North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Erdman, James" <ErdmanJ@uwstout.edu>]

Arouond here, quite a few people are growing apples organically, and making a 
living at it.  Maybe they didn't give up too soon, but I know that some of 
them started their orchards from scratch as an organic orchard.
 
Jim, in Menomonie, WI

________________________________

From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of 
dmnorton@royaloakfarmorchard.com
Sent: Wed 4/4/2007 2:33 PM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Boron and other things



"Chemical agriculture is where superstition
abounds. Every chemist worth his or her salt KNOWS how
delicate and subtle the chemical equilibria
of biological reactions is, and yet there is the
superstition that you can pour nitrogen, phosphate and
chloride salts on the land and burn its
organic matter up, wreck its microbiology, dump toxic
chemicals on crops and then the food will be healthy
to eat. It takes mountains of faith - or
superstition - to believe such utter bilge."

Well, since we tried to grow 10,000 apples trees organically for 3 years and
almost lost over half of them to pests and disease, we came to the
conclusion that we would have to "believe such utter bilge", burn organic
matter up, wreck its microbiology and dump toxic chemicals on crops.  Sorry
folks, some of us grow fruit for a living!

Dennis Norton
Royal Oak Farm Orchard

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