In article ,
VickyN wrote:

'Billy[_10_ Wrote:
;928908']In article ,
VickyN wrote:
--
The cost in buying fertiliser and applying it is not always justified
by

even the short-term returns, that is it is applied in excess of the
optimum
in some cases for reasons other than being demonstrated to be cost
effective. --
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
http://tinyurl.com/622qckd
583/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815576&sr=1-1
(Available at a library near you, as long as they remain open.)

p.45 - 46
it takes more than a calorie of fossil fuel energy to produce a calorie

of food; before the advent of chemical fertilizer [a] farm produced more

than two calories of food energy for every calorie of energy invested.

or
'Fossil Fuel and Energy Use, sustainable food - The Issues - Sustainable
Table' (http://tinyurl.com/psf8le)
A 2002 study from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
estimated that, using our current system, three calories of energy were

needed to create one calorie of edible food. And that was on average.
Some foods take far more, for instance grain-fed beef, which requires
thirty-five calories for every calorie of beef produced. x What¹s more,

the John Hopkins study didn¹t include the energy used in processing and

transporting food. Studies that do estimate that it takes an average of

seven to ten calories of input energy to produce one calorie of food.xi
--
OTOH I know of no analysis that shows we could feed the
world's
population by organic methods. --
http://tinyurl.com/5tvy5nj
"Conversion to small organic farms therefore, would lead to sizeable
increases of food production worldwide. Only organic methods can help
small family farms survive, increase farm productivity, repair decades
of environmental damage and knit communities into smaller, more
sustainable distribution networks * all leading to improved food
security around the world."
- Christos Vasilikiotis, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
--
There may be some focus on this issue
over
the next few decades as sources of mineral phosphorus compound become

exhausted and the cost of nitrogen fixing rises with energy costs.-

I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at here. How is the cost of
buying fertiliser not justified by the short term returns? I also
don't
understand your take on phosphorus as there is plenty sitting in soils
all over the world already.-
http://tinyurl.com/5rq9ub5
shortage
Experts fear critical phosphorus shortage
Jim Langcuster, Auburn University
Oct. 19, 2010 3:34pm

³There are estimates we have as little as 50 years left in the current
phosphate mines,² says Charles Mitchell, an Alabama Cooperative
Extension System agronomist and Auburn university professor of
agronomy."

- Billy


This is an excellent post altogether Billy, and you've given me much to
digest. thank you very much.

In regards to P depletion though, as I must take your post a piece at a
time, I found this link here that claims the opposite:

'The Unbroken Window Blog Archive We Are All Going to Starve To Death
in 38 Years' (http://tinyurl.com/6jlr8n9)

Often statistics can be twisted to create panic, sell newspapers, add a
little drama. I hit google and it takes a while to find something saying
the opposite, funny how website after website will take the same story,
well it's not funny... it turns the internet into a quagmire of
mis-information. If 10 links say one thing and only one link says the
other, what are you more inclined to believe?

I don't know, not saying you're wrong... I'm just not sold on the idea
100%.

I was never selling the idea that we were going to starve to death for
the lack of phosphates. What I reported was that there were going to be
shortages when our phosphate strip mines are depleted. I also mentioned
the use of birds as a source of phosphates.

At present, the idea of extracting phosphate, an atom at a time from the
soil seems fanciful. If you look at the "Dead Zones"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)
(caused by agricultural run-off) around the world, you will see that
they are quite large, and then the dying algea drifts with the currents.
Mining the sea floor won't be as simple, or as rewarding as open pit
extraction of phosphates. At present, the power for this extraction of
phosphates comes from petroleum, which is a non-renewable resource,
outside of geological time. As the price of petroleum goes up, the price
of most other things do to, including phosphates.

This factory approach to farming (adding chemical salts to a medium
[soil for example] in which you grow crops) is killing the topsoil which
is the real basis for soil fertility. Petroleum is becoming more
expensive. Phosphates will be more expensive. You may be able to
survive, but one sixth of the world population is living on less than
$2/day. If Pakistan were to become a failed state, we would all have
more to worry about than phosphorus shortages.

