Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Manure contains phosphorus only in so far as the feedstuff that led to this manure contained phosphorus. If your soil is phosphorus poor there is only one way to grow healthy vegetables and that is by getting phosphorus somehow.

I would not go for commercial P fertilizer because this is specialy made to dissolve fast (yes with sulfuric acid) and run away fast so that you need to buy more year after year.

john

Doesn't manure contain phosphorus? I am really curious about how necessary it is for us to mine phosphate rock. It is extremely destructive to the environment, so I am hoping there is a better solution.

On Feb 3, 2011, at 1:32 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

Bones, even old bones, can be burned and produce a much hotter fire than even coal. In times of old they were even used in steam engines. It were Egyptean mummies that dug the Suez canal. It were the English that transported bones from all over the battlefields of Europe to England where they were burned and crushed and sold as fertilizer to make England green.

If you were to attempt making high class pottery or even glas this would be the choice fuel for it.

If you were to capture the smoke then by condensing it or by passing it through water (like a waterpipe) you would be in the busines of making Renardine, a smelly substance used to keep predators away from your flocks. The typical smell of burning bone is the only drawback of using bone as fuel. For people with any experience of concentration camps it can be extremely traumatic.

When burned out, the shape of the bone is often still recognisable but you can now crush this almost between your fingers. Most of the minerals you are interested in are still in there.

 

john

I've also been pondering what to do in case of a shortage. I feel I should be more self sufficient in my garden. Several old times books used sulfuric acid and dissolved bones...cattle,pig,ect... I dont make sulfuric and am leery of the consequences soil wise of using it ,however diluted... Vinegar also I've read can dissolved bones? Any thoughts along these lines? I am no chemist!!! 

Rick

> Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 22:08:44 -0700
> From: tradingpost@lobo.net
> To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [Livingontheland] Mid-East unrest could increase global phosphorus threat
> 
> 
> I use rock phosphaste amending my beds.
> 
> Mid-East unrest could increase global phosphorus threat
> by Terry Clinton Published Feb 2 2011 by University of Technology Sydney
> http://newsroom.uts.edu.au/search/site/phosphorus
> Two Australian experts in global phosphorus have warned instability in the Middle East and North Africa could threaten world food security, due to the high proportion of global phosphate rock reserves in the region. Speaking in the US today at the Sustainable Phosphorus Summit at Arizona State University, Professor Stuart White and Dr Dana Cordell voiced concern that the instability is an additional component in a looming supply-demand gap in global phosphorus resources.
> Phosphorus is required to produce fertiliser and is not able to be substituted in food production.
> "Morocco alone controls the vast majority of the world's remaining high quality phosphate rock," Professor White said. "Even a temporary disruption to the supply of phosphate on the world market can have serious ramifications for nations' food security."
> Professor White and Dr Cordell, from the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney, are leading an international research initiative on the likely peak in phosphate rock production before the end of the century. "Demand for phosphorus is increasing globally due to changing diets in developing countries, biofuel production and population growth," Professor White said.
> "Peak phosphorus is often highly misunderstood as the 'year we will run out of phosphorus'. The peak actually refers to the point in time when production will no longer be able to keep up with demand due to economic and energy constraints. Whilst the exact timeline is uncertain, it will be much sooner than the time when all the reserves have been depleted. "Even before the peak in production occurs, there is the prospect of significant price spikes and impact on farmers and global crop yields."
> 
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