Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

Just received this back as undelivered.  So I'll try again.
john

> That is true Mitch. I started of following organic dogma of rotations and 
> gave it up because we noticed that volunteer potatoes did very well in 
> their old location. If one does not use pesticides volunteers can not be 
> avoided and if these had died of blight or any other disease I would of 
> course have continued rotating. That was not necessary at all. I do think 
> it is a matter of building a good soil without deficiencies and after that 
> problems disappear.
> In my youth I always saw potato growers burn potato stalks to prevent 
> disease, instead I have always left unwanted parts of a crop decompose in 
> situ. I have seen no sign of blight in twenty years. So I guess I must be 
> doing something right:)
>
> Common believe is all good and well but I think it is more important to 
> keep your eyes open to what nature has to tell you and take it from there. 
> Long ago we had clubroot in one poly tunnel but for one reason or another 
> this was the best location for winter brassicas and so we kept on planting 
> this group in the same location. Clubroot disappeared from itself there in 
> about two years and it never spread to other locations. Of course we have 
> continuously made the soil better there as well. (mostly by using 
> composted sea fish waste I think).
>
> There is an interesting article on SANET taken from the Honolulu 
> Star-Advertiser about natural Korean style farming in Hawaii by Susan 
> Essoyan. "A self -sufficient system of farming is increasing yields across 
> Hawaii". I have tried before to forward articles like this on this list 
> and they are always refused and come bounced back at me. So if someone is 
> interested you will have to look for it yourselves.
> These people seem to be doing what I have been doing up to rearing pigs 
> without the traditional stink.
> I am not alone :)
> john
>
> T
>
> > John, didn't you say that you have been planting potatoes in the same 
> > area for years, to develop a variety well suited to your location?  I 
> > believe I have read that potatoes should be planted in a different place 
> > every year to prevent blight.  If I've understood correctly, your 
> > experience refutes common belief.
> >
> > E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
> > www.hillcountrynatives.net
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jan 21, 2011, at 1:24 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
> >
> > > > *ORGANIC NEWS - ROTATIONS RANT!! [big snips]
> > > > Over the years a great many dedicated and totally committed people have 
> > > > spent most of their lives promoting and protecting the integrity of 
> > > > organics, often at very great personal cost. Now a new breed of  'soft 
> > > > organic' people seem to be emerging, who think it's more important to 
> > > > be 'media friendly' than to defend long held basic organic principles. 
> > > > They even consider some of us people to be 'organic fascists or 
> > > > extremists' - (which I have often been called!). Organic pioneers like 
> > > > Lawrence Hills, Lady Eve Balfour and many others must be turning in 
> > > > their graves!
> > >
> > > <<< I am probably getting a reputation of a devils advocate but I can't 
> > > help it. I am somewhat in doubt that organic pioneers would mind much 
> > > that rotations are not strictly adhered to if they understood the 
> > > background for the reason of rotation as much as some of us do today.
> > >
> > > I just a few days ago received a long article about glyphosate/roundup 
> > > by Jeffrey M. Smith in my inbox that might make some of these reasons 
> > > clear. The title of the article is : "Monsanto's Roundup Triggers over 
> > > 40 plant diseases and endangers human and animal health."
> > > The way roundup triggers disease is by chelating/binding to necessary 
> > > trace elements in soil. Healthy plants need almost 40 different elements 
> > > just as we do and if they can't get them they are open to attack by 
> > > mostly fungal diseases.
> > > A nice experiment is described in the article of plants grown in 
> > > completely sterile soil to which roundup is added and they are only 
> > > slightly stunted compared to plants grown in normal soil without 
> > > roundup. Plants grown in normal soil, full of soil organisms with 
> > > roundup die almost instantaniously.
> > >
> > > Plants and especially vegetables are miners for minerals. Some groups 
> > > will take up more copper and zink and leave manganese and molybdenum 
> > > mostly alone. And that is the reason for rotation, if we plant 
> > > vegetables of the same group in the same plot year after year we will 
> > > get short of copper and zink and the vegetables will get diseased.
> > > Plant vegetables from another group and they may mine other minerals 
> > > that are not yet exhausted. And if we have a very rich soil or subsoil 
> > > the exhausted mineral supply may have become replenished after a few 
> > > years.
> > >
> > > If we grow vegetables on the same land for a long time we run the risk 
> > > of terminally exhausting all kinds of minerals and rotations of however 
> > > long a period will no longer help. Vegetables grown today have on 
> > > average 50-70% less minerals than 50 years ago, even organic vegetables 
> > > grown in rotation.
> > >
> > > Things get really weird when chemicals have been applied. Seems that 
> > > roundup is not at all as biodegradable as Monsanto has always told us. 
> > > In some soils it has been found to have a half-life (when just half the 
> > > original amount has been degraded) of 22 years. It has bound minerals 
> > > and remains like that for a long time. Until for instance a well meaning 
> > > grower applies phosphate fertilizer or an organic chicken manure when 
> > > the glyphosate becomes active again and kills the whole new crop.
> > > Another unpleasant detail is that soil tests can indicate that there are 
> > > plenty of trace elements in the soil while these are completely 
> > > inaccessible where glyphosate has been applied even many years before.
> > >
> > > Organic pioneers might indeed turn around in their graves but perhaps 
> > > for different reasons than that people don't adhere to rotations very 
> > > strictly.
> > > john
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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