Gordon Couger wrote:
My soils aren't quit as old as those in Australia. They are some of the
oldest in North America. Diamoium phosphate was the main sauce we used.
Mixing it with ammonium nitrate, Urea or on the high pH soils ammonium
sulfate to get the ratio of N & P we wanted. Any trace elements would be
added to that. We couldn't get a economic response from potasium in most
cases. Intensely irrigated Bermuda grass would show a response. But sandy
soils just becomes a hydroponic media for Bermuda grass if you push it hard
enough.

DAP would not be acceptable to an organic farmer but rock phosphate is. And
AFIK there is no rule against trace elements if they can use copper in their
fungicide they should be able to use it in their fertilizer or put on a
heavy treatment of fungicide. It doesn't take much copper.

There is a tremendous amount to learn.

Moosh:] has been relating about varied diets being more healthy for
humans. And varied life on earth seems more healthy.

Currently we have powerful technology and can change the earth in a large
region for the current whim. Well fire has always been a powerful
technology used, but is mused more. The Aboriginal Australians used to use
top fires before the bush got too dense. The resulting fire would not be
so hot. They had learnt over many years and passed on the knowledge. We
need to be doing that now.

The current GM action seems like a big fire going through a rain forest to
open up new land when the nutrients have been taken from the land cleared
the year or so before.

Yes we need to deal with nutrients. There is knowledge to learn in the
organic approach, too. Watch out for yellowcake in the rock phosphate
maybe one. I don't think plants absorb much lead from dolomite (allowed?).

Organics can be more intense farming. Then land such as New Zealand with
low iodine and selenium and specialised life adapted to that could have
had more areas saved. I do not think it is healthy to have uniform
agriculture and small range of plants and beasts the world over, suiting
only the current financial drives we create.

We should be taking care of the oceans. The ocean food comes from the
surface algae that can grow, and while the area is larger than the land
area, the volume cannot be great because the layer is quite thin in
contact with light and much oxygen. Seaweeds can anchor near shores and
have more volume per area.

Let us find out more about what life has done up to the present before
setting in to change it for financial reasons with GM things we cannot
undo.

Rather than put RR or Bt &c genes in several cotton types and say you have
increased diversity, increased profit for the mean time or whatever, find
out about companion planting, closed ecosystems like marvelously diverse
forests, and long duration success.

You have your cotton fields, thanks for the photos. Now when the wind
comes it moves the sandy soil. So can you get a crop which like marram
grass will enable dunes to form? Then you have a greater area of land to
some extent. And on the more shaded side of the dunes different plants
could grow. Harvesting technology would need to be developed. We need to
set aside thinking places and not only relating to what the govt
currently enables (Jim's posiiton).