Allan Balliett wrote:
I am not arguing on the basis of remembering higher principles but on encouraging their use. A simple fact about 'good' water quality and availability in Oz (leaving aside water's gross mismanagement by whole generations of populations, rural and urban alike) is that for every kilo of chemical fertiliser used in the 'growth' cycle, a minimum of 300 grams is not used by plants at all. Some of this leaches out into waterways, dams and ponds where it generates algae and poisonous blooms, the remainder stays in the soil adversely affecting microbial and bacterial life and the long term ability of the soil to support growth cycles.Lloyd said:Roger, dont you think you have got a bit carried away with this?
Lloyd , I assume that Roger was responding to my more generalized statement about the use of artificial fertilizers to jump start a depleted piece of ground.
Roger, I appreciate that you spoke up for the finer sensibilities. I ask that you understand that Pfeiffer was advocating the use of commercial fertilizer as a TOOL in a biodynamic farming practice and not as an end in and of itself. Quantities of synthetics used would be small, and, as I understand it, applied one season,only. The suggetion, of course, is for situations of extreme depletion, just to get green covers growing that inturn would perk up the biology. All this is assuming that the grower couldn't access tons of high quality compost for this start-up season.
Hear! Hear! for remembering the higher principles!
Think now about the other 700 grams per kilo which are used in some way by plants. These are mineral salts, remember. Every gram is capable of attracting up to 70 grams of moisture which has to go somewhere - is it any wonder that green crops are outwardly so boisterous and exuberant? Unfortunately it is just a facade, a brave show to divert attention from the lack of true nutrition internally. Plough or turn these crops into the soil and one perpetuates the damage caused by the initial spread. Why? Because all attracted moisture will itself have become salty. Given a choice between drinking sweetness, neutrality or saltiness, what would you choose? Neither soils nor plants have that choice when chemical fertilisers are in use, yet their natural chemical, mineral and energy composition is the same as yours.
I don't hold with everything that Rachel Carson or Tom Hartmann wrote, or for that matter Rudolph Steiner. But I do know that 3.8 grams of BD501 mixed with 34 litres of fresh water and potentised, and sprayed on one hectare of degraded farmland in the evening when the land is drawing its nutrients and energies back into itself, will unlock and catalyse natural minerals and vitamins. (For the record, in my opinion 3.8 grams IS a minute quantity.) The same mixture, sprayed on african lovegrass in the heat of the day, renders the seed unviable. Instantly.
500, 501 and the other preparations are miracles-in-being whose greatness, despite the passage of time, has in no way been fully realised. Similarly we have hardly explored the energies available to us naturally (and I don't mean fossil fuels). The opportunity to do so - indeed, I feel I should say 'necessity' - is upon us. From now until the bombs start falling, and never mind that the time of year or month is 'incorrect', make preparations for the future. After the last desperate empirical doomed-to-failure grasp of the 'western' nations at world supremacy is over, we will all be too busy chopping wood and carrying water!
roger
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