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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: ryalbinger@earthlink.net, Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Question about compost...
  • Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 14:34:09 -0700 (PDT)

Defining healthy soil is not so much different from defining health
in human beings. In fact, in the cycle of biological substances
(soil > plants > animals (humans) both are closely related.
Determining health in both cases has more to do with subjective
judgement rather than with a figure range for certain parameters.
Mostly, you know when you are well even without having a blood
test done.
 
Health in soil can hardly be defined by the absence or presence
of pests or disease. If there is a relation, then it must be the
soil’s ability to deal with pests or disease. A healthy soil will
grow healthy plants that are more likely to survive pests or
disease than unhealthy plants. Just like a flue virus in humans,
if you are in good shape the virus won’t do much harm, if
your systems are run down you may be unwell for months.
 
There are some who define soil health as soil fertility, that
is, the degree of biological activity or cell reproduction in
the soil. A test of soil fertility by means of it’s cell count
has been proposed.
 
Dieter Brand
Portugal


Ryan Albinger <ryalbinger@earthlink.net> wrote:
How do you describe healthy soil? Where is the defining line between a
healthy and unhealthy soil and what is the grey area between? Numbers,
characteristics, or is it a race without a finish line? Is a crop healthy
because it has no bugs or disease or is a crop without bugs or disease
because it is healthy and is the absence of bugs and disease the only
defining line to healthy crops?
Ryan


> [Original Message]
> From: TradingPostPaul
> Can't raise healthy crops without healthy soil. And we can't raise healthy
> children without healthy crops.
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********


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