In article , Ross@home
wrote:
Interesting question. I'll have to think about it some more.
In other words, as they say in the real estate business, it all boils
down to location, location, location.
Here in my location, Southern Ontario, Canada, in spring, every garden
center, hardware store, big box store or roadside stand has bales of
sphagnum peat moss for sale. Usual size is 3.8 cu. ft. and the bales
are compacted making them relatively heavy and hard as a brick. Price
averages CND$8.00/bale. End of season on sale prices can be as much as
50% off.
According to the International Peat Conference, Canada has an
estimated 272 million acres of peatland, second only to the former
USSR (371 million acres).
Australia & Oceania combined have less than 2.5 million acres.
Therefore, in reply to your post where you stated:
Quote
I'm stunned that any gardener these days would recommend, approve or
in any way encourage the use of either spagnum or peat. The use of
these in any garden where the gardener has even any mild concern for
the environment is a total no-no.
Coconut fibre is OK and is a very good replacement.
End Quote
I, and many of my fellow gardeners have very much more than a mild
concern for the environment and, if we lived in Oz, where sphagnum
peat moss is basically an "endangered species", we would probably
agree with you.
However, it is unfair to belittle gardeners in another area where it
is a renewable, economical, readily available and excellent soil
amendment.
Without the slightest twinge of conscience, I will eschew coconut
fibre and continue to use sphagnum peat moss, along with material from
our own compost pile(s) on the gardens.
Ross.
Southern Ontario, Canada.
AgCanada Zone 5b
43º 17' 26.75" North
80º 13' 29.46" West
If you look at the first citation that FarmI gave
http://www.imcg.net/docum/brisbane.htm
you'll see that it was sponsored in part by:
Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada,
and North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Canada),
2 groups which must be familiar with Canadian resources, yet still call
for conservation.
So if peat is plentiful, and renewable, why not use it? You will have
noticed that peat bogs are wetlands, and I think that it is in the
functioning of wetlands that you will find your answer.
Wetlands:
1) purify water,
2) offer habitat to support biodiversity,
3) in relation to the above, provide sustainable food to local
communities,
4) function as a carbon sink by sequestering atmospheric CO2. The carbon
stored in peat represents one quarter of the World's soil carbon pool
The fact that peat deposits are large and renewable doesn't alter that
their diminution adversely affects the above 4 points.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_vN0--mHug