Hi James and Tony James wrote (a while back) > > I love my plants and take great delight in growing > > plants that have a look of vitality about them. Although they may appear >> to be very vital plants, each year the seed loses some of it's vitality.
Then Tony >James Some time ago when Peter Bacchus and I were working together in the > fields we had a great discussion on plant breeding and the use of BD preps > to effect this . > What comes to mind ,as no notes were taken we were grubbing weeds, was that > we talked about the use of different preps to aid in cross breeding to > improve colour, quality, vigour etc. We started out about eight years ago using a compounded (hot mix) trace element seed dressing - immediate visible increase in seedling vigour and for pennies an acre we got eight to sixteen % measured grain yield increase from that one small input, we have since moved on from that material (we hope) to using a remineralising fertility program and seed dressings and foliars based on natural materials like fish, kelp etc. The vitality of our seed wheat increases steadily with each generation and I believe the key to it is availability and uptake of trace minerals. What method we use to achieve this is of minor importance. For the conventional farmer down the road a cutback in toxic inputs and use of the seed dressing product we used initially is probably best bet, a BD farmer has a philosophic need to look to some other method, so catalysing rock dust input with the preps becomes the way for some. Whatever it takes to get those trace minerals into the plant and concentrated in the fruit or seed is whats needed. I believe thats a major factor in what we are calling 'vitality' Cheers Lloyd Charles ps for all I think on our farm we are starting out from a much lower base of vitality than what James would have so its easier to make progress .
