove anything to those who don't want to see, and
the others who are curious take all my time up schooling them on how to
think for themselves, empower themselves right there at the wellspring of
where it all comes from in common, everyday life. Turn off your TVs, folks,
stop eating fast food and grow into personally uniting thought and deed.

There! Maybe I'm making my case slightly clearer. Why do I say that life
flows from lesser to greater concentration? That's a real leap for most
physicists. They write Reich--who after all was a psychologist, wasn't he
[straight from Freud, unlike myself who is (am?) stgraight from Jack Horner
who almost no one ever heard of] --completely off at this point and ignore
him, not with skepticism but with cynicism. They are convinced Reich was a
fraud and somehow they know they can prove it. Then in taking his holistic
approach to pieces and destroying its integrity they do just that. Such is
cynicism. It isn't the same thing as skepticism at all no matter what THE
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER would have you believe.

I'm afraid you will see many of my posts peppered with such passionate and
reckless things as I'm asserting here. I posted recently my method for
breaking droughts at a distance with no more than a map of the location.
I'm sure some folks thought it was purest fancy and "Hugh's gone off on us
again." This is particularly funny against the background of sober,
thoughtful erudition and poetic sensitivity my posts otherwise reflect. How
could I be other than deadly serious? Thank heavens I'm enough of a public
figure it might invite comment if I were to disappear or encounter a deadly
"accident." And so far I'm pretty sure to be ignored and invalidated
rather than for some special interest faction to risk a blunder. If
anything I'm antiparnoiac as I believe my angels protect me from stray
shots drawn in by the incautious statements I make. This tends to make me a
little more reckless than I might otherwise be inclined to be considering
the casualties I've seen in my life. I shouldn't be so reckless, human
frailties what they are.

Speaking of reckless, here's a copy of a letter I've sent to the government
of Australia concerning GMOs. Perhaps I shouldn't print it here, but I do
feel a bit reckless at the moment and it's my letter after all. Here goes:

>March 30, 2000
>
>
>
> Hugh Lovel, Director
> Union Agricultural Institute
> 8475 Dockery Road
> Blairsville, Georgia 30512 USA
> Tel: 706 745 6056
>
>
>
>
>The Prime Minister
>Mr John Howard
>Parliament House
>Canberra ACT 2600
>
>Dear Sir,
>
>It comes to my attention, since I will be touring Australia in late July
>and early August as one of the world's biodynamic innovators, that you are
>now debating the issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in your
>government. We in America are having similar debates, as are many
>countries around the world.
>
>It is hard to get a true picture of the scientific realities. The debate
>tends to range from inchoate fear on the public side to patronizing
>reassurances on the part of industry. Mostly this obscures the real
>issues.
>
>Back in 1987 a Kansas geneticist, Barbara McClintock, won the Nobel Prize
>for proving that corn mutated in EVERY generation. It took twenty years
>and was made easy since her Indian maize had an unusually simple genetic
>picture and many convenient genetic markers. But it raised the question of
>what if EVERY organizm did the same and mutated in every generation? What
>about tomatoes or canola or earthworms or pigs?
>
>In the scientist/seer, Rudolf Steiner's, agriculture course, delivered in
>1924 Steiner assures us that just what Ms. McClintock proved was true for
>corn is true for all living organisms. In each new generation a new
>genetic picture arises out of the old. There is no mere copying. In the
>process of reproduction the old organization is driven to chaos and a new
>organization arises.
>
>This is not an idea that pleases anyone who patents genes or sells
>genetically modified organisms. And since Ms. McClintock's Nobel Prize it
>is no wonder there has been no funding for further research along these
>lines. Those in positions of money, influence and control see no way to
>benefit from such a discovery and might have preferred it had never taken
>place. They would much rather continue under the wide-spread (though
>flawed) assumption that an organism's genetic code is fixed, immutable,
>subject to ownership and amenable to easy control.
>
>The real scientific truth is we don't know what perils we face by
>releasing organisms into the environment that come from radical
>modification of genetics, especially from mixing genetic materials from
>widely divergent species. This may be analogous to producing nuclear
>weapons that copulate and spawn more weapons and hybridize with other
>existing weapon systems in a nuclear proliferation that no mere system of
>treaties can contain. The perils may be so extreme and so irreversable as
>to dwarf anything else we know. Does it make sense to risk finding out the
>hard way?
>
>The willingness of investors and genetic technology ventures to capitalize
>and make money on the ability to genetically modify organisms should be
>understandable. Their enthusiasm and lack of caution reminds one of the
>Gold Rush days where a new strike was found. But the danger of giving in
>to this enthusiasm exceeds anything else we currently face.
>
>A statesman would be wise to persuade industry to exercise restraint
>instead of placating the public's inchoate fears--no matter the potential
>for campaign funding or whatever. Wisdom lies in a moratorium and sober
>investigation of proposals case by case by scientists with NO ties to the
>genetic industries and no obstacles to impartiality. Anything less is a
>failure of the public trust and ignores the political mandate to protect
>life and property
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>
>Hugh Lovel, Director
>Union Agricultural Institute
>8475 Dockery Road
>Blairsville, Georgia 30512 USA
>Tel: 706 745-6056


