Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

In my case it is about 1 to 10; i.e, I use mulching materials from 10 acres 
to feed 1 acre of vegetable beds.  But that is probably not typical since I 
live in an arid climate with poor soils.  The ratio is bound to be much lower 
in regions with more rain and better soil where more biomass is produced per 
acre.  Also, mulched gardening is unusual for arid regions.  Traditional 
farming in this like most other arid regions uses bare soil cultivation 
together with manure from goats which can survive on shrub land during the 
summer when grasses and other annuals have dried.  But no matter whether we 
use mulch or manure, there is a constant transfer of fertility from the 
fields to the garden.  The question really is; what is more efficient: manure 
or mulch?  But I guess the answer will very much depend on local conditions.

Regarding the question of compost versus manure, I think manure always ought 
to be composted, while plant residues should be returned as surfaces mulches 
for in-place composting whenever possible because heap composting, especially 
high temperature composting, always involves a loss of nutrients.  I only use 
heap composting for plant residues when I don’t have enough water to keep the 
mulched area wet because without humidity the mulch isn’t going to decompose. 
 It requires less water to keep a compost heap wet than a mulched area.

Dieter Brand
Portugal


--- On Thu, 9/23/10, pbunch@cox.net <pbunch@cox.net> wrote:

> From: pbunch@cox.net <pbunch@cox.net>
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] TWO AGRICULTURES, NOT ONE, By John Michael 
> Greer
> To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" 
> <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Cc: "Dieter Brand" <diebrand@yahoo.com>
> Date: Thursday, September 23, 2010, 3:03 PM
> Interesting observation. I wonder
> what the ratio between intensive:extensive growing has to
> be. Also what differences might be required in compost
> verses manures as means of transporting the nutrients. I
> suspect that P, K and trace minerals would become critical
> as legumes can supply the N. It would seem that human
> waste  recycling would become a critical component.
>