A looming Dirt Deficit?

Something to think about, I guess.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/348200_dirt22.html

Being a conservation-minded guy, I see the value in reducing soil runoff by using methods like no-till farming. I'm also big on property rights, so the no-till farmer's actions and one-on-one advocacy make sense to me from a politically conservative standpoint.

Ah, well. Your mileage may vary.

[Edited to remove political comments.]

This message was edited Jan 22, 2008 11:52 PM

Soil conservation and clean water should concern all of us, I would think. :)


This message was edited Jan 23, 2008 8:02 PM

Sedimentation in streams is bad here. I seriously consider taking a bucket with me when we go to a Bay beach, to bring some of my silt back. Can be an inch or more of fine mud on the sand in the water, which makes it pretty yucky to my husband, kids can cope as its ammo for mud battles.

I knew politics is no no, but didn't know current events was. I'm thinking my personal comment above would be OK.
or not?

Sallyg, your comment is fine. And after the edit, so is PuddlePirate's ... LOL I did understand the frustration indicated there though ;~) I too often feel a kneejerk reaction to extremists who all too often take on a cause without considering the needs of the people involved.

The loss of top soil is a serious problem worldwide and one that needs to be addressed in a sensible way. It would not be realistic to believe we can or should try to stop all sedimentation from running into our rivers and streams. Floods, earthquakes, natural slides and avalanches have caused this to happen over the centuries without our help and created rich bottom lands for farming and sandy beaches in the process.

But with improved farming, logging and mining practices we could reduce the excessive levels of soil loss and at the same time create new top soils to replace that which is already lost.

The best way to accomplish this is to demonstrate that there are better ways to achieve profitable results. If you convince a farmer that he will have a better yield and at the same time improve the land he will soon decide to alter his methods. If you tell him he must alter his methods at all costs he is going to resist. This is human nature and if we wish to see improvement we need to teach not browbeat those who need time to accept newer science.

Several years ago I was involved in an archeology project to document archeological sites on land that had been condemned by the government for reclamation. This was in Sumter National Forest in S. Carolina. The forester told us that most of the land within the project area was 20 ft below the original level of the subsoil.

In some areas the government had already planted scrub pine to try to stop the erosion of the blow sand. Anything resembling soil had already eroded away.

I would venture to say that many people, perhaps even most people, today do not know what healthy soil even looks like --- it has become such rare stuff.

(I guess I didn't see the unedited post) I assume we gardeners see the value in no till farming.

I wonder how well he does at being organic and no till. The article mentions that no till may need more herbicides, and that's what I remember from my days in an ag eng class thirty (eek) years ago where we learned about no till. Think how my garden would look if I never weeded or turned over the soil. (Maybe organic no till allows for the occasional plowing)

One concept that made an impression on me is to think of your property in terms of : when you harvest you are removing nutrients from the land, so you need to put them back to keep no net loss. Obviously, things have changed from the days when farms were smaller and maybe self-contained, keeping animals as well as crops, and using the manure back on the land. Now, for efficiency, crops are farmed in one place and animals in another, intensively, and waste is disposed in the easiest way.

Are we rabid composters showing that we can help soil formation along? At least, keeping the organic part of it maintained.

Real farmers, forgive me any errors or mis-assumptions.

I would like to see (dream on) abandoned buildings not stand for years and years ,but be demolished so rain can infiltrate and something can grow. And the acres of unused pavement around outdated shopping malls with empty stores.

It must be something in the air in here. I just had a "discussion" with gloria123 over this no till deal. You cannot apply the same principles to big ag business, or little ag business either for that matter to a home garden as far as tilling is concerned. It just doesn't apply. It's like saying apples taste like oranges even if they are red. There is a huge difference in soil conservation, using farming methods to maintain the top soil, you have and build more (the big guys are little slow on the uptake on that last one). Poor farming practices are one of the leading problems of soil erosion around. It means if you leave a field fallow you use a cover crop of some kind to help hold the soil in place and replace nutrients. This type of thing is where the "Dust Bowl" came from. People were using fewer of the old ways and moving into the new ways which included chemical fertilizers, pesticides etc. Guess what I did one of my term papers on in college? LOL I'm from Nebraska originally, so it goes with the territory. Most gardeners are very careful stewards of their ground and are always adding additional nutrients to the soil I'm not buying you are killing the soil when you till it, simply because I know from experience that's just not so. What's got me going it the idea that no till is the only method that works, because.........yadda, yadda yadda.
And give the newbies a total warped picture of the possiblities. For me personally, it's up there with these new earth destroying worms found by the Japanese (wonder what they been smokin?), the joy and ease of double digging which aerates your soil, (er, the theory works anyway) and the killer tomatoes that ate New York. Goodness, off me soapbox.

