RE: [biofuel] Conquest of the Land
Hi Kirk >Brilliant! >So glad to see I'm not the only person in the world to have read >Price/Pottenger. I know the feeling well! "The most important book in the world" - and one of the most obscure. I wonder why? (Not.) >I agree with your comments re dynamics of biological farming versus "better >living through chemistry" rubbish promoted by idustry/gvt with the exception >of trace elements. >If they aren't in the subsoil then deep rooted crops/weeds cannot lift what >is not there. This is true in sedimentary soils. When you remove crops from >these soils the trace elements leave also. It took ages to get what precious >few were there before agriculture and we effectively remove over 90% in many >instances in 40 years. Rock dust (granite), sea weed or other >supplementation can in many cases result in crop yield improvements of 30% >in the first year yet most gvt farm agents will provide zero information. On shaky ground suddenly, but I think some traditional systems have existed on such soils for a very long time. Of course where there's annual replenishment through flooding (and pity the mountainsides upstream), like the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, etc., but I think not only. Anyway, again, that's the chemistry part of soil, the biology of the soil can make all the difference. Where you have low levels of minerals and a high soil biodiversity (through good soil management and sufficient organic matter), the plants have higher mineral content. This happens through having a large population of plant nutrient cyclers and plant symbionts present in the soil, making the scarce minerals more available or "feeding" them directly to the plants (eg via mycorrhizal fungi). The soil biology can also "buffer" the mineral imbalances. Plants can take up non-nutritive ions and substitute these for plant nutrient minerals to survive. Also, the minerals are often there but "locked up" by soil imbalances caused by poor practices. Too much of this means no that, even if it's there in abundance, it's out of reach. Such imbalances are also complex, it's usually not much use replacing only what seems to be "missing". Good humus management is most important - feed the soil bugs, they'll figure it out for you. As you say, rock dusts and liquid seaweed can make all the difference, and no, they won't tell you that! Seaweed is highly effective, virtually all the minerals in more or less ideal forms and ratios, alongn with growth-promoters and so on, and a little goes a long way. A very acceptable off-farm input. That's the good (?) thing about trace minerals, micro-nutrients, tiny amounts can make all the difference. Best thing to do with seaweed is spray it on the compost pile. Also the best place for rock dusts, IMHO. >Keith, how on earth did you acquire such a broad education? >It's refreshing to find someone who values knowledge above ball games. Education? Me? It's nice of you to say so, but I don't have an education. I walked out of school as soon as I was big enough to make it stick. True. Well, also I'm a journalist, and did more or less the same thing with newspapers - out, went freelance, got into investigative work and followed my nose. Also not a national - same thing, left, lived all over the place since then, no home any more, I don't think I even have a culture anymore. I guess I got quite thoroughly un-educated. :-) But yes, I do value knowledge above ball games, as do you, I can see, and yes, that's refreshing. All best Keith Addison Journey to Forever Handmade Projects Tokyo http://journeytoforever.org/ >Kirk Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] Conquest of the Land
Brilliant! So glad to see I'm not the only person in the world to have read Price/Pottenger. I agree with your comments re dynamics of biological farming versus "better living through chemistry" rubbish promoted by idustry/gvt with the exception of trace elements. If they aren't in the subsoil then deep rooted crops/weeds cannot lift what is not there. This is true in sedimentary soils. When you remove crops from these soils the trace elements leave also. It took ages to get what precious few were there before agriculture and we effectively remove over 90% in many instances in 40 years. Rock dust (granite), sea weed or other supplementation can in many cases result in crop yield improvements of 30% in the first year yet most gvt farm agents will provide zero information. Keith, how on earth did you acquire such a broad education? It's refreshing to find someone who values knowledge above ball games. Kirk -Original Message- From: Keith Addison [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 10:32 AM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [biofuel] Conquest of the Land Hi Kirk >Erosion is very visible. Yet still much neglected after nearly a century of crisis calls. >Perhaps more sinister is the invisible destruction of land. Trace element >deficiency is every bit as deadly. FAO Soils Bulletin 48, Rome 1982, "Micronutrients and the Nutrient Status of Soils: A Global Study", 450 p, charted a disaster in the making and called for urgent action. From a 1999 report: "What one recent study called 'the unexpected importance of micro-element deficiencies and toxicities' is now impacting on the most productive Green Revolution soils." Anyway, the two types of erosion (among many others) are part and parcel of the same phenomenon, with many of the same causes. >Read "Nutrition and Physical >Degeneration" by Weston Price and the animal study re same "Pottengers Cats" >by Frances Pottenger MD. Link to PP Foundation at very bottom of >http://www.drduh.com >You will not view people the same after reading these 2 books. Nor yourself. Nor the world. Reading Price especially is a real life-changer (and improver). Please see Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, 1939: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html#price Also: The Darwin of nutrition - Weston A. Price http://journeytoforever.org/text_price.html These pages link to extended reviews of Price's work, including long excerpts and many photographs, as well as to some of Price's other writing. A much better place to visit than the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation (which is not what it was) is Sally Fallon's informative website at the Weston A. Price Foundation: http://www.westonaprice.org/ >When you grow a crop and transport it away you remove things from the soil. >You in essence "mine" it. Not necessarily so. Husbandry can and should achieve an increase in soil fertility levels in spite of what is removed in crops and livestock. This is very well-established and is the basis of all the forms of sustainable agriculture, and of course of the traditional agricultural systems. Industrialised farming - what's somehow come to be misnomered "conventional" farming - is indeed soil mining. Good grassland management is a good example of what husbandry (and biology) can achieve. A good grass mixture includes not only grass but also legumes and deep-rooting herbs (aka weeds), maybe 25 different species. The grass ley (lasting one to four years or more, depending on the system) is rotated over a farm and provides all the fertility required for as many as five or six subsequent crops. In one well-managed set of tests, a ley was planted and then divided in half. On one half the grass was simply mown and left, nothing was removed. The other half was heavily grazed, and a lot of beef and dairy products were removed. Then both halves were ploughed up and planted to the same crop, with no further treatment. The heavily grazed half far outproduced the mown-and-left half. No magic involved. The specialised gut of the cow, the effect of the urine and the manure on the plants and the soil life, the careful timing to synchronise grazing with plant growth and the decay of the wastes, all more than make up for the growth of the cow and its milk production. You end up with beef, milk, butter, hay, and a foot-deep layer of superior compost covering the entire field. Also grass roots are special: a rye plant can have 23 miles of roots; a rye-grass plant can have 320 miles of roots - specially made to work with the urine and the manure and the soil bugs to build up fertility. There are such systems for all aspects of farming. When you start to integrate them and fine-tune them to the land, crops, climate, local conditions and the market, you can end up with something very fine, and with a v
RE: [biofuel] Conquest of the Land
Hi Kirk >Erosion is very visible. Yet still much neglected after nearly a century of crisis calls. >Perhaps more sinister is the invisible destruction of land. Trace element >deficiency is every bit as deadly. FAO Soils Bulletin 48, Rome 1982, "Micronutrients and the Nutrient Status of Soils: A Global Study", 450 p, charted a disaster in the making and called for urgent action. From a 1999 report: "What one recent study called 'the unexpected importance of micro-element deficiencies and toxicities' is now impacting on the most productive Green Revolution soils." Anyway, the two types of erosion (among many others) are part and parcel of the same phenomenon, with many of the same causes. >Read "Nutrition and Physical >Degeneration" by Weston Price and the animal study re same "Pottengers Cats" >by Frances Pottenger MD. Link to PP Foundation at very bottom of >http://www.drduh.com >You will not view people the same after reading these 2 books. Nor yourself. Nor the world. Reading Price especially is a real life-changer (and improver). Please see Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, 1939: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html#price Also: The Darwin of nutrition - Weston A. Price http://journeytoforever.org/text_price.html These pages link to extended reviews of Price's work, including long excerpts and many photographs, as well as to some of Price's other writing. A much better place to visit than the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation (which is not what it was) is Sally Fallon's informative website at the Weston A. Price Foundation: http://www.westonaprice.org/ >When you grow a crop and transport it away you remove things from the soil. >You in essence "mine" it. Not necessarily so. Husbandry can and should achieve an increase in soil fertility levels in spite of what is removed in crops and livestock. This is very well-established and is the basis of all the forms of sustainable agriculture, and of course of the traditional agricultural systems. Industrialised farming - what's somehow come to be misnomered "conventional" farming - is indeed soil mining. Good grassland management is a good example of what husbandry (and biology) can achieve. A good grass mixture includes not only grass but also legumes and deep-rooting herbs (aka weeds), maybe 25 different species. The grass ley (lasting one to four years or more, depending on the system) is rotated over a farm and provides all the fertility required for as many as five or six subsequent crops. In one well-managed set of tests, a ley was planted and then divided in half. On one half the grass was simply mown and left, nothing was removed. The other half was heavily grazed, and a lot of beef and dairy products were removed. Then both halves were