Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Seeking "Sunshine Replenishes Soil"

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Seeking "Sunshine Replenishes Soil"
  • Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:38:52 -0400

(Responses interspersed)

On 08/20/2010 09:35 AM, Laurie Ann Powell wrote:
I remember early on in this list's history that there was a discussion about sustainability. "The sun is always pouring energy into the earth, so sustainability is achievable even when a farm is 'exporting nutrients' by selling produce off-farm" was the basic premise.

One contribution to that discussion might well have been the following:
It is often observed that if we take food from a piece of land, we are reducing fertility. This is especially true when we think of a farm that is supplying many other mouths than its own. Doesn’t the sale of farm produce imply an export of nutrients off site—i.e., a continuing leak from the closed nutrient circle which longterm has to result in infertility? The answer is that the nutrient cycle is never a completely closed circle—because the energy of sunlight is always being added to the system. It is our challenge to make sure that what we subtract from the soil in the form of food is less than the potential boost to fertility of sunlight—such strategies are the heart of sustainable homestead and farm production.
at http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Achieving-Food-Independence-Soil-Fertility.html




That struck me as a very critical factor in the agricultural debate, and perhaps in the political landscape as well.

Interesting point about the relevance of "free sunshine" as a *political* issue. It's hard to believe, but we've made a deliberate choice in favor of chemical and energy intensive solutions over "free sunshine" to power our agricultural system because it is more "profitable" (in the short run, and ignoring "externalities")--and the political system enshrines that choice and defends it by reflex.



Does anyone have a good article on that, or a suggestion for a concise read I can share on the topic?

There is other stuff in the above referenced website about soil fertility/soil care. It's written by an old hick, but some of it might be of use.

Our #1 soil scientist may be Elaine Ingham--much of what I know on the subject I've learned from her writing. I can't think of a better brief compendium on the subject of the soil food web/natural soil fertility than SOIL BIOLOGY PRIMER which she largely wrote for the Soil and Water Conservation Society www.swcs.org. *Highly* recommended.

That one satisfies "concise" (at 48 pages). At full (but not all that long) book length is BUILDING BETTER SOILS FOR BETTER CROPS 2nd ed by Fred Magdoff and Harold van Es.

The next two issues of Countryside & Small Stock Journal will have in two parts my article "The Joys of Cover Cropping"--cover cropping is at the heart of this idea of "harvesting" sunlight to boost soil fertility.

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us

The industrial mind is a mind without compunction; it simply accepts that
people, ultimately, will be treated as things and that things, ultimately,
will be treated as garbage. ~Wendell Berry





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page