Just as a point of information, no-till gardening does not involve the use of herbicides. Also, soil is soil no matter who is digging or not digging it. it has an inherent structure and that's what no dig gardening/tilling is designed to conserve.

We could discuss till the cows come home. As long as the newbies have the opportunity to make their own choices based on their situation, I got no problem with it. I use both, I fail to see why it should be an issue if others chose to do the same. One is not better than the other in a small home garden situation. And somehow, I can see where selling that to the big agro businesses is not going to be successful. There has to be a way to compromise, so that the soil can be replenished, people can make a living farming (I'm not talking market growing, you say farm to me, you're talking 360 acres minimum) without having to use all the toxins. I think if this go green turns out to be more than just another fad, there will be progress in that area.

thanks gloria for bringing up no till gardening--i have always heard of tilling so it's good to have info on other ideas--i like the idea

The no till method is being used and studied somewhere in Austrailia with wonderful results so far as I have read. They also use grazing of cattle between crop rotations as part of the whole soil building process. I don't know how large the operations are where it is being used but it sure sounded like it could actually make money for the farmers rather than cost them money,and at the same time rebuild their soil.

IF the large farming operations here are shown how to increase their profits and improve their soils at the same time,then they will begin to adapt to new ways.

This is not the same as the back yard gardener or even the small truck garden where a smaller yield doesn't have any real impact. It would no doubt take a lot of convincing to get the huge agriculture companies to even consider it and they are the ones that can and do have the largest impact on our soils. It is these huge operations that feed, house and clothe the planets populations and they are always going to put business before environmental concerns where as the little guy can go organic and or no till and fill a niche market.

Here I sit in corn country [and soybeans]. I can raise up and look out the window right here behind the computer and except for a small woods here and there, it is corn and soybeans [just a few pastures, hay, or wheat] for miles. Here is where the big rubber hits the road....real farms.

It is about 40% no-till. Where land is more rolling, no-till is all the more important as these boys have not figured out how to intersperse cover crops and soil building legumes into a profitable scheme.

But it's a start, Indy. That's much more than use to be happening. Again, it's all about the bottom line and especially where the "rubber meets the road". Once big ag figures out how to capitalize on the "go green" deal, this should get more interesting. It's all about the money.

BTW, "no-till" can refer to two very different types of growing.

One version of no-till is the type that sprays heavy doses of chemical herbicides on the ground between crops instead of tilling. This is the type that uses the Roundup Ready seeds and kills the soil in an effort to "save labour".
http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto_and_the_Roundup_Ready_Controversy

Another organic version of no-till uses minimum tilling to help preserve the soil and the soil microorganisms, especially the mycorrhizae that suppress weeds naturally.
Here is a link to The New Farm's No-Till + page:
http://www.newfarm.org/depts/notill/index.shtml

i'm not a farmer, but i will say that if you want the most updated, latest research and techniques then look no further than 'big' agriculture. no till has been out now what 40 yrs?
I think this new green movement should take the lead from big ag. and quit recycling big ag's ideas from 40 yrs ago and calling them their own!
It is about money. You may find a rose research in a university of a state that grows roses, but where i live it's all corn, soybeans,wheat. the latest advances in hybridization and plant genetics will not be daylilies but again, corn,soybeans, wheat. cash crops.
All the "go green's" research will be derived from the big ag, not the other way around.
But the good thing about it all is that those ideas and advancements trickle down to home gardeners. we need to listen to our farmers and big ag and quit trying to tell them a thing or two, and learn from them, their successes, their failures, and try to benefit.

I guess it depends on which type of "no-till" you are referencing and where you live.

The environmentally sound version of no-till/minimum till has been around for thousands of years and is now being "rediscovered" and re-appreciated.

The chemically dependent type of agriculture that started 40 years ago (since WWII) has polluted much of the planet and brought about a significant reduction in the nutritional value of the food grown and an increase in fatal food allergies.

