Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Aliza" <realfood@wonderfulfarm.com>]

Sorry about that - The cover crop you use will determine how it is killed - some folks let the weather do their killing for some crops:o)  He is correct about the weeds though.  They are an indicator of what is missing or abundant in your soil.  I cant find it at the moment because I am in a bit of a rush to get back out to feed the goaties but there was a study or two done on this very subject.  Things like buttercups indicate one type of deficiency and other "weeds"  indicate another.  They can also be used as an indication of what is appropriate to grow in your soil.  Fighting nature is a difficult thing especially if one is growing organically.  My heavy clay over limestone could be changed to better grow chestnuts that prefer a different soil type but then again I could just as easily grow shagbark hickory that would have died and gone to heaven for my soil conditions. 

 

Perhaps we shouldnt be growing wheat on 300 acres if we have to kill the soil biology to do it.  I wonder how much wheat/corn we would need to grow if we ate only grassfed beef/lamb/chicken and pork and cut our grain consumption.  I bet some of you will question the chicken and pork.  Heritage breeds of poultry can raise themselves up fine in the summer and guinea hogs will get finished on the grass. Mangles and legume hay in the winter and they will be set as long as you have them harvested before the bad weather sets in and are only holding over the breeding stock.   Humans should also cut way back on the amount of grain based products we consume.  Eating grains pops your leptin and insulin levels - even organically grown grains and most of the modern grains contain phytic acid.   So what if growing wheat on 300 acres IS the problem because of how it is managed even organincally in conventional farming?

 

Smaller diversified holdings is one part of the answer to this but the amount of folks in urban areas now makes it much much more difficult to shift this.  There are still places where one can have a few hens in the city and in Seattle you can now have a couple small goats as "pets" (no bucks of course) so you could have eggs and milk in neighborhood settings as well as community gardens but folks would actually have to want to create their own food.  The paradigm shift that is necessary is as much about the wheat farmer as it is about our people who just want to buy food at a store or restaurant instead of creating their own food systems.

 

I guess this turned into a rant - off to feed my critters and pack some fresh raw milk off to a few families:o)

 

Aliza

 

 

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

From: Marty Kraft

To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2007 8:03 AM

Subject: [Livingontheland] Fwd: NO-TILL FARMING OFFERS A QUICK FIX TO HELPWARD OFF HOST OF GLOBAL PROBLEMS

I'm still learning and clarifying by being the middle person here. This is my friends response to Ken's and Paul's emails that I forwarded on to him. He knows little of the history of your various comments on the list. Thanks for taking the time.

Marty

Begin forwarded message:

From: "soaringeaglefarms@juno.com" <soaringeaglefarms@juno.com>

Date: December 23, 2007 3:05:02 PM CST

To: martyk@allspecies.org

Subject: [Livingontheland] NO-TILL FARMING OFFERS A QUICK FIX TO HELP WARD OFF HOST OF GLOBAL PROBLEMS

Marty,

I'll try to take this one step at a time

Ken is talking about knocking down a cover crop. What is he going to knock it down with? Most likely a burn down chemical, or maybe a disk.

Paul is talking about tillage bringing weed seed to the surface. That is correct, but if you do tillage after dark you will reduce weed pressure by 80 to 90 percent. Once again, if you have a weed supressing cover crop it will need to be killed before you plant the cash crop. If you don't kill the cover crop, the seed from that will be the next round of weeds.

One thing that might have lead the group a little off course is that I raise much more than just wheat. I do try to use covercrops aggressively between the row crops to enhance fertility and control weeds. Another point is that most of the weeds indicate an imbalance in the soil. If you get the nutrients back in balance, the weeds will go away. Another thing is that I must stay inside the confines of organic certification. I would guess that most of the persons that reply to you are not capable of that either.

Aloha,

Lee


Here is one email response.

Marty

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com>

Date: December 22, 2007 3:20:05 PM CST

To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>

Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] NO-TILL FARMING OFFERS A QUICK FIX TO HELP WARD OFF HOST OF GLOBAL PROBLEMS

Reply-To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>

Marty,

 

As I have said before "The problem is in the farmer's head not in the field."

 

A no-till cotton farmer [7th crop] uses wheat for his winter cover crop.  Knocks it down and plants his cotton using a no-till planter.  If the farmer is growing winter wheat, plant a summer cover crop, knock in down and plant the wheat using a no-till drill. If he is growing Spring wheat, harvest it, plant the winter cover crop. Wheat is $8 per bushel, highest in many decades.  70 bushels@$8=$560x300=$168,000 gross.  His cost are: plant the wheat, harvest the wheat, plant the cover crop, knock down the cover crop, plant the wheat.  He can fish/hunt/volunteer work for 50 weeks a year.

 

The cotton farmer told me that his cost are so low, that cotton will never be so cheap that he will not make a profit. 

 

Ken H

 

TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

My personal take on it: If the crop he's growing needs tilling or
herbicides, then why grow wheat or cultivate 300+ acres? I'd also be
interested to know if he's even making a profit. Cultivating also brings
more weed seeds to the surface to germinate. Probably he's never heard of
weed-suppressing cover crops.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 12/22/2007 at 1:10 PM Marty Kraft wrote:

>I talked to my friend who grows organic wheat this morning. He says
>that he can't suppress weeds unless he tills. He farms 300+ acres. He
>believes that the promotion of no-till methods is a furtherance of
>chemical dependent farming.
>
>When I talk about no-till I'm talking about a much smaller scale than
>planting acres and acres of wheat. I have no experience beyond
>vegetable gardening. Does anyone know how to organically grow large
>acreage of wheat without tilling. I'm sure my friend would like to know.
>
>I also do not want to inadvertently be promoting the idea chemical
>dependent farming when I say no-till is good.
>
>Marty Kraft
>On Dec 15, 2007, at 7:38 AM, E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:

---

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