ploughed up and planted to the same crop, with no further treatment. The heavily grazed half far outproduced the mown-and-left half. No magic involved. The specialised gut of the cow, the effect of the urine and the manure on the plants and the soil life, the careful timing to synchronise grazing with plant growth and the decay of the wastes, all more than make up for the growth of the cow and its milk production. You end up with beef, milk, butter, hay, and a foot-deep layer of superior compost covering the entire field. Also grass roots are special: a rye plant can have 23 miles of roots; a rye-grass plant can have 320 miles of roots - specially made to work with the urine and the manure and the soil bugs to build up fertility. There are such systems for all aspects of farming. When you start to integrate them and fine-tune them to the land, crops, climate, local conditions and the market, you can end up with something very fine, and with a very low level of off-farm inputs, approaching zero. So why isn't everybody doing it? Where's the profit for the agribusiness giants? But many are doing it, more and more all the time. Sorry to waffle on about it, but this has great application to biomass production and biofuels crops. Best wishes Keith Addison Journey to Forever Handmade Projects Tokyo http://journeytoforever.org/ >Kirk > >-Original Message- >From: Keith Addison [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 1:20 AM >To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com >Subject: [biofuel] Conquest of the Land > > >Tom Reed of the Biomass Energy Foundation likes this book so much he >wants to give it away free to everybody involved in bioenergy. Good >idea! Anyway, no need to give it away, it's online. > >Conquest of the Land Through 7,000 Years >By W.C. Lowdermilk. 1953. USDA Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 99. 30 >p. >http://soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010119lowdermilk.usda/cls.html > >http://www.nhq.nrcs.usda.gov/BCS/agecol/conquest.pdf [PDF] > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EM
RE: [biofuel] Conquest of the Land
Erosion is very visible. Perhaps more sinister is the invisible destruction of land. Trace element deficiency is every bit as deadly. Read "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" by Weston Price and the animal study re same "Pottengers Cats" by Frances Pottenger MD. Link to PP Foundation at very bottom of http://www.drduh.com You will not view people the same after reading these 2 books. When you grow a crop and transport it away you remove things from the soil. You in essence "mine" it. Kirk -Original Message- From: Keith Addison [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 1:20 AM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: [biofuel] Conquest of the Land Tom Reed of the Biomass Energy Foundation likes this book so much he wants to give it away free to everybody involved in bioenergy. Good idea! Anyway, no need to give it away, it's online. Conquest of the Land Through 7,000 Years By W.C. Lowdermilk. 1953. USDA Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 99. 30 p. http://soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010119lowdermilk.usda/cls.html http://www.nhq.nrcs.usda.gov/BCS/agecol/conquest.pdf [PDF] Lowdermilk was the Assistant Chief of the Soil Conservation Service. This classic bulletin provides an historical account of civilization and agriculture, and particularly, the destruction of fertile lands through agricultural practices that result in soil erosion, gulleys, deforestation, deserts, and wastelands. This is his famed "Eleventh Commandment", first delivered in a talk on soil conservation in Jerusalem in June 1939: "Thou shalt inherit the Holy Earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and productivity from generation to generation. "Thou shalt safeguard thy fields from soil erosion, thy living waters from drying up, thy forests from desolation, and protect thy hills from overgrazing by thy herds, that thy descendants may have abundance forever. "If any shall fail in this stewardship of the land thy fruitful fields shall become sterile stony ground and wasting gullies, and thy descendants shall decrease and live in poverty or perish from off the face of the earth." To which one might add this: Prayer Let the rains come down upon the earth in time let the earth bend down graciously with the produce of the land, let the country be without scourge; let the learned be fearless. Let the sonless have sons, let those who have sons have grandsons, let the poor become rich, let all my people live for a hundred autumns. O Lord, let all my people be happy and fulfilled. (from the Sanskrit) Where today do we find rulers with such prayers? Sure, "democracy is the worst possible system, except for all the others", but why should we vote for any would-be leader who doesn't qualify on the above grounds? How many of the elected governments really have a majority mandate? Increasingly large numbers of people in many (most?) of the western democracies don't vote. Is it really because they don't care/are too dumb/too complacent? Maybe if you could vote "against", many more would vote. Maybe one in a million elected officials would support such a change. Maybe the other 999,999 should be fired. Keith Addison Journey to Forever Handmade Projects Tokyo http://journeytoforever.org/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.252 / Virus Database: 125 - Release Date: 5/9/2001 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.252 / Virus Database: 125 - Release Date: 5/9/2001 Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
