Hold on a moment while I burn down my hydro op!
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How To Prevent Botrytis, PM, and Bacterial Leaf Spot Disease
- Thread starter Team Microbe
- Start date
Sure man, why didn't you say so!
http://cpl.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/pub__9468201.pdf
I'm not sure, does that study have enough credibility for you?
I've noticed you've adopted the word anecdotal recently, that's cute. Is this one of those love/hate relationships? Just so we're on the same page here...
Popped up in my word of the day calendar. Try to stay on topic.
I was going to note that study in a caveat, but thought you would understand the actual results, and that it need not be covered. Even just on the surface, ignoring the individual gross errors in execution, the study is no more than a comparison of soil-less peat and coir, grown under a method favourable to soil-less peat.
I usually enjoy reading Bugbee's work. I'm not sure why this piece thrown around so often, tends to just undermine the credibility of the person touting it.
If I conducted a study to compare the yields of coir to organics, and fed both groups at 1.0-1.2 EC 6 times a day, what do you think the result would be? Would the method of the experiment not disqualify the intended goal?
Re-evaluate your response to one of my points and submit anything to the others.
I was going to note that study in a caveat, but thought you would understand the actual results, and that it need not be covered. Even just on the surface, ignoring the individual gross errors in execution, the study is no more than a comparison of soil-less peat and coir, grown under a method favourable to soil-less peat.
I usually enjoy reading Bugbee's work. I'm not sure why this piece thrown around so often, tends to just undermine the credibility of the person touting it.
If I conducted a study to compare the yields of coir to organics, and fed both groups at 1.0-1.2 EC 6 times a day, what do you think the result would be? Would the method of the experiment not disqualify the intended goal?
Re-evaluate your response to one of my points and submit anything to the others.
My understanding of DE if used in a mix, is that it is only harmful to organisms when dry. This is why it is used dry on the surface for gnats. Once it is wetted it is harmless (apparently). I have avoided mixes which have a lot as a precaution...
Interestingly I've avoided neem products for the very same reason. If it kills pathogenic fungi and pests then it must do likewise to friendly bugs and fungi.
Sphagnum peat is superior due to its much higher CEC, its porosity consistency, its humus content and microbial make up. However people using soluble fertilizers report a greater success with coco coir.
I really need to read up on Kempf. Some of the things people have reported him to say sound like peudo-science but that is unfair because it is 3rd hand info.
Interestingly I've avoided neem products for the very same reason. If it kills pathogenic fungi and pests then it must do likewise to friendly bugs and fungi.
Sphagnum peat is superior due to its much higher CEC, its porosity consistency, its humus content and microbial make up. However people using soluble fertilizers report a greater success with coco coir.
I really need to read up on Kempf. Some of the things people have reported him to say sound like peudo-science but that is unfair because it is 3rd hand info.
Damn, so no more neem even in foliar regimens? Do you use anything in place of it, like karanja? Neem has always seemed like a staple in IPM, I hope it doesn't hurt beneficials like you predict.
I really like Kempf, I think you would really like his lectures in the link I posted above man. I'd be interested in what you have to say about the stages of plant health and some of the other points he makes...
ya almost had me there with all that science talk!
ya almost had me there with all that science talk!
A new meta-analysis suggests farmers should take a hybrid approach to producing enough food for humans while preserving the environment
April 25, 2012 |By David Biello
The Future of Farming
Food for hungry mouths, feed for animals headed to the slaughterhouse, fiber for clothing and even, in some cases, fuel for vehicles—all derive from global agriculture. As a result, in the world's temperate climes human agriculture has supplanted 70 percent of grasslands, 50 percent of savannas and 45 percent of temperate forests. Farming is also the leading cause of deforestation in the tropics and one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to the ongoing maul of species known as the "sixth extinction," and a perennial source of nonrenewable groundwater mining and water pollution.
To restrain the environmental impact of agriculture as well as produce more wholesome foods, some farmers have turned to so-called organic techniques. This type of farming is meant to minimize environmental and human health impacts by avoiding the use of synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides and hormones or antibiotic treatments for livestock, among other tactics. But the use of industrial technologies, particularly synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, has fed the swelling human population during the last century. Can organic agriculture feed a world of nine billion people?
In a bid to bring clarity to what has too often been an emotional debate, environmental scientists at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Minnesota performed an analysis of 66 studies comparing conventional and organic methods across 34 different crop species. "We found that, overall, organic yields are considerably lower than conventional yields," explains McGill's Verena Seufert, lead author of the study to be published in Nature on April 26. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) "But, this yield difference varies across different conditions. When farmers apply best management practices, organic systems, for example, perform relatively better."
In particular, organic agriculture delivers just 5 percent less yield in rain-watered legume crops, such as alfalfa or beans, and in perennial crops, such as fruit trees. But when it comes to major cereal crops, such as corn or wheat, and vegetables, such as broccoli, conventional methods delivered more than 25 percent more yield.
