permaculture

[jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com>]

I found that by supplying things to the soil in a mixture of sizes and forms 
seemed to give a longer-lasting availability. For instance, I crushed 
seasheel I had gathered, and made sure it was NOT homogenous in size or 
variety, thinking that the microbes and humic acid would work on it at the 
pace the soil needed it released. The same was with my ashes from the 
woodstove. I emptied the ashes before they had reduced all the charcoal bits, 
so I had many size chunks available to soil life. I feel this is similar to 
the origins of the tierra prita-type techniques used by many indigenous 
cultures around the world.
Nature rarely reduces a substance to a homogenous powder such as that bought 
from "organic" sources as soil amendments. Natural forces more often leave a 
huge variety of type and size of materials. That's why, except when making 
potting soil, I no longer screeen my compost. Even big chunks of burnt bone 
or wood charcoal, even old brassica and other tough roots, can serve as host 
and habitat to microbes that will spread through the soil as materials become 
available for their use. 
 
> Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:01:28 -0500
> From: venaurafarm@bellsouth.net
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [permaculture] Fwd: [SANET-MG] Fertilizer and soil testing
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [SANET-MG] Fertilizer and soil testing
> Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 23:51:14 -0800
> From: Mary-Howell & Klaas Martens <kandmhfarm@SPRINTMAIL.COM>
> To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU
> 
> Joel and Michael,
> 
> Thank you both for posting your well thought out and important ideas on soil
> testing, fertility, amendments, and crop nutrient density.
> 
> I don't have any answers to add here, I'm a fellow student of soils. I find
> that each question I find an answer to opens up still more and deeper
> questions.
> 
> I would like to add an observation I've made to this discussion. The old
> 'masters', 'visionaries', whatever we call them, Steiner, Howard, Balfour,
> Viosin, Albrecht, etc. etc. connected soil with health by the direct
> observations that they each made.
> 
> They first observed patterns in the health (or lack of it) of people and
> animals and then tied them back to the soil that their food grew in. They
> then tested the crops and the soils that supported them to try to understand
> how they were connected.
> 
> Albrecht's 'ratios' have been cussed and discussed for years by people many
> of who did not understand what Albrecht actually believed and taught at all.
> I think the same is true for all of the other old scientists who's work I've
> studied. Albrecht himself never talked about 'ratios' of nutrients. He did
> teach that he found the soils where animals and people were exceptionally
> healthy, all had very similar proportions of minerals when compared to their
> total mineral holding capacity. He actually taught that having the right
> 'ratio' of any two minerals but at the wrong levels was of no benefit
> whatsoever. His contribution to the big picture was a deeper understanding
> of how the different minerals affected each other's availability to crops.
> 
> Steiner said that his preps worked by 'organizing' minerals so that they
> were more available to the plants.
> 
> I think the idea that simply throwing on more of what is short in a soil
> test is overly simplistic and does not accurately represent what the early
> visionaries discovered or taught. Often minerals are deficient because some
> other mineral is in excess. Some minerals are deficient when they
> themselves are in excess.
> 
> Our soil tests are only crude attempts at finding out what minerals are
> available to plants in any given situation. If soils have great biological
> activity, then small mineral deficiencies will not make a big difference in
> the crop as long as they have some of the mineral that is deficient. With
> certain fertilizers, tissue levels of some minerals can be excessive even
> when the soil test is showing a severe deficiency. (I have documented this
> myself)
> 
> Soils don't always respond to fertilizer applications the way we would
> expect them to. I don't think soil is a 'black box' but it is certainly not
> at all like a balance sheet either.
> 
> I believe that there is no doubt that mineral dense crops produce healthy
> people and animals. I just don't believe we know how to reliably grow
> mineral dense crops. At least not reliably.
> 
> Discussions like this will get us closer to that goal if we come to them
> with an honest desire to learn. Please keep working at it. Some day we
> will get there.
> 
> Klaas
> 
> 
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