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#16
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Drought threatens
In article ,
songbird wrote: Farm1 wrote: songbird wrote: Farm1 wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: songbird wrote: local fire burglars? Those who set fires, either because they think it improves their pasture (it doesn't) or for fun, or both. Why do you say it doesn't improve pastures? From observation, I'd say it probably did improve pastures even if just because it cleans out things like tussocks and other weeds etc and doesn't add anything. every bit of carbon lost to the air in burning is that much less available to be turned into humus. Photosynthesis uses atmospheric carbon to create biomass. yes, that's my point, your field gained carbon via photosynthesis and some of that was in the dry grasses and stalks. burning it releases that carbon back to the atmosphere. slashing it and leaving it as mulch will also release some of it back to the atmosphere, but the rate is much reduced and spread out and the slash has a much better chance of being recycled by the worms/fungi than lost to the air. A lot of Photosynthetic action takes place in pastures that will not readily burn. sure, some of it is transported to the roots and soil community. it depends upon how dry the pasture is when burned and how deeply various fragments are buried. Dry standing pasture which don't have lots of lush green active photosynthesising plants burns very well, lush new growth doesn't. all true. my point was aimed at those who burn dry materials thinking that it improves the soil. it may give a sudden flush of growth from some of the released nutrients, but whatever goes into the air is lost and has to be regained by further photosynthesis. if slashed and left that carbon is not lost but largely retained and recycled or turned into humus (over the long haul). songbird I'll have to throw in with bird. Organic material holds water. Just the thing that drought affected areas need. It is probably simpler to just set a match to it, instead of spreading it around. Burning will also encourage erosion on sloping land. The problem begins with clearing the trees, so it seems that trying to re-establish a few trees should also help. Are you saying that your animals won't browse on tussocks? I am unfamiliar with spinifex (tussock), but perhaps when they are young they are more manageable. One of the stated goals in grazing, as is practiced by Joel Salatin, is to not knock plants in a paddock back more than 2/3s, which will leave them the vigor to regrow quickly. He would move them from paddock to paddock so as to not over graze the pastures. Salatin says he's a big fan of using native plants for fodder. We do a lot of burning locally in the spring. For vineyards it is mostly burning pruned grape canes. Again, it is probably easier to burn the canes than to chip them and return them to the vineyards. The assistant wine-maker where I work is a "Bio" type, I'll ask him "why not?" tomorrow. I haven't a clue as to what other agriculturalists are burning, but it isn't complete fields, that's for sure. -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#17
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Drought threatens
Billy wrote:
.... We do a lot of burning locally in the spring. For vineyards it is mostly burning pruned grape canes. Again, it is probably easier to burn the canes than to chip them and return them to the vineyards. The assistant wine-maker where I work is a "Bio" type, I'll ask him "why not?" tomorrow. I haven't a clue as to what other agriculturalists are burning, but it isn't complete fields, that's for sure. i'll be interested in what he says, but i would not be surprised if it isn't aimed at reducing fungal diseases (if you don't have organic material on the surface of the soil then the spores have fewer places to hide from the sun's uv rays). my own recent experiences has told me that this is a false approach. instead i had very good results from using leaves and wood chips to help greatly reduce a spotted disease that has been getting at the lillies in the spring. the past few years it was pretty bad on almost every leave, and then this year it was just one or two spots here or there for the entire plant. if next spring is similar then i'll be very happy with the result. songbird |
#18
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Drought threatens
In article
songbird writes: i'll be interested in what he says, but i would not be surprised if it isn't aimed at reducing fungal diseases (if you don't have organic material on the surface of the soil then the spores have fewer places to hide from the sun's uv rays). my own recent experiences has told me that this is a false approach. instead i had very good results from using leaves and wood chips to help greatly reduce a spotted disease that has been getting at the lillies in the spring. How is it that you are using them? Surface mulch or something else? I had my cucumbers largely taken out by mildew this year (among other things, they were too close together), so I'm keeping an eye out for things that tip the balance on fungus. the past few years it was pretty bad on almost every leave, and then this year it was just one or two spots here or there for the entire plant. if next spring is similar then i'll be very happy with the result. songbird -- |Drew Lawson | If you're not part of the solution | | | you're part of the precipitate. | |