The key limit to further yield increases via organic methods appears to be nitrogen—large doses of synthetic fertilizer can keep up with high demand from crops during the growing season better than the slow release from compost, manure or nitrogen-fixing cover crops. Of course, the cost of using 171 million metric tons of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is paid in dead zones at the mouths of many of the world's rivers. These anoxic zones result from nitrogen-rich runoff promoting algal blooms that then die and, in decomposing, suck all the oxygen out of surrounding waters. "To address the problem of [nitrogen] limitation and to produce high yields, organic farmers should use best management practices, supply more organic fertilizers or grow legumes or perennial crops," Seufert says.
In fact, more knowledge would be key to any effort to boost organic farming or its yields. Conventional farming requires knowledge of how to manage what farmers know as inputs—synthetic fertilizer, chemical pesticides and the like—as well as fields laid out precisely via global-positioning systems. Organic farmers, on the other hand, must learn to manage an entire ecosystem geared to producing food—controlling pests through biological means, using the waste from animals to fertilize fields and even growing one crop amidst another. "Organic farming is a very knowledge-intensive farming system," Seufert notes. An organic farmer "needs to create a fertile soil that provides sufficient nutrients at the right time when the crops need them. The same is true for pest management."
But the end result is a healthier soil, which may prove vital in efforts to make it more resilient in the face of climate change as well as conserve it. Organic soils, for example, retain water better than those farms that employ conventional methods. "You use a lot more water [in irrigation] because the soil doesn't have the capacity to retrain the water you use," noted farmer Fred Kirschenmann, president of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture at the "Feeding the World While the Earth Cooks" event at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., on April 12.
At the same time, a still-growing human population requires more food, which has led some to propose further intensifying conventional methods of applying fertilizer and pesticides to specially bred crops, enabling either a second Green Revolution or improved yields from farmlands currently under cultivation. Crops genetically modified to endure drought may also play a role as well as efforts to develop perennial versions of annual staple crops, such as wheat, which could help reduce environmental impacts and improve soil. "Increasing salt, drought or heat tolerance of our existing crops can move them a little but not a lot," said biologist Nina Fedoroff of Pennsylvania State University at the New America event. "That won't be enough."
And breeding new perennial versions of staple crops would require compressing millennia of crop improvements that resulted in the high-yielding wheat varieties of today, such as the dwarf wheat created by breeder Norman Borlaug and his colleagues in the 1950s, into a span of years while changing the fundamental character of wheat from an annual crop to a perennial one. Then there is the profit motive. "The private sector is not likely to embrace an idea like perennial crop seeds, which do not require the continued purchase of seeds and thus do not provide a very good source of profit," Seufert notes.
Regardless, the world already produces 22 trillion calories annually via agriculture, enough to provide more than 3,000 calories to every person on the planet. The food problem is one of distribution and waste—whether the latter is food spoilage during harvest, in storage or even after purchase. According to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, in the U.S. alone, 215 meals per person go to waste annually.
"Since the world already produces more than enough food to feed everyone well, there are other important considerations" besides yield, argues ecologist Catherine Badgley of the University of Michigan, who also compared yields from organic and conventional methods in a 2006 study (pdf) that found similar results. Those range from environmental impacts of various practices to the number of people employed in farming. As it stands, conventional agriculture relies on cheap energy, cheap labor and other unsustainable practices. "Anyone who thinks we will be using Roundup [a herbicide] in eight [thousand] to 10,000 years is foolish," argued organic evangelist Jeff Moyer, farm director the Rodale Institute, at the New America Foundation event.
But there is unlikely to be a simple solution. Instead the best farming practices will vary from crop to crop and place to place. Building healthier soils, however, will be key everywhere. "Current conventional agriculture is one of the major threats to the environment and degrades the very natural resources it depends on. We thus need to change the way we produce our food," Seufert argues. "Given the current precarious situation of agriculture, we should assess many alternative management systems, including conventional, organic, other agro-ecological and possibly hybrid systems to identify the best options to improve the way we produce our food."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...s-and-feeding-the-world-under-climate-change/
i have little interest in "building soil" in my grow room.
ya almost had me there with all that science talk!
Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?
A new meta-analysis suggests farmers should take a hybrid approach to producing enough food for humans while preserving the environment
April 25, 2012 |By David Biello
The Future of Farming
Food for hungry mouths, feed for animals headed to the slaughterhouse, fiber for clothing and even, in some cases, fuel for vehicles—all derive from global agriculture. As a result, in the world's temperate climes human agriculture has supplanted 70 percent of grasslands, 50 percent of savannas and 45 percent of temperate forests. Farming is also the leading cause of deforestation in the tropics and one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to the ongoing maul of species known as the "sixth extinction," and a perennial source of nonrenewable groundwater mining and water pollution.
To restrain the environmental impact of agriculture as well as produce more wholesome foods, some farmers have turned to so-called organic techniques. This type of farming is meant to minimize environmental and human health impacts by avoiding the use of synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides and hormones or antibiotic treatments for livestock, among other tactics. But the use of industrial technologies, particularly synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, has fed the swelling human population during the last century. Can organic agriculture feed a world of nine billion people?
