Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

As you say, soil biology is quite complex and tilling definitely messes up
soil biology. Complete understanding of soil biology is way beyond the
state of our so-called science, so we're all in the same boat, aren't we.
So where do we go from here? How can we know anything?

Let's put it this way: the theory may be difficult, but the growing is not.
 People without scientists the world over have used many different methods,
but the essential principles are the same in any language.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 12/14/2007 at 7:00 PM Aliza wrote:

>So is he saying that he thinks organics should till?  organic No till is
>the ticket but you have to make sure the minerals are bioavailable to the
>plant.  It is not just as easy as popping your seeds into your last crop
>LOL.  I am not the most knowlegeable about this but I do know that the
>plants dont give up their goodies until they are dead and are best left in
>and on the soil to enrich the next crop.  Just because someone uses
>organic methods does not mean that the food they create will have high
>amounts of vitamins and minerals.  Soil biology is quite complex and
>tilling definately messes up soil biology.
>
>aliza
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: Marty Kraft
>  To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing
>  Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 2:55 PM
>  Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] NO-TILL FARMING OFFERS A QUICK FIX TO
>HELPWARD OFF HOST OF GLOBAL PROBLEMS
>
>
>  Paul
>
>
>  I sent this article to a friend and am including his response in this
>email. Are we talking about commercial no-till vs an organic no-till
>methods here? My friend raises organic wheat and is conscientious in his
>work.
>
>
>  Marty,
>
>  You had better check your facts on this. The way no-till makes the grade
>is by cheating on the soil tests. The main reason that KSU is behind this
>is to sell new farm equipment and make a name for mr. Charles Rice. There
>is more research showing that organic farming will sequester more carbon
>than ANY other form of farming. And another point, the no-till idea does
>NOT take into account the CO2 that gets released during the manufacturing
>of nitrate fertilizer. Of course, organic does not use manufactured
>fertilizer.
>
>  On Dec 10, 2007, at 6:16 PM, TradingPostPaul wrote:
>
>
>
>
>    NO-TILL FARMING OFFERS A QUICK FIX TO HELP WARD OFF HOST OF GLOBAL
>PROBLEMS
>    http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/notill.htm
>
>
>    COLUMBUS, Ohio – Increase no-till farming practices across the
planet
>or
>    face serious climate, soil quality and food production problems in the
>next
>    20 to 50 years. That warning from scientists appeared in the journal
>    Science this week.
>    Rattan Lal
>
>
>    No-till farming helps soil retain carbon. Healthy topsoil contains
>    carbon-enriched humus – decaying organic matter that provides
nutrients
>    to plants. Soils low in humus can't maintain the carbon-dependent
>nutrients
>    essential to healthy crop production, resulting in the need to use
more
>    fertilizers.
>
>
>    A lack of carbon in soil may promote erosion, as topsoil and
>fertilizers
>    are often washed or blown away from farm fields and into waterways,
>said
>    Rattan Lal, the paper's lead author and the director of the carbon
>    management and sequestration center at Ohio State University.
>
>
>    In no-till agriculture, farmers plant seeds without using a plow to
>turn
>    the soil. Soil loses most of it carbon content during plowing, which
>    releases carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere. Increased levels of
>CO2 in
>    the atmosphere have been associated with global climate change.
>
>
>    "If every farmer who grows crops in the United States would use
>no-till and
>    adopt management practices such as crop rotation and planting cover
>crops,
>    we could sequester about 300 million tons of soil carbon each year."
>
>
>    Traditional plowing, or tilling, turns over the top layer of soil.
>Farmers
>    use it for, among other reasons, to get rid of weeds, make it easier
>to use
>    fertilizers and pesticides and to plant crops. Tilling also enriches
>the
>    soil as it hastens the decomposition of crop residue, weeds and other
>    organic matter.
>
>
>    Still, the benefits of switching to no-till farming practices outweigh
>    those of traditional planting.
>
>
>    Since the mechanization of agriculture began a few hundred years ago,
>    scientists estimate that some 78 billion metric tons – more than 171
>    trillion pounds – of carbon once trapped in the soil have been lost
to
>    the atmosphere in the form of CO2.
>
>
>    Lal and his colleagues estimate that no-till farming is practiced on
>only 5
>    percent of all the world's cultivated cropland. Farmers in the United
>    States use no-till methods on 37 percent of the nation's cropland,
>which
>    results in saving an estimated 60 million metric tons of soil CO2
>annually.
>
>
>    "If every farmer who grows crops in the United States would use
>no-till and
>    adopt management practices such as crop rotation and planting cover
>crops,
>    we could sequester about 300 million tons of soil carbon each year,"
>said
>    Lal, who is also a professor of soil science at Ohio State.
>
>
>    "Each year, 6 billion tons of carbon is released into the planet's
>    atmosphere as fossil fuels are burned, and plants can absorb 20 times
>that
>    amount in that period of time," he said. "The problem is that as
>organisms
>    decompose and plants breathe, CO2 returns to the atmosphere. None of
it
>    accumulates in the soil."
>
>
>    Lal admits that full-scale no-till farming practices are a short-term
>fix,
>    but it's one that will give researchers enough time to find
>alternatives to
>    fossil fuels.
>
>
>    "There needs to be a global effort to adopt no-till farming practices
>soon.
>    Governments need to mandate these practices or to provide financial
>    incentives to farmers to adopt them," said Lal, adding no-till methods
>may
>    reduce a farmer's annual crop yield by 5 to 10 percent, at least for
>the
>    first few years.
>
>
>    It's also tough to ask farmers who lack the necessary financial
>resources
>    to switch to no-till methods, especially in African and Asian
countries
>    where no-till levels are the lowest, Lal said.
>
>
>    "No-till isn't readily practiced in most of these areas due to the
>lack of
>    available financial resources and government support," he said.
>"Farmers
>    often lack the seeding equipment necessary to drill through crop
>residue.
>    And many farmers use leftover residue from the previous year's crops
>for
>    fuel or animal fodder. So the cultivated soil gets compacted or eroded
>by
>    water and wind."
>
>
>    Topsoil is also a lucrative commodity – an acre of it can bring in
>$1,300
>    for a farmer in India, where the first few feet of soil are often
>removed
>    for brick making.
>
>
>    "No-till farming isn't a substitute for finding alternatives to fossil
>    fuels," Lal said.
>
>
>    "No-till is definitely a short-term fix, but it may buy us up to 50
>years
>    to find alternatives to fossil fuels. If we don't heed this warning,
>our
>    planet may change drastically. There's no other choice."
>
>
>    Lal co-authored the paper with Michael Griffin, Jay Apt, Lester Lave
>and M.
>    Granger Morgan, all with Carnegie Mellon University.
>
>
>
>
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