----- Original Message ----- From: Merla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: BD Now <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Deidre Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 8:35 PM Subject: My brush with the world
Hi Merla Congratulations on another succesful meeting just keep chewing away and look after yourself as it goes along . if these people listen to you and think about it a little bit then you are winning (slowly) > Hi all, > > Today was my day to go to the Hawkweed Bio-control meeting in Coeur > d'Alene. The Weed Supervisor invited me. I went in all my second-hand > finery--including my red Filson jacket, my beautiful multicolored > sweater (red, gold, black, white, olive green, etc.), and my Tilley > hat. I entered the room and everyone had on black and gray--neutral > colors. I was at a meeting of professional weed people--from the > University, the BLM, DOL, Weed Supervisors from all the northern > counties of Idaho. They have tested out 5 bio-controls for hawkweed > from out of the country including NZ on the native hawkweeds and other > plants to see if they eat them. Tests were good. So now they try to > get a permit from the federal government to import these to this > country. Four-color brochure on hawkweed. Three more handouts. Then > comes the long harrang to raise $77,000 for the consortium--If a county > gives $500, they get first-dibs on deploying the bugs. > > At the end, I asked a question about changing calcium-magnesium ratio in > soil to control hawkweed. The response was over my head. You know - your question was probably way over their heads or at least completely outside of their paradigm hence the over technical response - this is typical of educated prople when they dont understand or believe in what they are saying. >I have been reading Charles Walter's book on Weeds and I have no chemistry or soil > chemistry background, so I have read the chapters over and over again > trying to grasp the totality of nutrients, cations, CECs. Don't get too hung up on the technicalities here just look for simple messages! > Unfortuntely, most of his annotated weeds are from the midwest. Same principles apply though > How do you produce humus on a glacial till right-of-way? BD500 ? - Humus is mostly carbon so look at anything that will help to maintain - anchor - boost - or substitute for soil carbon - most of those low carbon weeds will be diminished to some degree by applications of carbon materials - sugar, molasses,humates,fish, seaweed,etc. If you can get hold of a refractometer and do some small test spots of these things and see what the plant response is that will tell whether it is worth doing or not. We are not talking about big quantities of material - mostly in the range UP to 1 or 2 quarts or pounds per acre misted out is what we do on the farm > With some advice from HC, I will > buy some bentonite clay and non-dolomitic, high calcium limestone to put > on one of the test plots before I make my foray with the "compost tea" > and the weed peppers. It just rained hard. The county has had our > $2200 in their coffers gathering interest for a year, but I can't buy > anything yet because the state hasn't released the money for this year. > I have no idea and neither does anyone else I've talked to what > proportion of bentonite to lime is correct. Greg willis in one of his Horn Clay posts to this list recommended about 15 pounds per acre of bentonite for spreading on California soils where prepared horn clay was not available. He also cautioned anyone doing this to wear a respirator as the fine dust can cause silicosis (as will all rock dusts ) . I would think 200 to 500 pounds per acre of fine lime would be enough to apply as a start (you don't want to put big quantities of any one thing out there as that will only unbalance the system) > It would take at least two > weeks to get a soil sample from the U of ID. I have no idea if I can > dowse or not. Go to the web site for the American Dowsers Association www.dowsers.org and download the booklet "Letter to Robin" (at the bottom of the page) its only about twenty pages and will print out easily - this is THE best learn to dowse that I have ever seen - it is just so simple and easy to follow !! > After that meeting, I went to the Forest Service greenhouses where they > grow native plants and trees and saw kinnickinnick, a beautiful > groundcover, and some other native plants growing in tubes. We got the > complete tour. The huge place was immaculate. The director's Filson > jacket custom-made in a soft medium shade of green to match his uniform > pants was new and not worn like my red one. He was very friendly and > shared everything he knew that would help me. > > I feel intimidated--like I don't know what I am doing. Everyone I met > today was very kind, but I feel less impowered. > Such is my meeting with academia and government. I wonder how long it > will take me to recover from this day? I thrive on our wild place. > Acres of trees rooting in tubes with not a hair out of place make me > feel strange. > > I think a lot of our rag tag operation here. I feel comfortable with a > pile of pots...the untrimmed snowberry bushes. Those people have > degrees in every agricultural subject under the sun. I can't even > understand Cation Exchange Capacity. Merla just think of buckets - now - is the bucket full of goodies?, or trash? (this soil bucket will always be full of something) - a heavy clay soil is a big bucket that takes a long time to eat the goodies out of (nutrient removal) and a correspondingly long time and high cost to restore to fertility. a light sandy soil is a little pot - it gives up its quota quickly and is restored quicker and for less cost . The cation percentages are just . - what is the bucket full of? - do we have a nice balance in the bucket? - or is there too much salt and not enough lime - or whatever (hi sodium lo calcium) etc. So with this always full soil bucket when we remove something (say calcium on crop lands ) something else takes its place to keep the bucket full. - in this instance hydrogen usually fills the space - put some calcium back and the hydrogen is displaced -and balance restored Chemical agriculture wastes our resources (and the land) by putting too much of some things in the bucket while neglecting others that should be in there and you can bet that the things that are too much will be expensive and bought from a multinational company and that the things neglected will be cheap and readily available from little people (lime, rock dust, humates etc) I realise that this is a simplistic version and some of the technically minded people will get a bit excited but thats OK. We all know how incredibly complex mother nature is but at the same time she responds to very simple rules. Where the technocrats get it wrong is they don't allow mother nature any credit so they then have to invent all of their own incredibly complex rules to explain mother natures processes. Sounds a bit back to the front 'eh. >and I love my clay animals and my > little seedlings in the cold frame with the 8 year old 4-season plastic > and hopefully a garden deva there among the newly uncovered French > intensive beds and the snow peas and spinach with BD compost and 500 > under their row cover. I've read every book I can find and now I'm > going to work in our garden and on our right-of-way on the faith that > somehow some good will be done. I think I'll go meditate and maybe I > can fall asleep. > > I love you all out there just for being there and for being BD. > > Best, > > Merla > I think you are doing OK with this - it will be slow - but worthwhile! Cheers again Lloyd Charles
