permaculture

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

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Achieving High Nutrient Levels in Crops (was 
History of Organic Agriculture slide presentation)
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 02:02:39 -0400
From: Michael Astera <michael.astera@GMAIL.COM>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Heide and all-

The subject of minerals in organic agriculture is relevant to the
present controversy about nutritional content of mainstream vs organic
food crops.  If we can't readily (and convincingly) show a significant
nutritional difference between chemically and organically grown food,
perhaps it's because there isn't one.  Perhaps there isn't much
difference because both are being grown in less than ideal, mineral
deficient, more or less imbalanced soils, while the varieties being
grown lack the ability to utilize the full spectrum of nutrients or
transform them into superior quality food even if everything were
available and in balance.

Figuring out how to achieve high nutrient levels in crops has been my
goal for the last dozen years.  Finding a way to test for nutrients at
a reasonable cost, and finding data to compare test results with, have
been a necessary part of the search. For now, I’m using the standard
ag lab plant tissue tests, because for $50 I can get results for 10
minerals plus protein N, and can compare the results directly with the
numbers in the older literature.

Our older nutrient data collections are based on  minerals, fats,
carbs, and protein. The USDA's first real attempt in 1940 was
"Proximate Composition of American Food Materials", compiled by
Charlotte Chatfield and Georgian Adams. It is a small (6 x9), 92 page
circular that lists values for water, protein, fat, ash,
carbohydrates, and calories. It wasn't until the late 1940s and early
1950s that the USDA nutrient data started to include a few minerals,
and not until the 1960s did the data begin to include 10 or so
minerals and some vitamins. There are a few pre-1940 tables showing
mineral content of foods, mostly from the UK.

The tables I use for comparison today are from the USDA National
Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=8964.  How many years
of data are averaged into that database is a good question, but one
can at least tell how their sample compares to USDA averages.

The numbers and percentages for minerals in the latest USDA database
are, perhaps surprisingly, not easy to equal or exceed with average
organic produce. I encourage anyone who thinks they are growing
nutrient dense crops to have them tested and see how they compare with
the USDA numbers.

Many would be happy to know that their food contained the same amount
of minerals that food grown fifty years ago did, and mineral content
is where most of the past research papers on declining nutrient
content of food have put their emphasis. Testing for mineral content
is the least expensive and most accessible way I know of to measure
and compare nutritional value, for now.

Heidi H. wrote: "how do we intentionally produce plants with optimal
nutrient content? Simply adding the "missing" nutrients to the soil
doesn't necessary produce the result we are looking for, soil is way
too complex for that."

I agree that adding nutrients to the soil doesn't necessarily produce
plants with optimal nutrient content (more on that below); but
bringing the soil's mineral fertility into balance so that the optimum
amount of nutrients are in the soil and available to the crops is not
too complex or difficult.  The method shown in "The Ideal Soil", based
on the Albrecht ratios but conforming to USDA NOP Organic rules, has
been successfully applied around the world over the past four years,
in all climates.  If we know the present mineral balance and CEC of
the soil, moving it in any desired direction is relatively
straightforward and predictable, especially in neutral or acid pH
soils. A lab test will tell us how close the sample is to a given
“ideal” and we can calculate what needs to be added to get there.

All that to say, we do have a reference point for "ideal" soil mineral
balance that has been shown to work, and a way to get there that
anyone can use.  Application is simple, the results are predictable,
and generally the minerals can be brought into any desired balance
within a year or two.

A bigger hurdle to growing nutritionally excellent food is that our
crops have not been bred to uptake minerals nor provide optimal
nutritional value.  They have been bred and selected for appearance,
disease resistance, uniform maturity, size, yield, and shipping,
handling, and storage qualities.  Like fresh flowers, our produce has
been bred to still look pretty when it gets in front of the consumer,
while our broadacre field and row crops have been bred for uniformity
and maximum yield for lowest input cost.

No matter how biologically active, mineral abundant, and fertile a
soil is, if the plant doesn't have the ability to uptake the raw
materials or use them to fabricate the nutrients we desire, it can’t
and it won't. We need crops that have been bred specifically for the
ability to produce nutritionally superior foods.

It wouldn’t be difficult to select for and grow crops with the
emphasis on nutrition and flavor along with appearance, yield, and
other qualities we have already shown we can achieve. They would
likely need to be grown in fully mineralized, biologically active
soils so the plants have all of the needed elements to reach their
full genetic potential, but we know how to create that soil.