In a bid to bring clarity to what has too often been an emotional debate, environmental scientists at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Minnesota performed an analysis of 66 studies comparing conventional and organic methods across 34 different crop species. "We found that, overall, organic yields are considerably lower than conventional yields," explains McGill's Verena Seufert, lead author of the study to be published in Nature on April 26. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) "But, this yield difference varies across different conditions. When farmers apply best management practices, organic systems, for example, perform relatively better."
In particular, organic agriculture delivers just 5 percent less yield in rain-watered legume crops, such as alfalfa or beans, and in perennial crops, such as fruit trees. But when it comes to major cereal crops, such as corn or wheat, and vegetables, such as broccoli, conventional methods delivered more than 25 percent more yield.
The key limit to further yield increases via organic methods appears to be nitrogen—large doses of synthetic fertilizer can keep up with high demand from crops during the growing season better than the slow release from compost, manure or nitrogen-fixing cover crops. Of course, the cost of using 171 million metric tons of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is paid in dead zones at the mouths of many of the world's rivers. These anoxic zones result from nitrogen-rich runoff promoting algal blooms that then die and, in decomposing, suck all the oxygen out of surrounding waters. "To address the problem of [nitrogen] limitation and to produce high yields, organic farmers should use best management practices, supply more organic fertilizers or grow legumes or perennial crops," Seufert says.
In fact, more knowledge would be key to any effort to boost organic farming or its yields. Conventional farming requires knowledge of how to manage what farmers know as inputs—synthetic fertilizer, chemical pesticides and the like—as well as fields laid out precisely via global-positioning systems. Organic farmers, on the other hand, must learn to manage an entire ecosystem geared to producing food—controlling pests through biological means, using the waste from animals to fertilize fields and even growing one crop amidst another. "Organic farming is a very knowledge-intensive farming system," Seufert notes. An organic farmer "needs to create a fertile soil that provides sufficient nutrients at the right time when the crops need them. The same is true for pest management."
But the end result is a healthier soil, which may prove vital in efforts to make it more resilient in the face of climate change as well as conserve it. Organic soils, for example, retain water better than those farms that employ conventional methods. "You use a lot more water [in irrigation] because the soil doesn't have the capacity to retrain the water you use," noted farmer Fred Kirschenmann, president of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture at the "Feeding the World While the Earth Cooks" event at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., on April 12.
At the same time, a still-growing human population requires more food, which has led some to propose further intensifying conventional methods of applying fertilizer and pesticides to specially bred crops, enabling either a second Green Revolution or improved yields from farmlands currently under cultivation. Crops genetically modified to endure drought may also play a role as well as efforts to develop perennial versions of annual staple crops, such as wheat, which could help reduce environmental impacts and improve soil. "Increasing salt, drought or heat tolerance of our existing crops can move them a little but not a lot," said biologist Nina Fedoroff of Pennsylvania State University at the New America event. "That won't be enough."
And breeding new perennial versions of staple crops would require compressing millennia of crop improvements that resulted in the high-yielding wheat varieties of today, such as the dwarf wheat created by breeder Norman Borlaug and his colleagues in the 1950s, into a span of years while changing the fundamental character of wheat from an annual crop to a perennial one. Then there is the profit motive. "The private sector is not likely to embrace an idea like perennial crop seeds, which do not require the continued purchase of seeds and thus do not provide a very good source of profit," Seufert notes.
Regardless, the world already produces 22 trillion calories annually via agriculture, enough to provide more than 3,000 calories to every person on the planet. The food problem is one of distribution and waste—whether the latter is food spoilage during harvest, in storage or even after purchase. According to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, in the U.S. alone, 215 meals per person go to waste annually.
"Since the world already produces more than enough food to feed everyone well, there are other important considerations" besides yield, argues ecologist Catherine Badgley of the University of Michigan, who also compared yields from organic and conventional methods in a 2006 study (pdf) that found similar results. Those range from environmental impacts of various practices to the number of people employed in farming. As it stands, conventional agriculture relies on cheap energy, cheap labor and other unsustainable practices. "Anyone who thinks we will be using Roundup [a herbicide] in eight [thousand] to 10,000 years is foolish," argued organic evangelist Jeff Moyer, farm director the Rodale Institute, at the New America Foundation event.
But there is unlikely to be a simple solution. Instead the best farming practices will vary from crop to crop and place to place. Building healthier soils, however, will be key everywhere. "Current conventional agriculture is one of the major threats to the environment and degrades the very natural resources it depends on. We thus need to change the way we produce our food," Seufert argues. "Given the current precarious situation of agriculture, we should assess many alternative management systems, including conventional, organic, other agro-ecological and possibly hybrid systems to identify the best options to improve the way we produce our food."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...s-and-feeding-the-world-under-climate-change/
i have little interest in "building soil" in my grow room.
Kygiacomo!!!
AppAlachiAn OutLaW
i already got skeeter dunks and i got neem and karanja meal & oils i will be useing
Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?
