permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:08:52 +1000
From: Hugh Lovel <hugh.lovel9@bigpond.com>
Reply-To: Biodynamic Food and Farming Discussion <bdnow@envirolink.org>
Organization: Ag Physics

If you saw what kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata)  does in the Torres
Straits and elsewhere it might be more apparent what makes this species so
beloved in Japan where it has long been established. This plant can heal
atom bomb scars and the worst of erosion/bulldozer/agricultural disasters.
Had it grown in the American Southwest in ancient times, I believe the Grand
Canyon (the most spectacular example of soil erosion in the world) would
never have developed. This plant is easily controlled by grazing, as every
grazing species loves its rich nutrition and grazes it to death if allowed
to-waxing fat in the process.



Why is there so much fear of species that know how to thrive? Sometimes
these species are not doing what we think is most attractive, sort of like
an overly enthusiastic dog jumping up and pawing on our Sunday clothes, but
how bad is that? In many parts of the world and since the time of sailing
ships freely trading throughout the globe there has been a free exchange of
species and their genetic materials. Let's leave the anomaly of GMOs out for
the moment, and consider species without these freely mutating viruses
associated with GMOs. Has this enriched the speciation of the planet, and of
Australia in particular? Well, yes, it certainly has, but has this been
good? Well, there was already a quite rich diversity of species in many
areas of Australia, particularly in it's coastal rain forest areas. But the
introduction of Radiata pines and Querqus oaks is clearly a benefit in the
regions I've just travelled through during my last month of touring most of
the eastern interior of New South Wales. Such benefits are clear to me
anyway, but I would not expect everyone to agree, of course, no matter that
I have long developed insight into reading landscapes and what plants are
developing what nutrients in the soil, all of which is not a well-defined
art at present.



The native Australian plants are amazing, and in terms of biodynamics I
would reckon the field nettles found in central New South Wales wheat fields
are the superior of the Urtica dioica recommended in Steiner's agriculture
course, but the Nettle Tree of Australian rain forests looks the perfect
picture of this principle of taking all the digested materials into the
blood and distributing them to each participant in the ecological
organism-but taken to the next dimension. Before too long I expect to derive
a radionic card of this sort of 504, and I suspect it will become the norm
just as the casuarina has supplanted the equisetum in Australian radionic BD
practice. The nettle tree is exquisite, and so much for Rudolf Steiner's
imagination that the one plant we might not find a substitute for would be
stinging nettle. Steiner was so incredible, but he also could be wrong, and,
of course, he knew it, though a few generations of "followers" were taught
this was impossible.