Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

I don't use them or endorse the company, but here's one selling them now
http://www.thebeneficialinsectco.com/beneficial-nematodes.htm

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our 
most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its 
renewal is our only hope.
   - Wendell Berry

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 4/7/2006 at 2:38 PM Terry Wereb wrote:

>okay-- I treated my yard, many years ago, with
>something called "beneficial nematodes'  (my mother
>shuddered at the thought that a nematode could be
>beneficial) in order to keep the flea population down.
>Did this product  go off the shelves because of all
>this licensing  paperwork?
> Shoot, if something is there, naturally, and one can
>prove  benefits with it's presence, and  a need to
>"fertilize" without their presence, seems to me,
>saying "beneficial whatever" would be justifiable.
>There is a reason I dislike the politics one has to
>play in this area.   If I am reading an article on
>something, and it is not trying to shove something
>down my throat, by saying "X is the ONLY thing needed
>to achieve..." then I am reasonably sure that X is a
>part of Nature's grander scheme. And with the
>patenting of genetics, ideas, etc-- to me, that just
>indicates a desire to 'claim' that one thing that is
>just a small part of a huge puzzle. these peole who
>would remove that puzzle piece for their own profit
>are not concerned about the overall health of nature.
>
>Terry W
>
>--- Soilsecrets@aol.com wrote:
>
>>
>> In a message dated 4/7/2006 9:36:23 A.M. Mountain
>> Standard Time,
>> tradingpost@riseup.net writes:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> It's interesting the metamorphosis of thinking when
>> it comes to  Soil Biology
>> being an important link to the health of plants and
>> its application  in
>> agriculture.  For decades we innovators of this
>> information have battled  with our
>> government entities such as the USDA, the BLM and
>> the NRCS on the
>> significance of this stuff.  When I wrote and
>> published the paper,  'Soil Ecology and the
>> Soil Food Web' in 1974 I was ridiculed and called a
>> Doctor of Snake Oil by
>> just about everyone.   In those days, the  presence
>> of biology in the soil such
>> as fungi and bacteria was treated as a  problem that
>> needed to be solved.
>> The only accepted and recognized science  of that
>> time was that of chemistry.
>> Balance the pH up or down and add  N-P-K to get
>> maximum growth.  The only
>> biology that was given credit was  that of nitrogen
>> fixing bacteria with legume
>> crops such as  alfalfa.
>>
>> What a change in attitude today, but now we have the
>> government agencies
>> taking all the credit for this wonderful stuff.
>> With the private  sector getting
>> screwed once again in more ways then one.  For
>> example,  there are many
>> hundreds if not thousands of papers of research
>> published in  peer review science
>> journals showing that the mutualistic and  symbiotic
>> microbes of the soil can
>> help reduce the impact of  root disease and
>> parasitic nematodes on crops.  Yet
>> the growers of  these organisms cannot make the
>> claim of those benefits on
>> labels without  getting the microbes registered as a
>> Pesticide.  This requires
>> redundant  and expensive research over and over
>> again on the same genus and
>> species of the  subject biology by the private
>> sector proprietor of the product in
>> order to get  a state by state approval for calling
>> the product a Pesticide.
>> You cannot  just say, we are growing and offering
>> Glomus intraradices - a
>> endomycorrhizal fungi that is noted for its ability
>> to reduce or even eliminate
>> root disease such as Phytophthora nicotianae
>> var.parasitica in  Tomato
>> plants. You must pay and pay and pay again for
>> research in order  to get label
>> approval and registration.  Then you must pay a tax,
>> label  registration once per
>> year per state and tonnage fees in each state.
>>
>> To top it off, many of the Ag Schools today are
>> doing gene modification
>> research on these poor mycorrhizae in order to have
>> a patentable product.   I
>> wonder about that!
>>
>> Michael M. Melendrez
>> >