A new meta-analysis suggests farmers should take a hybrid approach to producing enough food for humans while preserving the environment
April 25, 2012 |By David Biello
The Future of Farming
Food for hungry mouths, feed for animals headed to the slaughterhouse, fiber for clothing and even, in some cases, fuel for vehicles—all derive from global agriculture. As a result, in the world's temperate climes human agriculture has supplanted 70 percent of grasslands, 50 percent of savannas and 45 percent of temperate forests. Farming is also the leading cause of deforestation in the tropics and one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to the ongoing maul of species known as the "sixth extinction," and a perennial source of nonrenewable groundwater mining and water pollution.
To restrain the environmental impact of agriculture as well as produce more wholesome foods, some farmers have turned to so-called organic techniques. This type of farming is meant to minimize environmental and human health impacts by avoiding the use of synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides and hormones or antibiotic treatments for livestock, among other tactics. But the use of industrial technologies, particularly synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, has fed the swelling human population during the last century. Can organic agriculture feed a world of nine billion people?
In a bid to bring clarity to what has too often been an emotional debate, environmental scientists at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Minnesota performed an analysis of 66 studies comparing conventional and organic methods across 34 different crop species. "We found that, overall, organic yields are considerably lower than conventional yields," explains McGill's Verena Seufert, lead author of the study to be published in Nature on April 26. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) "But, this yield difference varies across different conditions. When farmers apply best management practices, organic systems, for example, perform relatively better."
In particular, organic agriculture delivers just 5 percent less yield in rain-watered legume crops, such as alfalfa or beans, and in perennial crops, such as fruit trees. But when it comes to major cereal crops, such as corn or wheat, and vegetables, such as broccoli, conventional methods delivered more than 25 percent more yield.
The key limit to further yield increases via organic methods appears to be nitrogen—large doses of synthetic fertilizer can keep up with high demand from crops during the growing season better than the slow release from compost, manure or nitrogen-fixing cover crops. Of course, the cost of using 171 million metric tons of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is paid in dead zones at the mouths of many of the world's rivers. These anoxic zones result from nitrogen-rich runoff promoting algal blooms that then die and, in decomposing, suck all the oxygen out of surrounding waters. "To address the problem of [nitrogen] limitation and to produce high yields, organic farmers should use best management practices, supply more organic fertilizers or grow legumes or perennial crops," Seufert says.
In fact, more knowledge would be key to any effort to boost organic farming or its yields. Conventional farming requires knowledge of how to manage what farmers know as inputs—synthetic fertilizer, chemical pesticides and the like—as well as fields laid out precisely via global-positioning systems. Organic farmers, on the other hand, must learn to manage an entire ecosystem geared to producing food—controlling pests through biological means, using the waste from animals to fertilize fields and even growing one crop amidst another. "Organic farming is a very knowledge-intensive farming system," Seufert notes. An organic farmer "needs to create a fertile soil that provides sufficient nutrients at the right time when the crops need them. The same is true for pest management."
But the end result is a healthier soil, which may prove vital in efforts to make it more resilient in the face of climate change as well as conserve it. Organic soils, for example, retain water better than those farms that employ conventional methods. "You use a lot more water [in irrigation] because the soil doesn't have the capacity to retrain the water you use," noted farmer Fred Kirschenmann, president of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture at the "Feeding the World While the Earth Cooks" event at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., on April 12.
At the same time, a still-growing human population requires more food, which has led some to propose further intensifying conventional methods of applying fertilizer and pesticides to specially bred crops, enabling either a second Green Revolution or improved yields from farmlands currently under cultivation. Crops genetically modified to endure drought may also play a role as well as efforts to develop perennial versions of annual staple crops, such as wheat, which could help reduce environmental impacts and improve soil. "Increasing salt, drought or heat tolerance of our existing crops can move them a little but not a lot," said biologist Nina Fedoroff of Pennsylvania State University at the New America event. "That won't be enough."
And breeding new perennial versions of staple crops would require compressing millennia of crop improvements that resulted in the high-yielding wheat varieties of today, such as the dwarf wheat created by breeder Norman Borlaug and his colleagues in the 1950s, into a span of years while changing the fundamental character of wheat from an annual crop to a perennial one. Then there is the profit motive. "The private sector is not likely to embrace an idea like perennial crop seeds, which do not require the continued purchase of seeds and thus do not provide a very good source of profit," Seufert notes.
Regardless, the world already produces 22 trillion calories annually via agriculture, enough to provide more than 3,000 calories to every person on the planet. The food problem is one of distribution and waste—whether the latter is food spoilage during harvest, in storage or even after purchase. According to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, in the U.S. alone, 215 meals per person go to waste annually.
"Since the world already produces more than enough food to feed everyone well, there are other important considerations" besides yield, argues ecologist Catherine Badgley of the University of Michigan, who also compared yields from organic and conventional methods in a 2006 study (pdf) that found similar results. Those range from environmental impacts of various practices to the number of people employed in farming. As it stands, conventional agriculture relies on cheap energy, cheap labor and other unsustainable practices. "Anyone who thinks we will be using Roundup [a herbicide] in eight [thousand] to 10,000 years is foolish," argued organic evangelist Jeff Moyer, farm director the Rodale Institute, at the New America Foundation event.
