Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>]

A good point that's often contentious:  There are areas, called "brittle" by Holistic Management's Alan Savory, where grass is the best "crop".  In those areas, with appropriate management, the best approach to food production is to raise grass-fed beef.

 

I was NEVER advocating corn as a typical agribusiness crop; only as a useful part of a family diet and garden.  Funny how easy it is for a conversation to get off track.

 

E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.biz

----- Original Message -----

From: TradingPostPaul

To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 4:55 PM

Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] locally adapted varieties, was DIET FOR A DEAD PLANET

In west Texass I believe it's only grown in those monster irrigated round
fields. But the multistate Ogallah Aquifer is depleting, and farmers on its
fringes in eastern NM and OK have had wells go dry permanently. Without
water they're out of business and their investment in land is just gone. SE
in the coastal blackland it probably gets enough moisture without
irrigation. I never saw much corn or any other row crops in NE Texass. But
it's not always a matter of whether it'll grow or not. A lot of land is
better suited to cattle, or it turns out better economically to run
livestock instead of cropping. Corn is a heavy feeder and the price of
fertilizer and fuel keeps going up. The way corn is typically grown in
rotation with soybeans helps with the  nitrogen but still depletes topsoil
and organic matter by cultivation. As it's currently practiced with row
crops, we may have 40 or 50 years of topsoil left. Then we starve.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 3/11/2007 at 2:10 PM Barbara Fischer wrote:

>I mean acres of GOOD corn, not a couple of spindly rows for eating.  Have
>driven over much of TX and never did see what I call CORN.!
>
>Barbara
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: Ken Hargesheimer
>  To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing
>  Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 12:42 PM
>  Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] locally adapted varieties,was DIET FOR A
>DEAD PLANET
>
>
>  The corn farmers here on the TX Plains have not heard that corn will not
>grow in TX.
>
>  If you have not heard of "three sisters" it is not the end of the world.
> That term is from the Indians who grew the three together and coined that
>term.
>
>  Ken



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