On Sat, 08 Mar 2003 19:38:11 -0600, (Joe Doe)
wrote:

In article ,
(Terry Horton) wrote:



Phosphorous is generally associated with surface runoff rather than
through percolation.

That is true. But then it is also a problem of managing erosion/land
management.

Hopefully not a big issue for most home gardeners. :-)

Incidentally this PDF (http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/uc162.pdf)
has a nice picture of the distribution of areas in the country with high P
and addresses many issues of management.

An impressive little publication. I've saved it to my HD. Thanks.

The book is written in a style where two old codgers are debating how to
do things: In general it is relatively superficial because it is wide
ranging. They are not overly dogmatic over too much: for example they
describe fertilization practices for a lawn and then say they themselves
do not do what they recommend - they say they fertilize every other year
or so because they do not particularly care about their lawns and do not
want to mow or water often and so limit fertilizer.

Despite the light treatment of many topics, they raise other interesting
points:

1) Predatory insects as a control mechanism cannot work too effectively,
because if the prey levels fall too much the predator will move to greener
pastures. They say fire ants are the champion predators (much better than
ladybugs etc.) and if you could find a way to live with them, you would
have a tick and flea free yard!!

Green lacewing adults feed on nectar and pollen. Providing food
sources during the adult stage encourages them to stay put. And you
can always re-apply. ;-)

Fire ants? Ever see the movie "The Naked Jungle"? A cure worse than
any disease.

2) Raise the possibility of mulches having allelopathic effects:
strawberries mulched with hay yield considrably less than those mulched
with a synthetic mulch. I have since done a search and confirmed
literature exists on allelopathic effects of various mulches. This shows
the world is more nuanced than the genrally held view that mulching only
does good.

This has been understood for many years. Don't most mulches lose their
allelopathic effects with age?