Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Organically Grown Corn Outperforms Non-Organic in #Drought Conditions 
#organic 
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/organically-grown-corn-outperforms-non-organic-drought.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29

Another stat you should remember regarding organic farming, and apropos of 
heatwaves and drought: According to Rodale Institute's long-running 
side-by-side trials of organic and non-organic farming, in conditions of 
drought organic corn yields were 31% higher than non-organic.

As for why, over at Mother Jones, Tom Philpott gives thorough detail on the 
subject, but the quick version is this: It comes down to the differences in 
soil managed through chemical fertilizers versus those managed organically.

    If you're an organic farmer, you don't have the luxury of blasting your 
soil with straight nitrogen. To replenish nutrients, you have to have 
physical stuff that contains nitrogen bound up in organic matter—think 
compost and manure. You can also grow legume cover crops that trap nitrogen 
from the air and deliver it to the roots of plants in a form that can be 
taken into the soil. In this case, too, you're adding a nice dose of organic 
matter along with nitrogen, in the form of the plants that rot in the ground 
when the cover crops does. And, like conventional farmers, you get the 
benefit of crop residues left in the field. As a result of these difference, 
organically managed soils trap more carbon in the soil—and all of that carbon 
allows these soils to hold in water and nutrients better.