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Post by Foggy on Oct 22, 2021 18:21:37 GMT -6
I'm not anti-organic. I'm just saying that in order to get a bushel of organic beans it oftentimes requires a whole bunch more land than it does to get a bushel of traditional beans. Organic doesn't mean pesticide/herbicide free. Organic pesticides/herbicides are much less effective than traditional forms...and they have to applied more frequently...and they're more expensive per application. Go look at the organic produce at your local megamart. Price them out compared to the non-organic. Are you going to pay quite a bit more for very much less visibly appealing produce? Around here, people aren't going to do that. In areas with much higher per capita incomes they can sell more "healthy" organic products. edit...I could show you some worthless organic soybeans just west of L.P. The fields were contaminated with hemp. None of the OMRI herbicides did anything to the hemp. The fields look like shitty marijuana fields with some soybeans growing under the weed. Yep. I have not kept up with ag practices and there are so many variables. I admit....I am a bit lost. I just feel getting rid of most of the tillage and fertilzer and chems is in my future....not opposed to use those tools when I need to.....but I am hopeful there are better ways. I dont crave cash crops....so there is that. I am striving for diversity and some better conservation practices now. EDIT: My friend has land down near Granite Falls. His renter is really ringing the bell by converting to organic. Some seem to do well.....others?....not so much. I think it could be the commitment to more work and techniques?.....dunno.
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Post by smsmith on Oct 22, 2021 18:32:40 GMT -6
I'm not anti-organic. I'm just saying that in order to get a bushel of organic beans it oftentimes requires a whole bunch more land than it does to get a bushel of traditional beans. Organic doesn't mean pesticide/herbicide free. Organic pesticides/herbicides are much less effective than traditional forms...and they have to applied more frequently...and they're more expensive per application. Go look at the organic produce at your local megamart. Price them out compared to the non-organic. Are you going to pay quite a bit more for very much less visibly appealing produce? Around here, people aren't going to do that. In areas with much higher per capita incomes they can sell more "healthy" organic products. edit...I could show you some worthless organic soybeans just west of L.P. The fields were contaminated with hemp. None of the OMRI herbicides did anything to the hemp. The fields look like shitty marijuana fields with some soybeans growing under the weed. Yep. I have not kept up with ag practices and there are so many variables. I admit....I am a bit lost. I just feel getting rid of most of the tillage and fertilzer and chems is in my future....not opposed to use those tools when I need to.....but I am hopeful there are better ways. I dont crave cash crops....so there is that. I am striving for diversity and some better conservation practices now. EDIT: My friend has land down near Granite Falls. His renter is really ringing the bell by converting to organic. Some seem to do well.....others?....not so much. I think it could be the commitment to more work and techniques?.....dunno.I'd guess it's like just about everything else. What you put into something impacts what you get out. Quality of land. Quality of equipment. Quality of inputs. Normal disease pressure. Normal insect pressure. etc. etc. etc. I have no doubt a guy can make money off of organic produce. If you couldn't, we wouldn't be able to buy it at the megamart
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Post by Freeborn on Oct 22, 2021 18:47:02 GMT -6
A quick read through that and the first thing that comes to mind is RISK. I can't see many farmers putting their whole farm into organic production without proving out the requirements on a smaller scale first. I also would bet allot of the old time farmers have zero interest in learning a new way of doing what they have done for 30+ years. I think organic will become common in the future but it may take some time for a new generation of farmers. I can see no-till increasing allot faster than organic. No-till still has allot of benefits over conventional tillage and you can still revert back to herbicide and inputs if required.
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Post by Foggy on Oct 22, 2021 18:57:11 GMT -6
Seems to me that strip tillage and vertical tillage is gaining allot of traction. It's all reduced tillage and keeps more crop residue on the field.....while doing just enough tillage to get new growth established. I think it all will maintain more moisture and lessen the effects of turning the soils. Lots of development in this area.....and it's all good. Changes are happening.
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Post by smsmith on Oct 22, 2021 19:04:04 GMT -6
What's most imperative here is that none of us (except Mo that I know of) are farming to make money.
The buffalo till system is fantastic for plotters. I am a bit dubious about Dr. Woods and this system since he was advocating continuous tillage of manure not long ago, but hey...whatever. He figured out how to make some serious money off the no-till/spray&pray/whatever methods that were being discussed on the old Q forums at least 15 years ago. More power to him. Bottom line. Don't fuck up your soil. Put more in than you take out.
Kind of like life.
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Post by sd51555 on Oct 22, 2021 19:15:49 GMT -6
The reason most of these otherwise good ideas often fail is that they're looked at in fragments. I can prove any one thing doesn't work when allowed to do everything else inconsistent with the idea. When growing becomes an ongoing system with no unnatural death and no gaps in the plant community, it cannot fail, short of some severely adverse events. It should transition from one crop to the next naturally, so as not to reset everything good that has begun.