But there is unlikely to be a simple solution. Instead the best farming practices will vary from crop to crop and place to place. Building healthier soils, however, will be key everywhere. "Current conventional agriculture is one of the major threats to the environment and degrades the very natural resources it depends on. We thus need to change the way we produce our food," Seufert argues. "Given the current precarious situation of agriculture, we should assess many alternative management systems, including conventional, organic, other agro-ecological and possibly hybrid systems to identify the best options to improve the way we produce our food."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...s-and-feeding-the-world-under-climate-change/
i have little interest in "building soil" in my grow room.
The simplicity of your cognitive functioning is mind blowing
+1 as Harold,i am 100% sure that organic growing gives much better product than synthetics,
growing in same way as Team Microbe but with some different organic amendments and have very nice results and my plants are healthy and strong,
using beneficial bacteries and mycos to made soil life more active and alive and i sees
this is a way to go,very easy when you made stuff properly.
But i dont use aeration parts in my grow,no perlite or peat moss,i use black soil(chernozyom) 70 % and wormcastings 30% and my soil looks heavy but plants
grows as crazy,will never change this as i adore results.
Organics rules and those buds are best smelling,other techniques of growing are not smart enough as they dont try to imitate the true way plant growing in nature,
and you cant create good medicine with synthetic nutes,its not a good karma to grow
with synthetic nutes destroying soil life and creating sick inferior plants.
I agree with TM that person need to know way how plants growing in nature,so we need only to imitate this and not invent inferior solutions using our "big brain" and techniques that are not good,nor for plant nor for later consuption or creating medicine that will
heal us or some close person.
Great thread TM,love a way you growing as i made something very very simmilar to you.
All the best
DS
growing in same way as Team Microbe but with some different organic amendments and have very nice results and my plants are healthy and strong,
using beneficial bacteries and mycos to made soil life more active and alive and i sees
this is a way to go,very easy when you made stuff properly.
But i dont use aeration parts in my grow,no perlite or peat moss,i use black soil(chernozyom) 70 % and wormcastings 30% and my soil looks heavy but plants
grows as crazy,will never change this as i adore results.
Organics rules and those buds are best smelling,other techniques of growing are not smart enough as they dont try to imitate the true way plant growing in nature,
and you cant create good medicine with synthetic nutes,its not a good karma to grow
with synthetic nutes destroying soil life and creating sick inferior plants.
I agree with TM that person need to know way how plants growing in nature,so we need only to imitate this and not invent inferior solutions using our "big brain" and techniques that are not good,nor for plant nor for later consuption or creating medicine that will
heal us or some close person.
Great thread TM,love a way you growing as i made something very very simmilar to you.
All the best
DS
Ftscustm
Member
MindBLOWING.
MindBLOWING.
I have donned my motocross riding gear to join this thread, having now read it and felt the warmth of informed hand bags at dawn: You bitches may be slappin'!
Seriously, as I entered this world from the ghostlike existence I had thus followed in the shadows, my thinking began to become more whole, more collected and certainly more purposeful. There are many here I respect, and interestingly their views differ. Although I feel the overall intention of what is best for these delights is all too evident. I am an artist and when I have found true connection with my plant world, it is to yours Team Microbe I would like to delve for inspiration and images, Please?- I am charmed to meet each and every Lady but to see them develop... These alone have convinced me to run my sealed room as DWC for this grow and next a mix of DWC and a properly prepared organic soil grow, as a little side by side. For me to paint a horse for instance, I must understand its skeletal structure and how that moves. How the muscles attach to those bones and the ways these stretch in various aspects of movement, The outer covering and finally the beasts nature. I can manipulate any of these aspects to draw out personality and spirit: Organics is my skeletal structure, my armature and my armour all rolled into one. Now I need to test the theory. I feel arrogant for my exuberant arrival into this community and more than a little like a thief for dipping into the collective purse and not paying dues for three years past, I feel arrogant further still quoting myself, however: Why I.C.Mag? It is simple really: Of all the days spent in pursuit of knowledge to better my growing of this incredible green magic, I felt at home here. As if I were among friends not yet met, people who would not judge or criticise but nurture and help. Growing cannabis is as contentious an issue as religion, or politics. Everyone has their own opinion of what works best and some are quite fanatical in defence of their chosen methods. For me growing cannabis has two sides, a scientific approach and a spiritual one. They are intertwined but can be treating separately and the plant grown accordingly. The latter is my preferred growing technique, for some five years I have not checked PH levels, or E.C levels, I have just loved my ladies and they have loved me in return. Through the gained trust I have found following some of the remarkable growers here, I have adjusted my outlook and now include the scientific to balance my overwhelming love for these trees. In honesty, these girls growing for me now have confirmed the rightness of that trust. I cannot tell you how unusual it is for me to take advice from anyone, however it is with a joyous heart that I report, I was right to do so.