Once someone can show, unequivocally, that the food they grow or sell
has significantly higher nutrient levels than what others are
growing....the whole game changes.  A few organic producers entering
the market with crops of proven superior nutrient content will set the
bar higher for all.

Michael Astera
http://soilminerals.com

(PS: I’m not an advocate of regularly foliar feeding nutrients to
crops or applying minerals in soluble form via irrigation, except in
alkaline or calcareous soils where elements such as Iron quickly tie
up in insoluble forms and become unavailable.)


On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Heide Hermary
<heide.hermary@gaiacollege.ca> wrote:
> Michael, that is possible, and I am not sure that ti's likely to happen
> unless prescribed in some way. It could, of course, be included in the
> organic standards, and it would be interesting to see the ideas / comments
> such a discussion would generate.
>
> I see food nutrient content to be more complex than simply mineral content ,
> which in any case is plant / crop specific. I have not looked if such data
> exists. And even if we have that data, how do we intentionally produce
> plants  with optimal nutrient content? Simply adding the "missing" nutrients
> to the soil doesn't necessary produce the result we are looking for, soil is
> way too complex for that. I think that's why a lot of farmers resort to
> foliar applications.
>
> The way I understand organic ag standards, perpetual foliar application is
> not desirable or perhaps even prohibited. That's not a criticism of organic
> standards, just a recognition that we are more able to identify what is
> really important to us in all of this overwhelming complexity.
>
> H
> Heide Hermary
> Gaia College
> http://www.gaiacollege.ca
>
> "It's a matter of discipline...When you've finished washing and dressing
> each morning, you must tend your planet."
> The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2012-10-24, at 10:06 AM, Michael Astera <michael.astera@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> Heide-
>
> You wrote "there is no agreement on how to evaluate nutrient content
> easily".
>
> Agreed, but after quite a lot of looking I discovered that some soil
> testing labs also offer plant tissue testing.  Usually that is
> recommended for and used by growers to measure the minerals in their
> crops during the growing season, to see if there are any deficiencies
> that could be corrected with a foliar spray or via fertigation. It
> also works fine for evaluating the mineral content of produce, and is
> hundreds of dollars cheaper than having the testing done by a
> nutritional lab.
>
> The simplest and least expensive test is the standard tissue test in
> which a few grams of the crop are oven dried and then burned and the
> mineral content assayed with an ICP/MS.  There is also a wet test,
> where the crop is dissolved in nitric acid before being assayed.  The
> wet method gives results that are directly comparable to the USDA
> nutrient charts (mg/100g), including moisture content.  The dry tissue
> test results are in ppm and don't usually include moisture content, so
> that needs to be done by the person sending the sample (fresh vs oven
> dry weight).  If you know the moisture content the ppm results can
> easily be converted to mg/100g of fresh produce.
>
> Both tests analyze N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn at minimum. The
> lab I use, LoganLabs.com, charges less than $60 per test.
>
> I would submit that this is the missing link in proving the
> nutritional value of any system of agriculture.
>
> Michael A
> http://soilminerals.com
>
> On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Heide Hermary
> <heide.hermary@gaiacollege.ca> wrote:
>
> Joel,
> Thank you for re-posting that quote.
> Yes, I would be interested in the German version, when you have a moment.
>
> Michael's comments were very interesting.  I often hear the idea that
> organic agriculture / horticulture only concerns itself only with organic
> matter management, not soil nutrients. I don't see how that is evident from
> the Standards, which definitely allow non organic (i.e. mineral) inputs. We
> always introduce Albrecht and Reams, because we teach about nutrient
> management. We also introduce current soil microbiology concepts - I don't
> see any conflict.
>
> The difficulty, I think, is more in the general focus. If we want to produce
> nutritious food we need the nutrients in the soil, and accessible to plants
> through appropriate biology. but I don't see that as an expressed purpose of
> agriculture, whether conventional or organic.  And maybe it's not front and
> centre because there is no agreement on how to evaluate nutrient content
> easily.
>
> Heide
> Heide Hermary
> Gaia College
> http://www.gaiacollege.ca
>
> "It's a matter of discipline...When you've finished washing and dressing
> each morning, you must tend your planet."
> The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2012-10-24, at 8:37 AM, Joel Gruver <jgruv@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> Hello Michael,
>
> Almost exactly 13 years ago, I posted the following message to the SANET
> listserv:
>
> Hello to all...
>
>
>
> While perusing a book titled Fauna in soil ecosystems: recycling processes,
> nutrient fluxes and agricultural production (edited by Gero Benckiser,
> Marcel Dekker, 1997,
>
> ISBN 0-8247-9786-8) I encountered a very interesting quote attributed to  an
> individual somewhat infamous in sustainable ag circles. In 1855, Justus
>
> Von Liebig wrote:
>
>
> "Unfortunately the true beauty of agriculture with its intellectual and
> animating principles is almost unrecognized. The art of agriculture will
>
> be lost when ignorant, unscientific and short sighted teachers persuade the
> farmer to put all his hopes in universal remedies, which don't exist
>
> in nature. Following their advice, bedazzled by an ephemeral success, the
> farmer will forget the soil and lose sight of his inherent values and their
>
> influence."
>
>
>
> The original source of this quote is Liebig von, J. (1855)  Die Grundsatze
> der Agriculturchemie mit Rucksicht auf die in England angestellten
> Untersuchungen. Braunschweig.
>
>
> Those are some interesting words to ponder in this age of biotech promises
> of "universal remedies"...
>
>
>
> Joel Gruver
>
> Center for Agriculture, Food and Environment
>
> Tufts University
>
>
>
> P.S. I have the original German if anyone is interested
>
> ***********************************************************************************************
>
> Liebig was indisputably a great scientist and educator who made many
> landmark contributions to inorganic and organic chemistry and the teaching
> of these topics.
>
> For some reason however proponents of both organic agriculture and
> industrial agriculture seem prone to circulating misinformation about the
> man.
>
> The wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justus_von_Liebig)
> contains several obvious errors:
>
> Liebig did NOT formulate the law of the minimum and for much of his career
