Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

I wasn't responding to any one person's position there. YMMV but personally
don't see corn as a good use of available space where I am.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 3/11/2007 at 6:19 PM E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:

>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