#19
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Drought threatens
In article
songbird writes: i'll be interested in what he says, but i would not be surprised if it isn't aimed at reducing fungal diseases (if you don't have organic material on the surface of the soil then the spores have fewer places to hide from the sun's uv rays). my own recent experiences has told me that this is a false approach. instead i had very good results from using leaves and wood chips to help greatly reduce a spotted disease that has been getting at the lillies in the spring. My understanding is that (how shocking!) it depends. The usual logic for burning cuttings is to directly remove any disease specific to the plant that's already in the cuttings, and indirectly remove highly-compatible host material for diseases of the plant. Contrariwise, covering the soil surface cuts down on (primarily viral, so far as I recall) soil-borne diseases spread by foliage contact with rain-splashed soil particles. Tomatoes are a classic in this line. So, you'd probably be fine chipping (except they are a bear to chip, actually - unclogging a chipper gets rather tedious) grape vine prunings and putting them around your tomatoes, if those were far from your grapes. Not so much putting them around your grapes. Since vinyards mostly just grow grapes, burning makes sense for both disease control and returning non-volatile nutrients, but probably more the former. -- Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away. |
#20
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Drought threatens
Drew Lawson wrote:
.... How is it that you are using them? Surface mulch or something else? surface mulch only. I had my cucumbers largely taken out by mildew this year (among other things, they were too close together), so I'm keeping an eye out for things that tip the balance on fungus. i would not expect any results for powerdery mildew as it spreads too easily. the plants that get powdery mildew around here are perennial ornamentals that i'm not that concerned about (they come back each year no matter what the mildew does). we don't grow many other veggies/fruits that seem to be affected by it or by the time they are we're sick of them anyways so no big loss. it's like nature's sign that variety is the spice of life. songbird |
#21
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Drought threatens
In article
, Ecnerwal wrote: In article songbird writes: i'll be interested in what he says, but i would not be surprised if it isn't aimed at reducing fungal diseases (if you don't have organic material on the surface of the soil then the spores have fewer places to hide from the sun's uv rays). my own recent experiences has told me that this is a false approach. instead i had very good results from using leaves and wood chips to help greatly reduce a spotted disease that has been getting at the lillies in the spring. My understanding is that (how shocking!) it depends. The usual logic for burning cuttings is to directly remove any disease specific to the plant that's already in the cuttings, and indirectly remove highly-compatible host material for diseases of the plant. Contrariwise, covering the soil surface cuts down on (primarily viral, so far as I recall) soil-borne diseases spread by foliage contact with rain-splashed soil particles. Tomatoes are a classic in this line. So, you'd probably be fine chipping (except they are a bear to chip, actually - unclogging a chipper gets rather tedious) grape vine prunings and putting them around your tomatoes, if those were far from your grapes. Not so much putting them around your grapes. Since vinyards mostly just grow grapes, burning makes sense for both disease control and returning non-volatile nutrients, but probably more the former. The assessment of the value of mulch in a vineyard is still a work in progress. Canes, when burned, are removed from the vineyard first. The ash isn't returned. In general, organic material holds water, and encourages a diverse soil ecology. The diversity of the ecology in turn will block pathogenic microbes. Vineyards do encourage wild mustard to grow in the vineyard before bud break, but then the mustard is controlled with Roundup, and the vineyards are basically bare dirt most of the year. Whether this is just inertia, or whether it is considered best practices, I don't know. Is the financial savings of using gylphosate sufficient to over come its drawbacks as listed by Dr. Don Huber, recently retired from Purdue University, i.e. 1) Glyphosate binds with and inactivates EPSPS, the critical enzyme in the shikimate pathway required for the synthesis of aromatic plant metabolites including essential amino acids phenylalanine, tryptophan and tyrosine, as well as downstream products such as plant growth promoter, indoylacetic acid and plant defence compounds, phytoalexins. But glyphosate has multiple adverse effects that act synergistically on crop health and productivity that extends well beyond the plant into the soil ecosystem and the wider environment.