Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[<pbunch@cox.net>]

Thanks Ken. I now am in contact with Roland. He seems to be very helpful. I 
also suspect that he may be a relative as we have family from the same part 
of the country and Bunches are scare everywhere except there :-)


---- Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com> wrote: 
> I posted this; not Roland.  
>  
> Roland's address is  <rolandbunchw@yahoo.com>.  I have a lot of his 
> materials.  He is the most knowledgable man on the earth when it comes to 
> low input, sustainable farming.  He is famous among subsistence farmers but 
> not high society agriculturist.
>  
> Ken Hargesheimer
> 
> 
> --- On Sat, 6/5/10, Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> From: Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] phosphate fertilizer too?
> To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" 
> <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Saturday, June 5, 2010, 3:01 PM
> 
> 
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> I visited three farms on one of my trips to Honduras.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Date:
> 
> 
> 11/25/2002 9:12:29 AM Central Standard Time
> 
> 
> From:
> 
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> Reply-to:
> 
> 
>   
> Frankly, I would disagree strenuously with the general conclusion. Of 
> course, in a sand, you're going to have a problem. But I have seen farmers 
> build up soils to very high levels of productivity in thousands of cases, 
> without using chemical fertilizers.  
>   
> OK, first of all, in the simple logical sense, you can't argue something is 
> impossible just because you haven't seen it yourself.  That's how we got to 
> the idea that you can't build up and maintain high levels of organic matter 
> in tropical soils (now disproven) and grasses can't access N from legumes 
> (it's now been shown that this very thing DOES happen, through micorrhyzae) 
> and a whole raft of other mistakes having to do with soil dynamics. The 
> problem with this reasoning is that we may have tried to WRONG way to do 
> it, or even many wrong ways. (Such as growing clean-ploughed row crops for 
> 40 years in India. Sure, if you try to do it THAT way, it's impossible!) 
>   
> So how do farmers build up their soils? Well, of course, the first problem 
> with this question is, what do we mean by "build up"? If our definition of 
> to "build up" is based on the nutrient quantity theory, then by definition, 
> we will need NPK. But NPK can, of course, be obtained in purchased chicken 
> manure, purchased urban wastes, from a composting latrine, from incoming 
> irrigation water, incoming water-borne soil, etc. Or even birds and bats. 
> (And the quantities in the last case are more than a lot of people would 
> ever dream.) So much for the argument that inorganic NPK is needed. Not 
> even theoretically, using the nutrient quantity theory, is it necessary, 
> unless you want to do it on a huge scale. I frankly don't see how anyone 
> can say what I have just said is impossible--chicken manure (which 
> thousands of farmers use here in Honduras every year) has all three 
> nutrients, and in decent enough quantities to get very good yields. So the 
> proposition that
>  inorganic NPK is necessary to build soils is false. Period. In the 
> theoretical sense. 
>   
> But the above argument really only has value for theoreticians who don't 
> care much about the real world. If we are going to be practical, we need to 
> go a lot further than this. We need to ask: "Can poorer farmers increase 
> substantially their productivity on initially very poor soils without 
> spending any more than their increased yields would pay for, and can they 
> do it with resources that would be available for the vast majority of poor 
> farmers around the world? Now we're asking a question that has widespread 
> developing nation applicability.  And, incidentally, this is precisely the 
> question World Neighbors/Central America, COSECHA, and CIDICCO have been 
> working on for the last 20 years (all of which I have been involved with). 
>   
> My answer? YES. Resoundingly. In most cases. You don't believe me? Come 
> visit us. I'll have my personnel take you to see any number of farmers you 
> want, as long as the number's less than 5,000. 
>   
> How?  Well, I can't go into it all that deeply here. (We do have papers on 
> a lot of these subjects that are available.  For instance, I could get into 
> issues like the nutrient access vs nutrient quantity theories, but I won't. 
>  Let's just say that we use all sorts of tropical legumes, some trees, some 
> viny or bushy or crawly. These are capable of fixing commonly from 75 to 
> 150 kg N/ha/crop. They make the soil softer, more able to hold water, and 
> increase the CEC (none of which chemical fertilizers can do). They decrease 
> erosion, cover the soil much of the year, and eventually allow farmers to 
> switch to zero tillage, which also improves soil fertility in at least half 
> a dozen additional ways (none of which chemical fertilizer can do). They 
> also buffer pH (while most chemical fertilizer used acidifies the soil, 
> making most tropical soils worse.) And they defend plants significantly 
> against a whole array of insects and diseases, from white grubs and
>  striga to termites and the corn borer worm (which is, of course, endemic 
> here in Honduras, but no longer a worry for our farmers). Chemical 
> fertilizer's impact on these problems is arguable, but nowhere near as good 
> as that of organic matter.  
>   
> But I said the interventions had to be economic. Well, the way we use green 
> manure/cover crops is not the traditional way (plant monocropped, cut at 
> flowering and bury). This system is neither economically attractive nor 
> best for the soil, in most cases.  We use gm/cc's in such a way that the 
> soil they are in has no opportunity cost (known to the farmers involved), 
> that they are not generally buried, nor are they cut before maturity. We 
> also use multi-purpose legumes: ones that can be eaten, preferably, or ones 
> that can serve as fodder, major controllers of noxious weeds, or as income 
> producers. 
>   
> As a result, productivity of basic grains has gone from, say, 0.5 t/ha/year 
> to 4.5 t/ha/year. Yes, with no chemical fertilizer use. 
>   
> But now I can hear the eternal cry of, "What about the phosphorus?" Well, 
> it isn't necessary for about the first 15 years, at least. (In northern 
> Honduras farmers have been getting good yields for 40+ years with no 
> phosphorus applications and there is STILL no response to phosphorus 
> applications.  Why? Now this time, you got me. I can't explain that one, 
> either.) 
>   
> But allow me to admit that phosphorus IS necessary sooner or later, and 
> that farmers shouldn't just mine it down to nothing. Fine. What do we do? 
> We use some animal manure. Or we recommend superphosphate (farmers don't 
> always use it, ergo the 5,000 farmers out there I can show you.) (Although 
> I am NOT an organic farming advocate, I do believe strongly that many 
> scientists have failed to understand its potential without ever becoming 
> well-informed about it.)  
>   
> So, what about phosphorus? A die-hard organic person would have two 
> possibilities. Phosphorus-accumulating plants would be one, but then we're 
> back to robbing Peter to pay Paul--something not everyone can do.  Or 
> mining our own soils.  So then we have rock phosphate.  But it doesn't work 
> very well--the response of crops is way too small.  Once again, we're back 
> with the "If I haven't seen it, it doesn't work" phenomenon.  In fact, if 
> rock phosphate is applied to the MULCH instead of the soil, the response is 
> dramatic--MUCH more than if chemical fertilizer is applied directly to acid 
> soils. 
>   
> In fact, after years of working with both, I feel the evidence says that if 
> you were restricted to one or the other, organics will improve soil a lot 
> faster and MUCH cheaper than will inorganics.   So at this point I rest my 
> case. And invite comments. 
>   
> Roland Bunch
>