As with regular gardening, which is what informs me in my endeavours with weed: The more I learn, the less I know. I could spend the rest of my life....and the rest of this communities lives (if I may be so bold as to borrow them for a moment?) and still not learn all there is to know. An aspect of faith in ones chosen lifestyle connects us with something, and that something transcends all.
These days the most expensive tomatoes here on sale are vine ripened tomatoes - because it is actually unusual to find fruit and veg that has been ripened on the plant, most happens in transit and in warehouses. This leaves an...impression on the food and then we scoff it down. Food is energy, how pure are those nutritious snacks you are introducing. I grew up on bottled nutes, so to speak and they have been invaluable in my learning. Allowing my the grace to learn about this amazing plant before pickling my head with continued and constant learning. It is here, in organic mud that my plant will engage with me properly and move from being translucently thin to boldly opaque. That and sleep cycle gardening...
THANK YOU ALL: My weed is all that you have made us, I toke for a community now and a man I have never met.
Your threads, Team Microbe are like books to me, I start the first paragraph, am hooked, rust to halfway through, regret my haste, savour the ending and feel a little loss...but this book is as living as your soil
MindBLOWING.
Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?
A new meta-analysis suggests farmers should take a hybrid approach to producing enough food for humans while preserving the environment
April 25, 2012 |By David Biello
The Future of Farming
Food for hungry mouths, feed for animals headed to the slaughterhouse, fiber for clothing and even, in some cases, fuel for vehicles—all derive from global agriculture. As a result, in the world's temperate climes human agriculture has supplanted 70 percent of grasslands, 50 percent of savannas and 45 percent of temperate forests. Farming is also the leading cause of deforestation in the tropics and one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to the ongoing maul of species known as the "sixth extinction," and a perennial source of nonrenewable groundwater mining and water pollution.
To restrain the environmental impact of agriculture as well as produce more wholesome foods, some farmers have turned to so-called organic techniques. This type of farming is meant to minimize environmental and human health impacts by avoiding the use of synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides and hormones or antibiotic treatments for livestock, among other tactics. But the use of industrial technologies, particularly synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, has fed the swelling human population during the last century. Can organic agriculture feed a world of nine billion people?
In a bid to bring clarity to what has too often been an emotional debate, environmental scientists at McGill University in Montreal and the University of Minnesota performed an analysis of 66 studies comparing conventional and organic methods across 34 different crop species. "We found that, overall, organic yields are considerably lower than conventional yields," explains McGill's Verena Seufert, lead author of the study to be published in Nature on April 26. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) "But, this yield difference varies across different conditions. When farmers apply best management practices, organic systems, for example, perform relatively better."
In particular, organic agriculture delivers just 5 percent less yield in rain-watered legume crops, such as alfalfa or beans, and in perennial crops, such as fruit trees. But when it comes to major cereal crops, such as corn or wheat, and vegetables, such as broccoli, conventional methods delivered more than 25 percent more yield.
The key limit to further yield increases via organic methods appears to be nitrogen—large doses of synthetic fertilizer can keep up with high demand from crops during the growing season better than the slow release from compost, manure or nitrogen-fixing cover crops. Of course, the cost of using 171 million metric tons of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is paid in dead zones at the mouths of many of the world's rivers. These anoxic zones result from nitrogen-rich runoff promoting algal blooms that then die and, in decomposing, suck all the oxygen out of surrounding waters. "To address the problem of [nitrogen] limitation and to produce high yields, organic farmers should use best management practices, supply more organic fertilizers or grow legumes or perennial crops," Seufert says.
In fact, more knowledge would be key to any effort to boost organic farming or its yields. Conventional farming requires knowledge of how to manage what farmers know as inputs—synthetic fertilizer, chemical pesticides and the like—as well as fields laid out precisely via global-positioning systems. Organic farmers, on the other hand, must learn to manage an entire ecosystem geared to producing food—controlling pests through biological means, using the waste from animals to fertilize fields and even growing one crop amidst another. "Organic farming is a very knowledge-intensive farming system," Seufert notes. An organic farmer "needs to create a fertile soil that provides sufficient nutrients at the right time when the crops need them. The same is true for pest management."
But the end result is a healthier soil, which may prove vital in efforts to make it more resilient in the face of climate change as well as conserve it. Organic soils, for example, retain water better than those farms that employ conventional methods. "You use a lot more water [in irrigation] because the soil doesn't have the capacity to retrain the water you use," noted farmer Fred Kirschenmann, president of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture at the "Feeding the World While the Earth Cooks" event at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., on April 12.
At the same time, a still-growing human population requires more food, which has led some to propose further intensifying conventional methods of applying fertilizer and pesticides to specially bred crops, enabling either a second Green Revolution or improved yields from farmlands currently under cultivation. Crops genetically modified to endure drought may also play a role as well as efforts to develop perennial versions of annual staple crops, such as wheat, which could help reduce environmental impacts and improve soil. "Increasing salt, drought or heat tolerance of our existing crops can move them a little but not a lot," said biologist Nina Fedoroff of Pennsylvania State University at the New America event. "That won't be enough."
