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Subject: Market Farming
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- From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
- To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers
- Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 17:51:57 -0500
On Mar 15, 2005, at 9:46 AM, Tradingpost wrote:
If the soil is right to begin with, why would you need to add fertilizer?
Well for one thing, if you're sending significant amounts of crop off the farm (to customers), you need to replace those nutrients. You may be able to grow a lot of your nitrogen in N-fixing cover crops, but any net loss of this and other nutrients needs to be replaced, or else you're mining your soil. If you had highly fertile soil to begin with, it may take years for the effects to show; but problems will develop eventually.
Also, a lot of us are dealing with soil that wasn't "perfect" for crop production to begin with: sometimes because it's been damaged by erosion or by having been otherwise treated improperly at some point over the last couple of hundred years; sometimes because it naturally lacks some nutrients needed to grow crops which we want to grow and which are otherwise suited to the area.
you can
only encourage pests or weak growth by adding something else and disturbing
the natural balance. Then you end up having to use chemicals to control
things that wouldn't have been there in the first place
That's definitely correct, if you add unneeded/excess nutrients. Never add something automatically, or just because somebody else had benefit from it; they may well have an entirely different situation. Do your best to find out whether your specific crops, on your specific soils, need it.
-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
-
[Market-farming] fertilizers,
sue roseman, 03/14/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers,
robert schuler, 03/15/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers,
Tradingpost, 03/15/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers, road's end farm, 03/15/2005
- RE: [Market-farming] fertilizers, Jill Bussiere, 03/15/2005
-
[Market-farming] RE: fertilizers -- use worm boxes!,
Alliums, 03/15/2005
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Re: [Market-farming] RE: fertilizers -- use worm boxes!,
Beth Spaugh, 03/15/2005
- [Market-farming] RE: fertilizers -- use worm boxes!, Alliums, 03/16/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] RE: fertilizers -- use worm boxes!,
Beth Spaugh, 03/15/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers,
Tradingpost, 03/15/2005
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
-
Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers,
Bill Shoemaker, 03/15/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers,
James H. Corey, 03/15/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers, TxBeeFarmer, 03/15/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers,
James H. Corey, 03/15/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers, Bill Shoemaker, 03/15/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers,
Bill Shoemaker, 03/15/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers, John Cowan, 03/15/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] fertilizers,
robert schuler, 03/15/2005
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