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Post by smsmith on Oct 22, 2021 19:19:55 GMT -6
The reason most of these otherwise good ideas often fail is that they're looked at in fragments. I can prove any one thing doesn't work when allowed to do everything else inconsistent with the idea. When growing becomes an ongoing system with no unnatural death and no gaps in the plant community, it cannot fail, short of some severely adverse events. It should transition from one crop to the next naturally, so as not to reset everything good that has begun. You of all people have to recognize how statements like this make old guys like me laugh, right?
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Post by sd51555 on Oct 22, 2021 19:27:56 GMT -6
The reason most of these otherwise good ideas often fail is that they're looked at in fragments. I can prove any one thing doesn't work when allowed to do everything else inconsistent with the idea. When growing becomes an ongoing system with no unnatural death and no gaps in the plant community, it cannot fail, short of some severely adverse events. It should transition from one crop to the next naturally, so as not to reset everything good that has begun. You of all people have to recognize how statements like this make old guys like me laugh, right? Not at all.
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Post by smsmith on Oct 22, 2021 19:33:54 GMT -6
You of all people have to recognize how statements like this make old guys like me laugh, right? Not at all. It's like you're taking Aldo Leopold, tweaking it a bit and making it a statement/idea of your own. Maybe "A Sand County Almanac" should be required reading for everybody on any wildlife related forum
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Post by Foggy on Oct 22, 2021 19:34:46 GMT -6
Pass the popcorn?
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Post by Freeborn on Oct 22, 2021 19:41:11 GMT -6
I have to shake my head on some of this as it implies that tillage is the death to successful food-plotting. I think I could continue to till and plant corn and beans, using inputs and herbicide and have terrific plots that I can kill deer over. Weedy corn and beans are still attractive and I only have to keep an inventory of two free seeds. Oh, maybe 3 seeds as I over-seed with rye.
Maybe my pencil is dull but for food-plotting the marginal return on some of this is minimal and for the most part I think people do this because it interests them not because it results in significant food plot improvement.
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Post by Foggy on Oct 22, 2021 19:47:04 GMT -6
I have to shake my head on some of this as it implies that tillage is the death to successful food-plotting. I think I could continue to till and plant corn and beans, using inputs and herbicide and have terrific plots that I can kill deer over. Weedy corn and beans are still attractive and I only have to keep an inventory of two free seeds. Oh, maybe 3 seeds as I over-seed with rye. Maybe my pencil is dull but for food-plotting the marginal return on some of this is minimal and for the most part I think people do this because it interests them not because it results in significant food plot improvement. Yeah....kinda sorta.....but farmers that have done this long enough in environmentally sensitive areas are losing so much top soil to erosion (from wind and water) that it will take centuries in many cases to restore these soils to their previous fertility. Then too....we are relying so heavily on herbicides and fertilizers that we are contaminating our groundwaters at an alarming rate. It's not sustainable as our population grows. We all need to become better stewards of this land. Just think.....30 years ago NOBODY used Roundup! NOW? I can envision the times coming when you will not be able to apply the chemicals to the land that you are using today. You will need a licensed applicator and lots of red tape to do these things. Changes are afoot according to some farmers I have talked to. Much of the best topsoils of the midwest are now in the Gulf of Mexico. Sad. Be warned. Sounds a bit far fetched you say?......I beg to differ.
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Post by sd51555 on Oct 22, 2021 19:57:09 GMT -6
It's like you're taking Aldo Leopold, tweaking it a bit and making it a statement/idea of your own. Maybe "A Sand County Almanac" should be required reading for everybody on any wildlife related forum I never read it. I did find it on amazon for $7, so I just ordered a copy. I have taken most of my learnings from 3 women. Elaine Ingham Kristine Nichols Christine Jones I never discovered any of this. I just adapted others ideas to what I needed to accomplish. Except gypsum, barley, the leaf blower, and unpublished secret #4. Those are mine.
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Post by smsmith on Oct 22, 2021 19:58:57 GMT -6
It's like you're taking Aldo Leopold, tweaking it a bit and making it a statement/idea of your own. Maybe "A Sand County Almanac" should be required reading for everybody on any wildlife related forum I never read it. I did find it on amazon for $7, so I just ordered a copy. I have taken most of my learnings from 3 women. Elaine Ingham Kristine Nichols Christine Jones I never discovered any of this. I just adapted others ideas to what I needed to accomplish. Except gypsum, barley, the leaf blower, and unpublished secret #4. Those are mine. Read it So much of what's being discussed now as "cutting edge" stuff is what Leopold was telling us back in the 40s. A lot of what he wrote in this 30s actually. Quit fucking shit up. edit...where the fuck is wiscwhip when a guy needs him?
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Post by Foggy on Oct 22, 2021 20:06:49 GMT -6
^ Another great read: "The worst hard times". Get you a copy.
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