And breeding new perennial versions of staple crops would require compressing millennia of crop improvements that resulted in the high-yielding wheat varieties of today, such as the dwarf wheat created by breeder Norman Borlaug and his colleagues in the 1950s, into a span of years while changing the fundamental character of wheat from an annual crop to a perennial one. Then there is the profit motive. "The private sector is not likely to embrace an idea like perennial crop seeds, which do not require the continued purchase of seeds and thus do not provide a very good source of profit," Seufert notes.
Regardless, the world already produces 22 trillion calories annually via agriculture, enough to provide more than 3,000 calories to every person on the planet. The food problem is one of distribution and waste—whether the latter is food spoilage during harvest, in storage or even after purchase. According to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, in the U.S. alone, 215 meals per person go to waste annually.
"Since the world already produces more than enough food to feed everyone well, there are other important considerations" besides yield, argues ecologist Catherine Badgley of the University of Michigan, who also compared yields from organic and conventional methods in a 2006 study (pdf) that found similar results. Those range from environmental impacts of various practices to the number of people employed in farming. As it stands, conventional agriculture relies on cheap energy, cheap labor and other unsustainable practices. "Anyone who thinks we will be using Roundup [a herbicide] in eight [thousand] to 10,000 years is foolish," argued organic evangelist Jeff Moyer, farm director the Rodale Institute, at the New America Foundation event.
But there is unlikely to be a simple solution. Instead the best farming practices will vary from crop to crop and place to place. Building healthier soils, however, will be key everywhere. "Current conventional agriculture is one of the major threats to the environment and degrades the very natural resources it depends on. We thus need to change the way we produce our food," Seufert argues. "Given the current precarious situation of agriculture, we should assess many alternative management systems, including conventional, organic, other agro-ecological and possibly hybrid systems to identify the best options to improve the way we produce our food."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/a...s-and-feeding-the-world-under-climate-change/
i have little interest in "building soil" in my grow room.
I have donned my motocross riding gear to join this thread, having now read it and felt the warmth of informed hand bags at dawn: You bitches may be slappin'!
Seriously, as I entered this world from the ghostlike existence I had thus followed in the shadows, my thinking began to become more whole, more collected and certainly more purposeful. There are many here I respect, and interestingly their views differ. Although I feel the overall intention of what is best for these delights is all too evident. I am an artist and when I have found true connection with my plant world, it is to yours Team Microbe I would like to delve for inspiration and images, Please?- I am charmed to meet each and every Lady but to see them develop... These alone have convinced me to run my sealed room as DWC for this grow and next a mix of DWC and a properly prepared organic soil grow, as a little side by side. For me to paint a horse for instance, I must understand its skeletal structure and how that moves. How the muscles attach to those bones and the ways these stretch in various aspects of movement, The outer covering and finally the beasts nature. I can manipulate any of these aspects to draw out personality and spirit: Organics is my skeletal structure, my armature and my armour all rolled into one. Now I need to test the theory. I feel arrogant for my exuberant arrival into this community and more than a little like a thief for dipping into the collective purse and not paying dues for three years past, I feel arrogant further still quoting myself, however: Why I.C.Mag? It is simple really: Of all the days spent in pursuit of knowledge to better my growing of this incredible green magic, I felt at home here. As if I were among friends not yet met, people who would not judge or criticise but nurture and help. Growing cannabis is as contentious an issue as religion, or politics. Everyone has their own opinion of what works best and some are quite fanatical in defence of their chosen methods. For me growing cannabis has two sides, a scientific approach and a spiritual one. They are intertwined but can be treating separately and the plant grown accordingly. The latter is my preferred growing technique, for some five years I have not checked PH levels, or E.C levels, I have just loved my ladies and they have loved me in return. Through the gained trust I have found following some of the remarkable growers here, I have adjusted my outlook and now include the scientific to balance my overwhelming love for these trees. In honesty, these girls growing for me now have confirmed the rightness of that trust. I cannot tell you how unusual it is for me to take advice from anyone, however it is with a joyous heart that I report, I was right to do so.
As with regular gardening, which is what informs me in my endeavours with weed: The more I learn, the less I know. I could spend the rest of my life....and the rest of this communities lives (if I may be so bold as to borrow them for a moment?) and still not learn all there is to know. An aspect of faith in ones chosen lifestyle connects us with something, and that something transcends all.
These days the most expensive tomatoes here on sale are vine ripened tomatoes - because it is actually unusual to find fruit and veg that has been ripened on the plant, most happens in transit and in warehouses. This leaves an...impression on the food and then we scoff it down. Food is energy, how pure are those nutritious snacks you are introducing. I grew up on bottled nutes, so to speak and they have been invaluable in my learning. Allowing my the grace to learn about this amazing plant before pickling my head with continued and constant learning. It is here, in organic mud that my plant will engage with me properly and move from being translucently thin to boldly opaque. That and sleep cycle gardening...
THANK YOU ALL: My weed is all that you have made us, I toke for a community now and a man I have never met.
Your threads, Team Microbe are like books to me, I start the first paragraph, am hooked, rust to halfway through, regret my haste, savour the ending and feel a little loss...but this book is as living as your soil
You should be good to go with what you've got there.
