Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Robert Norsen <bob@bnbrew.com>]

From the message below, " concentrate lots of stuff on a small area to build top soil". 

I don't doubt that with enough added good stuff on a small area one can build deep good productive ( top) soil.  If raising a garden is the objective, certainly concentrating on a smaller area, producing heavily in that area with minimal cost in labor and energy makes sense. 

But will small areas save Texas from desertification?    We don't want to lose the SW USA or any other part of the EARTH to Sahara like conditions.   Enough of that already.   There are  vast areas of poor grass land that is grazed by skinny cattle.   ( herded by skinney people))     Once the cattle are old and big enough to market they are sent to feeding pens, stuffed with high calorie grains ( etc.) from chemically fertilzed fields so they produce meat that has rather high fat content but no CLA.  Don't know why CLA is not formed in feed lot fat.  It ain't. 

 

These marginal pastures might respond to heavy horse manure or other good stuff.  And water
would sure help.    Heavy applications of manure are not available or not economic.  Don't know which.  One alternative already used is chemical.  Chemicals work to make more grass but you and I know it also destroys the pasture because chemicals reduce the LIFE that generates the nutrients f rom the soil.  Chemicals are momentary benefit.  Tend to wash away or percolate down below the root zone.   

As chemicals pass by the roots some is picked up by plants.  The majority of the chemical load passes unused into pollution.  As chemicals are used,  MORE chemicals are needed.  Good sales system!  

 

The LIFE of compost would be great if applied in enough volume and if it could be applied effectively and economically.  Compost, multiplied many fold, enriched by nutirients that are either absorbed by the LIFE  and / or are included in easily managed liquid form is ACT.  

 

The effect of ACT, as has been recorded by years and infinite area of pasture and other grass, is to increase growth, root depth, resistance to drouth, reduction of water needed,  improvement in nutrient value and quantity. The only records on pasture  kept and reported that I know of,  are by Betsy Ross.  If there are conflicting / supporting records I am not aware of them.  Anyone?   

 

Betsy's records showed mortgage paying improvements in cattle weight gain per month.  

 

The advantage of grass fed - no Mad Cow hazard -  is assumned.  Mad Cow is the result of feeding MC diseased animal parts that were often included in feed lot feed.  Hopefully no more.    

 

The higher CLA content of ACT grazed cattle vs cattle grazed on non ACT grass and vs feed lot cattle was measured and reported by laboratory measurements.  The report was that the CLA content was about the same as is found in wild salmon.  If true that is a significant economic value in the market.   

      

The advantage of CLA in the human diet was described at lenght in articles published by Life Extension,  a group of research oriented doctors I consider highly reliable.   www.lef.org   

 

Why not, to be scientific, compare ACT to other  applications?

good idea.   There have been eons & tons of other stuff  added to pastures in Texas.  If they had worked and been economical would Texas ranchers still be  using them?  Maybe they are. What Betsy did  with ACT appears to be so effective Texas ranchers are gathering  to go in the same direction. 

This move involves vast amounts of compost just to make the ACT.   Vast compost involves vast amounts of whatever it takes to make compost.   When you look at Texas grazing land,  you  can't see it all because of the curvature of the Earth.   Methods need to fit  the task.    Bob  

 

 

 

TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

Robert, last year I took several experimental beds starting with dry,
light, sandy soil totally bereft of organic matter, earthworms, nitrogen,
and phosphorus, and made good topsoil in one season without compost tea.
Not great of course, but good, and held moisture well. When I say sandy
soil, I mean blow sand. We took aged horse manure mixed thoroughly with
alfalfa, bonemeal, etc. and water, and that mixed thoroughly with soil and
left to percolate a few months. With almost no watering and no rain it
stayed moist a foot down with only the top inch or two drying out. And that
was even without a cover crop developing the miccorrhyzae for better crumb
structure and moisture capacity.

Of course that was a small scale experiment. But if you can grow five times
as much on humus-rich soil in permanent beds on 1/2 acre and clear a good
profit, then why would anyone stay stuck in huge fields of single file
tractor rows, spending their whole life in debt to the banks to get a 2%
return on capital investment and working for 10 cents an hour? I just don't
see how compost tea or any other one technique alone can turn around the
disastrous paradigm in modern agribusiness.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only
those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about
it.
- Aldo Leopold in Round River, 1933
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 6/13/2006 at 11:55 PM Robert Norsen wrote:

>Yes Ryan, getting from poor or worn out soil to great soil, like you say,
>takes time - Dr Elaine in her wonderful lectures talked about how nature
>can build an inch of top soil , microbes, soild food web and all in - did
>she say 50 years? But with ACT added to rather ordinary soil and with
>suitable planting a foot of top soil can be built in a 2 to 4 years.
>That is when the example was shown of ordinary turf root systems 2 to 5 "
>deep but with ACT 36 to 49 " deep within I think 4 months time.
>
> Them little bugs is magic if you give em a break. Bob
>
>Ryan Albinger wrote:
> Does a purchased mycorrihizal innoculant turn poor soil into a sponge
>that
>holds moisture that way glomalin all by itself? Think big picture before
>getting the cart before the horse. If it were that simple, everybody and
>their cousins would be doing it. It is a system and it takes a systems
>approach.
snip



_______________________________________________
Livingontheland mailing list
Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland