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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Fwd: Organic Farming Tops in Soil-Building

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: athagan@atlantic.net
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Fwd: Organic Farming Tops in Soil-Building
  • Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 12:03:16 -0400

Before it turned into a consumer movement this was organic farming's
great reason for being - improving soil tilth.

Sure looks different today than it did back when Rodale's Organic
Gardening magazine was still Organic Gardening & FARMING in the small
format on pulp paper.

.....Alan.

Quoting "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>:

> Slightly off topic, but still applicable to orchards in some ways.
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
> Date: July 10, 2007 6:57:35 AM PDT
> To: ARS News subscriber <lonrom@hevanet.com>
> Subject: Organic Farming Tops in Soil-Building
> Reply-To: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
>
> STORY LEAD:
> Organic Farming Beats No-Till?
> ___________________________________________
>
> ARS News Service
> Agricultural Research Service, USDA
> Don Comis, (301) 504-1625, donald.comis@ars.usda.gov
> July 10, 2007
> --View this report online, plus photos and related stories, at
> www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr
> ___________________________________________
>
> Organic farming can build up soil organic matter better than
> conventional no-till farming can, according to a long-term study by
>
> Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.
>
> Researchers made this discovery during a nine-year study at the
> Henry
> A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC),
> Beltsville,
> Md. BARC is operated by ARS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
> chief
> scientific research agency.
>
> Plant physiologist John Teasdale, with the ARS Sustainable
> Agricultural
> Systems Laboratory in Beltsville, was surprised to find that
> organic
> farming was a better soil builder than no-till. No-till has always
> been
> thought to be the best soil builder because it eliminates plowing
> and
> minimizes even light tillage to avoid damaging organic matter and
> exposing the soil to erosion.
>
> Organic farming, despite its emphasis on building organic matter,
> was
> thought to actually endanger soil because it relies on tillage and
>
> cultivation--instead of herbicides--to kill weeds.
>
> But Teasdale's study showed that organic farming's addition of
> organic
> matter in manure and cover crops more than offset losses from
> tillage.
>
> > From 1994 to 2002, Teasdale compared light-tillage organic corn,
>
> > soybean and wheat with the same crops grown with no-till plus
> > pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.
>
> In a follow-up three-year study, Teasdale grew corn with no-till
> practices on all plots to see which ones had the most-productive
> soils.
> He found that the organic plots had more carbon and nitrogen and
> yielded 18 percent more corn than the other plots did.
>
> Read more about the research in the July 2007 issue of Agricultural
>
> Research magazine, available online at:
> http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jul07/soil0707.htm
>
> ___________________________________________
>
> This is one of the news reports that ARS Information distributes to
>
> subscribers on weekdays. Send feedback and questions to the ARS
> News
> Service at NewsService@ars.usda.gov.
>
> * To change the address, please notify the ARS News Service at
> NewsService@ars.usda.gov.
> * To unsubscribe, send a blank email to
> leave-129030-22236Y@ls.ars.usda.gov.
> * Other ARS news products are available by e-mail. For details
> about
> them or to subscribe, please contact the ARS News Service or visit
>
> http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/lists.htm.
> __________________________________________
> ARS News Service, Information Staff, Agricultural Research Service
> 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD 20705-5128
> NewsService@ars.usda.gov | www.ars.usda.gov/news
> Phone (301) 504-1638 | fax (301) 504-1486
>
>




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