I want TM to explain how bti (skeeter dunks/bits) is detrimental to the soil though. His comment is the first I've ever heard to that effect.
Team Microbe...
You should be ashamed of yourself!!!
You seemed to step into your humble world, if only for a few minutes, in your previous reply to my comments...
Then ya said that^^^...
You don't seem very humble when all you have as a reply are insults.
Personally... I think that article has, more or less, proven your point, yet you attack the messenger rather than the message that was attempting to be conveyed.
While it is a scientifically proven fact that synthetic systems provide superior yield capabilities, it is also a scientifically proven fact that organic produce is superior nutritionally.
Simply put... The yield differences are offset by the quality differences.
An individual will not have to consume as much organic derived produce as they will synthetic derived produce to meet the same nutritional requirements.
Nutrient density is far more important than yield.
Oh yeah...
That was NOT a picture of YOUR medicine cabinet. lol
What do YOU consume, put into YOUR body?
This questiin is completely rhetorical.
Think about the position you're taking in this thread and see how it applies to the whole of your life.
I find most folks have their med cabs filled to the brim, & often times overflowing, with synthetically derived pills.
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Nobody has come onto this thread and said that living organic soil doesn't work great. Nobody. And there's a heck of a lot one can learn from this thread. But evangelical, passive aggressive, contradictory, and derogatory statements, are like rocks in the road here.
Ftscustm
Member
I quite agree
I quite agree
Collective thinking is brought about in conversation with those one respects and, in the main, I think that is what is happening here. If you can sort your chaff from your wheat and find your truth of it.
I quite agree
Collective thinking is brought about in conversation with those one respects and, in the main, I think that is what is happening here. If you can sort your chaff from your wheat and find your truth of it.
Thank you for the thoughtful post Ftscustm. Resembles some thinking of my own lately.
Hey there Crusader Rabbit! Good to see you around...unfortunately I have met in real life some commercial growers who completely scoff at the idea of doing anything organically. Then they want to show off their chemically-laden product, and after they list all the poisons they have used get rather pissy with me for refusing to even taste their stuff.
We all get exposed to way too many man made chemicals simply by existing on this polluted planet of ours. I applaud the efforts of those who see the wisdom of growing naturally; using what exists in nature to enhance plants, prevent diseases and infestations, and ultimately experience the enjoyment of a clean product at its best.
Hey there Crusader Rabbit! Good to see you around...unfortunately I have met in real life some commercial growers who completely scoff at the idea of doing anything organically. Then they want to show off their chemically-laden product, and after they list all the poisons they have used get rather pissy with me for refusing to even taste their stuff.
We all get exposed to way too many man made chemicals simply by existing on this polluted planet of ours. I applaud the efforts of those who see the wisdom of growing naturally; using what exists in nature to enhance plants, prevent diseases and infestations, and ultimately experience the enjoyment of a clean product at its best.
Definitely do not take my word for it because as stated, I've only avoided it based upon conjecture/hypothesis and not practice.
For pests, I try to use insects pro-actively as much as possible. For severe outbreaks I have used Spinosad.
For fungal pathogens I try to be pro-active by inoculating my soil with species of Trichoderma and Actinobacteria (streptomyces) [like in Actinovate)
If i can give suggestion on bacteries from Lebanon turf company,
http://www.lebanonturf.com/products/items/2724640/index.aspx
and granular mycos from same company
http://www.lebanonturf.com/products/items/2757134/index.aspx
incredible quality that is proved last 5 years of mine growing and bigger plethora of beneficial bacteria species than in other products,
inside is all that healthy plants need for proper growing and to made soil life active,
they say it creates soil that have same properties as rich soil inside forest,and i belive them as i sees my plants enjoying inside pots and i never have any nute deficit or disease,its very casual to grow this way,no problemas.
Kind regards folks
DS
http://www.lebanonturf.com/products/items/2724640/index.aspx
and granular mycos from same company
http://www.lebanonturf.com/products/items/2757134/index.aspx
incredible quality that is proved last 5 years of mine growing and bigger plethora of beneficial bacteria species than in other products,
inside is all that healthy plants need for proper growing and to made soil life active,
they say it creates soil that have same properties as rich soil inside forest,and i belive them as i sees my plants enjoying inside pots and i never have any nute deficit or disease,its very casual to grow this way,no problemas.
Kind regards folks
DS
Ftscustm
Member
'Tis indeed very sad!
'Tis indeed very sad!
The problems in this world, again in the main exist because of the human race's continuing desire to bully nature for its own needs. By embracing her in humility and enhancing her love, learning to replicate rather than dominate: A world of possibilities exist for us all. I sound like I speak for everyonel: However I represent myself alone in all my argument.
'Tis indeed very sad!
The problems in this world, again in the main exist because of the human race's continuing desire to bully nature for its own needs. By embracing her in humility and enhancing her love, learning to replicate rather than dominate: A world of possibilities exist for us all. I sound like I speak for everyonel: However I represent myself alone in all my argument.