> believed that all crops had access to N from the air and thus would not
> benefit from supplemental N.
>
> I address some of these myths in the presentation at the following link:
>
> http://www.slideshare.net/jbgruver/history-soil-fertility
>
> **********************************************************************************************
>
> JI Rodale was not a scientist... he was a publisher and public speaker who
> greatly increased public exposure to the ideas of A Howard, W Albrecht, L
> Bromfield, E Pheiffer, M Fukuoka, R McCarrison, W Price...
>
> Howard and Albrecht did not have the same views... but they shared a common
> interest in relationships between soil fertility/management and crop,
> livestock and human health.
>
> I emphasized this point in class last week when we discussed the slides.
>
> Joel
>
> Joel Gruver
>
> School of Agriculture
>
> Western Illinois University
>
> jgruv@hotmail.com
>
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:57:44 -0400
> From: michael.astera@GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] History of Organic Agriculture slide presentation
> To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU
>
> Joel-
>
> I enjoyed the slide show, but if its purpose is to trace the history of
> "organic" agriculture I think it's going too far afield and wrongly
> including some prominent researchers who don't fit under that tent,
> Bromfield and Albrecht. It is also repeating an old and scurrilous canard
> against Justus Liebig.
>
> Lebig first: From your slide show "Howard thought that Liebig led
> agriculture astray when he denounced the humus theory and promoted the NPK
> mentality." At the time of the first publication (1840) of Liebig's
> "Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology" agricultural
> science had long been dominated by the idea that humus was the sole source
> of soil fertility.  Liebig definitively showed that was not the case, and
> provided evidence that the source of soil fertility was soil minerals.
> Although he showed that the elements N, P, and K were of major importance
> in growing food crops, and in human and animal nutrition, he emphasized
> that whatever needed element was in shortest supply would be the limiting
> factor in plant growth and health. The staves of the barrel you pictured on
> frame 28 of your slide show, Illustrating Liebig's law of the minimum, show
> ten or twelve minerals, not three. If Howard had bothered to actually read
> Liebig he would have known him as an ardent champion of soil conservation
> whose concern above all was to preserve and build the fertility of
> agricultural soils.  Liebig devoted a good portion of his energy over
> decades to promoting the idea of returning the fertility lost in sewage to
> the land.  The fact that some short-sighted and greedy industrialists used
> a small part of Liebig's work to promote harsh chemical fertilizers to
> "mine" soil fertility is not Liebig's fault or doing. This false criticism
> of Liebig has been repeated by many other writers who also, it seems, have
> not bothered to read Liebig themselves.
>
> Bromfield and Albrecht: Both were strong advocates of restoring and
> preserving soil fertility. JI Rodale had some contact with them in the
> 1940s, but as I heard the story, Rodale was adamant that organic matter
> alone was the source of soil fertility, and he strongly objected to the use
> of any chemical fertilizers such as ammonium sulfate; Bromfield and
> Albrecht were more pragmatic, and they knew that humus alone was not the
> answer. On one of the rare occasions that Albert Howard even mentioned
> minerals, he made the claim that adding some leaves from deep-rooted forest
> trees would provide all of the minerals needed to maintain and build soil
> fertility. This patently false claim was believed and repeated by Rodale
> through most of the 1940s and '50s. By the late 1950s Rodale had learned
> better, and started to emphasize the importance of minerals amendments such
> as rock phosphate, greensand, and lime, though he made a serious mistake by
> advocating only high-Mg dolomite lime. After Rodale's death in 1971, almost
> all mention of minerals disappeared from OG magazine, with the exception of
> using lime to adjust soil pH, again wrongly advocating only dolomite lime.
>
> Albrecht was not a supporter of Rodale's organic movement for the simple
> reason that he knew enough about chemistry, physiology, and nutrition to
> know that organic matter alone would not make or maintain soil fertility.
> That false claim is still heavily promoted by the Rodale institute, whose
> present "chief scientist" has gone on record many times saying and writing
> that no soils in the USA need any minerals, and that each and every soil
> has all of the minerals any crop could ever need, forever.
>
> I first came to this SANET forum to start a discussion of the importance of
> minerals in soil fertility and growing nutritious crops, in an effort to
> offset the exclusive focus on humus and organic matter. My contributions
> were not well received or appreciated.  The ideas presented were denigrated
> and dismissed by a number of people, including Prof Joel Gruver. All of my
> posts since early 2011 have been moderated; they must be approved before
> going up. As far as I can tell, not because of what I have said, but
> apparently due to the ad-hominem attacks against me, the forum moderator
> restricted my ability to post while leaving alone all except one of those
> slandering me or denigrating the importance of what I advocate for. Anyone
> questioning that is referred to the SANET archives from late Dec 2010 to
> Jan 2011.
>
> Including Albrecht in a purported history of organic agriculture is
> deceptive and intellectually dishonest, especially as it would give the
> impression to the uninformed that Albrecht accepted and supported Howard's
> and Rodale's ideas about soil fertility being based on organic matter. It
> also gives the false impression that Howard, JI Rodale, the Rodale
> Institute, or more than a small handful of organic gardeners and growers
> have or had any knowledge of Albrecht's work on soil minerals, soil
> fertility, nutrition, and health. To date they do not, and are for the most
> part continuing to actively denigrate or ignore it.
>
> I would refer anyone interested in Albrecht's understanding of organic
> matter in the soil to his chapter on that subject in the 1938 Yearbook of
> Agriculture. I would refer anyone interested in his opinion of Rodale's
> "organic matter is all" dogma to his collected writings published in four
> volumes by Acres USA.
>
> Michael Astera
> http://soilminerals.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Achieving High Nutrient Levels in Crops (was 
History of Organic Agriculture slide presentation)
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 20:14:34 -0700
From: Heide Hermary <heide.hermary@GAIACOLLEGE.CA>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Thank you for that reference, Michael.  Much easier in this format than 
the old spreadsheet they used to have.

