On 2 Aug 2003 07:19:44 GMT, Brian Sandle
posted:

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.

Yes, but is this general comment on life appropriate just here?

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

The first sentence, though awkardly put, is roughly accurate.
The second sentence is meaningless to me.

Currently we have powerful technology and can change the earth in a large
region for the current whim.

How can we do that? I think you exaggerate wildly man's abilities.

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.

Doing what? Our state govt has been doing "cool burn" fires for
decades.

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.

Not sure what you mean by this exactly, but I see no similarity at all
with GM. GM is just like plant breeding that has been going on for
thousands of years. Just more accurate and quicker.

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?).

You seem confused. Do you mean by "deal with nutrient", "replace those
extracted and exported with the crop?
I've never heard of yellow cake in rock phosphate, but if it occurs,
so what. If it's radioactive it is best avoided.

Organics can be more intense farming.

Do you mean "intense" or "intensive"?
Organic growing can only be intensive if it "steals" the nutirients
from other land.

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.

No, feeding 10 billion humans or more.

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.

Even less for land plants? The first surface to intercept solar rays
blocks it from anything else. Land or sea.

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.

So feeding the world is not a worthwhile goal?

Rather than put RR or Bt &c genes in several cotton types and say you have
increased diversity,

Who says that?

increased profit for the mean time or whatever,

Without profit, nothing much will be achieved in this area of
endeavour.

find
out about companion planting, closed ecosystems like marvelously diverse
forests, and long duration success.

Interesting, but if you stop all technological advances in the
furthering of agricultural efficiency, you will have ALL wild reserves
planted with old fashioned crops. Your call.

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?

Dunes aren't created my marram grass. Marram grass "stabilises " dunes
so they don't encroach onto productive land.

Then you have a greater area of land to
some extent. And on the more shaded side of the dunes different plants
could grow.

Which food plants would these be?

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).

The govt is the will of the people, for better or worse. You must
change the govt by democratic means.