There is a great BBC production called Farm for a Future. It comes in 5
parts. Parts 1 & 2 outline farming problems, and parts 3, 4, and 5
address the problems with permaculture farming.
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShCEKL-mQ8

The subject of phosphorus is addressed in part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxsPfeSRIFo&feature=related

Were it only so easy to get the blood sucking oligarchs off our backs,
this could be a wonderful world.
--
- Billy

Mad dog Republicans to the right. Democratic spider webs to the left. True conservatives, and liberals not to be found anywhere in the phantasmagoria
of the American political landscape.

America is not broke. The country is awash in wealth and cash.
It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the
greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks
and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/.../michael-moore
/michael-moore-says-400-americans-have-more-wealth-/

In article
,
Billy wrote:

In article ,
VickyN wrote:

Land still needs to be rotated because of high application of
fertilisers building to toxic levels... particulalry P (locks out
iron).
Ah, maybe rotated is the wrong word, easy to confuse with ordinary
crop
rotation I suppose. So let's just say land is left unusable for
certain
periods of time.

'Billy[_10_ Wrote:
;928908']

Nitrogen input reduces organic material in soil, but micro nutrient
deficiencies arrive slowly enough that amendments can be added to
augment the soil.

By this do you mean we replace the organic material directly in the top
few inches of soil? Micro deficiencies arrive slowly usually because
they are immobile in the first place. Very hard to correct once set in
in certain cases.
Nitrogen is used for making protein, which promotes an increased
population of microorganisms. The more organisms there are, the more
food (organic material) they need. Conversely, the more organic material
you have in the soil, wood chips for example, the more nitrogen the
microorganisms will need, even restricting what is available to a
gardeners plants.

Micronutrients, as their name implies are needed in only very small
amounts. This can usually be corrected with mulching of the use of
compost.

That should have been:
"This can usually be corrected with mulching, and the use of
compost."
http://www.indoor-gardening-guide.co...Plant-Nutrient
-Primary-secondary-and-micro-nutrients.html



'Billy[_10_ Wrote:
;928908']E. coli is an enteric bacteria. That means it is present in
your colon
right now. IIRC natural E. coli is benign. E. coli 0157 H7 though is a
killer, and comes from confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) where
grain is fed to ruminants, acidifying their stomachs.

'Power Steer - NYTimes.com' (http://tinyurl.com/5u3abk2)
Escherichia coli 0157 is a relatively new strain of a common intestinal

bacteria (it was first isolated in the 1980's) that is common in feedlot

cattle, more than half of whom carry it in their guts. Ingesting as few

as 10 of these microbes can cause a fatal infection.

Most of the microbes that reside in the gut of a cow and find their way

into our food get killed off by the acids in our stomachs, since they
originally adapted to live in a neutral-pH environment. But the
digestive tract of the modern feedlot cow is closer in acidity to our
own, and in this new, manmade environment acid-resistant strains of E.
coli have developed that can survive our stomach acids -- and go on to
kill us. By acidifying a cow's gut with corn, we have broken down one of

our food chain's barriers to infection.

Thank you for the information... and as e.coli lives in soil and soils
are becoming more acidic, couldn't this too contribute to mutant strains
of e.coli?

No. Escherichia coli, lives only in intestines. Outside of the gut,
Escherichia coli may last 3 months, which is the minimum suggested time
to let fresh manure age before it is used in the garden. Escherichia
coli won't propagate in the soil. Escherichia coli is an enteric
bacteria. Escherichia coli is an indicator of feces, and the government
has set limits on how much feces may be present in the foods that we
eat.
--
- Billy

Mad dog Republicans to the right. Democratic spider webs to the left. True conservatives, and liberals not to be found anywhere in the phantasmagoria
of the American political landscape.

America is not broke. The country is awash in wealth and cash.
It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the
greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks
and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/.../michael-moore
/michael-moore-says-400-americans-have-more-wealth-/