* 2) The Glyphosate Tolerant (GT) trait depends on incorporating an EPSPS from the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens that is insensitive to glyphosate, hence glyphosate is taken up by GT plants and translocated to the growing parts of roots and shoots, and even exuded into the rhizosphere (soil surrounding the roots) so it can affect the soil community of microorganisms and also subsequent crops planted in the soil. 3) Glyphosate stimulates the growth of fungi and enhances the virulence of pathogens such as Fusarium, and ³can have serious consequences for sustainable production of a wide range of susceptible crops.² They warn that ³Ignoring potential non-target detrimental side effects of any chemical, especially used as heavily as glyphosate, may have dire consequences for agriculture such as rendering soils infertile, crops non-productive, and plants less nutritious.² 4) In an interview [5] with the Organic & Non-GMO Report, Huber said he has been researching glyphosate for 20 years, and began noticing problems when he saw a consistent increase in ³take-all², a fungal disease of wheat, when glyphosate had been applied in a previous year to control weeds. He found glyphosate reduced manganese in plants, which is essential to many plant defence reactions against disease and environmental stress. Glyphosate can immobilize plant nutrients such as manganese, copper, potassium iron, magnesium, calcium, and zinc, so they are no longer nutritionally functional. Basically, glyphosate completely weakens the plant, making it susceptible to soil-borne fungal pathogens. ³That is one reason why we see an increase in plant diseases,² he said. 5) There has been a general increase in the number of plant diseases in the past 15 to 18 years. Four primary soil fungi,* Fusarium, Phythium, Rhizoccccctonia, and Phytophthora, have become more active with the use of glyphosate; and concomitantly, diseases caused by these fungi have increased, such as head scab in corn, or root rot in soybeans, crown rot in sugar beets. Fusarium head blight, which affects cereal crops, is a disease that produces a mycotoxin that could enter the food chain. There are more than 40 diseases reported with the use of glyphosate, and the number keeps growing as people recognize the association, Huber said. ===== In conversation, I have found that there is some concern about the effects of Roundup on the soil ecology. I realize that this is ranging far from the subject of drought, and I'll try to bring it back home. In the meantime I've been expecting Farm1 to take me to task for my last comments about organic material in the ground, and trees to fight drought. I'm sure she has considered them, and what efforts she has made in this direction, or why not. You out there Farm1? Anyone, anyone? -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#22
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Drought threatens
In article
, Ecnerwal wrote: In article songbird writes: i'll be interested in what he says, but i would not be surprised if it isn't aimed at reducing fungal diseases (if you don't have organic material on the surface of the soil then the spores have fewer places to hide from the sun's uv rays). my own recent experiences has told me that this is a false approach. instead i had very good results from using leaves and wood chips to help greatly reduce a spotted disease that has been getting at the lillies in the spring. My understanding is that (how shocking!) it depends. The usual logic for burning cuttings is to directly remove any disease specific to the plant that's already in the cuttings, and indirectly remove highly-compatible host material for diseases of the plant. Contrariwise, covering the soil surface cuts down on (primarily viral, so far as I recall) soil-borne diseases spread by foliage contact with rain-splashed soil particles. Tomatoes are a classic in this line. Soil viruses? http://www.noble.org/ag/research/microbes/ I'm thinking of tobacco mosaic virus, but that would be direct contact, normally insects such as aphids and leaf hoppers. So, you'd probably be fine chipping (except they are a bear to chip, actually - unclogging a chipper gets rather tedious) grape vine prunings and putting them around your tomatoes, if those were far from your grapes. Not so much putting them around your grapes. Since vinyards mostly just grow grapes, burning makes sense for both disease control and returning non-volatile nutrients, but probably more the former. -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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