Even writing such a letter is awfully pretentious of me, I'm afraid.
Ridiculous! What effrontery! I have to bathe and trim my hair and nails
like everyone else. Or at least I feel I have to to meet certain sort of
minimum standards here. I'm hardly a stuffed shirt. I get down and dirty
with all my tools underneath my tractor on the hillside making adjustments
like I imagine most any other farmer would do. I milk my own cow by hand
and make my own butter, yogurt and cheese. I like to cook and keep a
kitchen garden and things like that too. My interests are pretty ecclectic
but I'm real handy with my hands. I've known at least three methods from
personal success at starting fires without matches since I was five. It got
me into trouble, of course, like I've been in virtually my whole life
since. I'm absolutely fascinated with things like that that reveal the
secrets of the universe. My dad, who was the best educated person I've ever
known, had an eighth grade education. I like jeans and pocket T-shirts,
jockey shorts and crew socks if anyone's interested and I grew up in a
place where cooking seafood was a fine, fine art. Primarily I went to
Catholic School but half my relatives were Seventh Day Adventists. However,
I was never seduced by their dietary notions of soya hot dogs and nix on
seafood without scales despite their other compelling arguments. None of
which makes me someone to pay particular attention to, especially if you
are at the head of Australian Government.

Anyway,

Supposing world industries understood the power of establishing resonant
patterns? It doesn't cost a lot to establish a pattern. That's what
homeopathy and radionics and biodynamics are about. Establishing patterns
that draw more and more complex, organized forms in. Seeds for what the
physicists acknowledge as dynamic Islands of Order amidst this ocean of
chaos. Farmers will grow themselves into fertility and cut out one input
after another once this concept of pattern broadcasting gets all worked
out. The truth of Greg Willis's adage, "What you think, you grow." will
increasingly be apparant. The great industries of today will be undone by
John E. W. Keely's proposition that the laws of sympathetic vibration will
come into use as people learn self-mastery. Instead of having their buttons
pushed all the time, people will learn to push back. Are the powers that be
ready for this? Can a prophet of this kind of new age reckon on long life?
Who knows? The way I look at it we'll have to see.

(My inner sense is that I will live to see at least 85 and I'm only 52 so
far. Time to be reckless I guess. Shucks!)

Best wishes everyone,
Hugh Lovel


*(Hard to obtain except through the Publisher, ACRES. U.S.A. or via me $25
postpaid from UAI, 8475 Dockery Road, Blairsville, GA 30512.)

>Hi Hugh,
>
>Thursday, March 30, 2000, 9:57:33 PM, you wrote:
>
>HL> About 20 years ago Fletcher Sims, Jr. of Canyon, Texas was doing
>HL> large scale composting with the Pfeiffer Starter and he ran into
>HL> problems with inconsistant quality of the Starter. A.., Czech
>HL> emigree with an extraordinary education in microbiology and life
>HL> science .., Dr. (Vaclav) Petrik isolated a wide variety of
>HL> bacterial strains from the Pfeiffer Starter and built culture vats
>
>So that's what Sal was referring to.
>
>HL> using Reich's orgone accumulator techniques to culture these
>HL> strains into highly supercharged bacteria.
>
>Sorry, but I have to reserve judgment on that part. Bacterial strains
>I can contemplate, but orgone accumulator techniques ...
>
>HL> By and large bacterial cultures are a waste of time and money.
>HL> However, Petriks were not. They really worked.
>
>My reason for answering this is based my desire to clear up what I
>think was a general misunderstanding of Bart Hall's reference to foo
>foo dust etc. I understood him to mean that appropriate beneficial
>microbial organisms will come in, colonize and proliferate better on
>their own, if you feed them, and that this is more effective than
>seeding your whole field with them; that the context, the basic
>conditions that support building soil, the humus that's conducive to
>the proliferation of the appropriate microbial populations, is the
>more important factor. Beneficial microbials are foo foo dust when
>they're out of context, when sold as commercial soil amendments that
>are either unnecessary or not enough or both. The idea being that if
>you provide the context, your microbials will be there.
>
>However, I see nothing wrong with inoculating compost or seed (or
>other propagative tissues), if the strain is effective for the
>location and the material to be composted or the crop. But any
>commercially available inoculant should clearly identify the strains
>contained in it. (That accounts for the difference between Kefir and
>yoghurt, for instance). Also, the cost should be commensurate with the
>results achieved, as well as the costs of production and distribution.
>
>In short, the efficacy of microbials used as inoculants are one thing,
>and broadcasting them directly in the field is another matter.
>
>HL> They were so charged up with life energies that they drew in more
>HL> life energy very strongly.
>
>That's a little hard to define. I sincerely think BD would do best to
>ground their claims in measurable units. Otherwise, we're just talking
>about preferences, and anyone can be emphatic. Defining the results as
>well as possible would be more likely to induce anyone interested to
>try it on his or her own.
>
>HL> He developed a compost starter from these cultures called
>HL> CompoStar.
>
>HL> Petrik Laboratories has since done considerable work in Southeast
>HL> Asia and may be marketing such a compost starter somewhere in your
>HL> region. The last contact I had with Dr. Petrik was at 1506 Baylor
>HL> Drive, Woodland, California 95695. Phones: 916 666-5746, 916
>HL> 666-1157 or 916 666-6040. I hope this helps.
>
>If you can yahoo you can find Petrik Laboratories:
>
>http://www.petrik.com/index_2000.htm
>
>It refers to "Petrik Dealerships around the world".
>
>The following on Sal's website also turned up:
>
>http://www.rain.org/~sals/Petrik.html
>
>Douglas






  • Re: Microbial innoculants (was: Re: quetions), Hugh Lovel, 03/31/2000

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