Interesting that you use tissue testing

I also thought that organic matter alone would do the trick until I used 
 some purchased OMRI approved compost once as a straight growing medium 
and all my tomatoes got blossom end rot.

I tried using Brix values because it is so simple, but I cannot get very 
high numbers in spite of a high OM content. Yet everything tastes 
incredibly sweet and rich, keeps well in storage and we see next to no 
health problems on 30+ varieties of food plants.  I had hoped that Brix 
values would be a useful indicator of nutrient content in general, but 
something doesn't quite correlate in my eyes, unless I truly am still 
not able to grow really high quality food.

H
Heide Hermary
Gaia College
http://www.gaiacollege.ca

"It's a matter of discipline...When you've finished washing and dressing 
each morning, you must tend your planet."
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

> On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 10:34 PM, Joel Gruver <jgruv@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello folks,
>
> About a year ago I posted a link for a presentation on the History of
> Organic Agriculture that I created for my Sustainable Ag class.
>
> here is a link to an updated version of the
> presentation:
> http://www.slideshare.net/jbgruver/history-of-organic-agriculture-14808475
>
> the content is similar but I added some new pics and edited the text on
> many slides.
>
> Joel
>
> Joel Gruver
>
> School of Agriculture
>
> Western Illinois University
>
> jgruv@hotmail.com