Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Sorry, the format got messed up on this post so I fixed it and this should
be easier to read.

This is a reprint of a post I made over a year ago on Soilmakers,
predecessor list  to Living On The Land

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
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Beyond Organic: Humus-Intensive Growing for Yield, Quality, and Profit

Humus-intensive growing means producing more and better in less space at
lower cost. It's no secret, nothing new; the benefits simply aren't
realized by the methods of many organic growers. It simply combines the
well known practices of organic composting and wide beds, on a farm scale
as well as the backyard garden. Other practices such as companion planting,
cover crops, subsoiling, and remineralization may be included depending on
local conditions and needs. 

We call it humus-intensive when the decomposed organic matter and other
amendments are concentrated in growing beds rather than spread over an
entire field or garden which is what happens in row cropping. Aisles and
walkways take up half the total area; growing beds make up the other half.
Obviously, when amendments are limited to the beds, the beds get twice the
amount of humus and other amendments they would get if the same amount was
spread all over the field or garden. Nothing new about that. Costs go into
the growing area instead of
the aisles.

Yield and Quality

So why is that important? It's commonly claimed that organic means lower
yield. Organic row croppers don't realize the benefits in humus-intensive
beds. Yields and quality of produce for a given area of field or garden are
normally greater than row cropping - sometimes much greater. And with
double the concentration of amended humus that makes healthy soil in the
growing beds, the soil is more moisture-retentive, drains better, shows
better particle aggregation and tilth, and naturally produces more.
Further, the healthier the soil, the better for taste and nutrition in the
produce (the fraction of dissolved solids in plant juices measured as
Brix). These effects are well known. Humus-intensive produces more and
better than row cropping for the available amount of amendments over a
given area.

Costs

But that's not all. With the actual growing area limited to beds that are
more moisture retentive, irrigation costs go down (water is getting scarce
in some areas), and the labor needed for weeding goes down, because the
growing beds are only half the total area that have to be watered and
weeded in row cropping. This is true whether you work a backyard garden or
large field for market. Do the math. It's commonly believed that going
organic raises labor costs, lowers total production, and runs up the price
to the customer. It certainly can if organic is done by row cropping.

The work of Howard, Pfeiffer, Chadwick, Jeavons, and many others who built
on the knowledge of past cultures is fairly well known. But larger
operators apparently assume intensive methods are only for home or hobby
gardens. And lots of growing operations are caught in a deadly cost-price
squeeze. Perhaps organic row croppers believe beds are impractical or run
up labor costs for harvesting. They may believe mechanical harvesting in
rows is necessary for large operations. It may be for corn or some grain
crops. Many organic row croppers seem stuck in the era of Jethro Tull's row
machinery in England of a century ago. But for produce generally, manual
harvesting allows better quality control and less waste - which translates
to more saleable product per unit of land. Read that again. Not a small
factor considering the rising cost of farmland. True, hand harvesting is
more labor intensive, but making payments and interest on expensive
harvesting machinery can easily squeeze profits more than paying labor.

Organic growers know that the bulk of the work and cost of soil improvement
goes into initial soil building; once soil is brought up to a healthy
condition then annual sheet composting may be sufficient to maintain
structure and fertility. Cover crops or catch crops, infrequent liming, and
mulches may be used also as needed. Annual labor and compost costs go down
after healthy soil is attained. And growers who do tilling in the initial
soil building phase only need to till the bed areas, not the aisles and
walkways for an entire field. There's upfront cost for building healthy
beds, but that should be compared with rising annual costs of fuel and
specialized machinery in row cropping. Getting big to justify the cost of
specialized machinery is part of the cost squeeze behind the decline of
home farming and consolidation of big chemical  agribusiness. We're talking
realistic alternatives.

There are cautions to be aware of in any growing system. For example,
repeated application of uncomposted, fresh manures can add to buildup of
sodium or calcium salts which can tie up certain necessary minerals.
Undecomposed organic matter can tie up soil nitrogen and oxygen, both of
which are needed for microbial processes that feed plant roots. But in
general well made humus buffers pH, and organic amendments are slow
release. Healthy plants in microbe-rich, healthy soil take what they need. 

Healthy soil makes healthy crops, and healthy crops make healthy animals
and people. It can be practical and affordable. And fossil fuel problems
may rule out mechanical row cropping financially - not to mention chemical
agribusiness. The argument for humus-intensive bed growing gets more
realistic each year.