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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Grim Harvest: Climate Change Sweeps Iowa Farms

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Grim Harvest: Climate Change Sweeps Iowa Farms
  • Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 22:32:23 +0100


The first thing that struck me when the farmer was complaining about not being able to go out on the land and give the crops what they need was that what was actually meant was ; " I can't go out spraying pesticides".
And there was I thinking that this might be a good thing.
Wetter conditions can be surmounted by planting different crops imo. There are many pulse species that like wet soils, just not soy beans. The coloured corn that we have been growing for the last 20 years does quite well on wet soils. All without spraying anything.
Perhaps the most important tactique is to have a wider variety of crops and get away more from monoculture. There has always been something that has done right well for us every summer however miserable the weather was. Hard to predict what that will be next year these days. Crops that have traditionally done very well may fail completely the next time for a number of reasons; mostly weather related or because of an exploding rodent population.
John

Grim Harvest: Climate Change Sweeps Iowa Farms (Op-Ed)
http://www.livescience.com/46863-iowa-farms-try-to-cope-with-climate-changes.html

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