I suppose if i had to choose between the chemically polluted, nutrient -deficient, fatal food allergy type of agriculture such as ours or a non-chemically dependent, non-polluted, lack of food, and fatal starvation that is happening elsewhere in the world, I'd choose the first over the latter.
I suppose in a way all agriculture is chemically dependent. isn't water a chemical?
If we changed the chemical or nutrient value of a plant, does it not fail to thrive or exhibit a nutrient deficiency? so if as they say rice has lost the nutrients calcium by 21% and iron by 28.6% in 25 years, is it not the same rice grain? how could it be? perhaps it's softer. smaller? and how do they keep increasing yields on such polluted land? they don't even know what causes food allergies. the ny times says that 200 people a year die of food allergies. 3,019 in 2004 from nutritional deficiencies.18,807 from falls in 2004. 44,943 auto deaths in 2004. to put it in perspective, when 18,807 people a year die from food allergies and 44,943 from nutritional deficiencies, i think we would have just cause for concern.

The bottom line is that the less soil is disturbed the more broad spectrum nutrients stay in it. Good healthy soil yields more produce on less land, for farmers and for gardeners. And, the less soil is disturbed the more cohesive it is so that the use excessive fertilizers is not necessary. Those are the ones that leak into the atmosphere and habitats of other animals. And the total result is less erosion, the soil stays put. And the earth gets better instead of worse.

Thats what we need.

the nutrients leave the soil when we harvest the produce. if we let it just wither on the vine then we would have less need for fertilizers and soil breaking, but that defeats the whole purpose of growing food in the way we are accustomed. I think this country pays less percentage of their income for food than any other country in the world.
As far as using excess fertilizers and pesticides, by and large is overstated as far as farming is concerned. At least that is what i gather by chatting with the farmer that farms around me. The price is unreal and takes a big bite out of their thin margins. They certainly do more soil testing, and even hire a guy to check their fields throughout the season for what pests they might encounter. There is a new farmer leasing the land across the street from me, whom told me that the other guy's lease was terminated because he did not ever fertilize or rotate his crops. If there's anyone that over- fertilizes it's more likely me than the farmers around here. In my opinion, good land stewardship is just preaching to the choir when addressing farmers and big ag.

The test of time has shown that more chemicals applied to the land, the less it produces in the long term. The very short term gains of the post WWII chemical "green revolution" have given way to long term losses.

Most of the world's famines during the last 50 years are caused by political factors, or natural disasters, not problems with traditional agricultural techniques. Civil wars, military coups, and natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, volcanoes, tidal waves) that wipe out crops in the fields are not going to be mitigated by additional chemical inputs.

The rice loses nutrients when the growers deplete the soils of needed nutrients and do not remineralize. NPK fertilizers can only take a plant so far.
Frances Chabousou studied this extensively and has compiled documentation from many scientific journals supporting this.
http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Crops-New-Agricultural-Revolution/dp/1897766890

Sustainable agriculture has proven capable of feeding the world.
http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=5936

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8658

The CDC admits that its statistics are soft figures drawn from doctors' notations on death certificates. If they only note death from anaphylactic shock or similar statement, without mentioning food allergy, that death is excluded from the statistic. People with known food allergies carry inhalers, Benadryl and Epi-Pens to help them survive if an attack occurs. The percent of the US population with food allergies is rising exponentially. It is also interesting to note that many people with non-fatal, but uncomfortable reactions to conventional wheat, corn, soy and dairy can frequently eat traditionaly prepared, organically grown heirloom varieties without any the symptoms of allergic reaction.

http://www.allergykids.com/index.php?id=3&page=Defining_Food_Allergies

We cannot separate human health from the health of the soil. Millions are suffering a decreased quality of life and increased health care costs as a result of nutritional deficiencies.

If you want to eat chemically polluted, nutritionally deficient food, that's your choice......as long as you keep those chemicals to yourself and do not allow them to leach into another's water, air or soil.

I will continue to support the sustainable ag movement and continue to advise my clients to eat clean, ecologically grown foods. People rapidly notice the improvement in their health as they change their food sources.

We need build and protect good, healthy soil that is alive with organic matter, beneficial microbes and worms. This is what feeds the world.

Looks like we were posting at the same time.
Len, what do you mean when you say "big ag"?
Out here that generally refers to the large multinational corporations that have been pushing the small family ranchers and farmers off their land. I have friends that are fifth and sixth generation farmers and ranchers in the surrounding counties. The deterioration in soil quality after the land changes hands has been really frightening.

I saw it posted here in this thread, i think it is the derogatory term for agricultural corporations. I went to school with a guy who's parents were "pushed" off their land by wal-mart and lowes. I don't know how many millions they made off that deal. lol!
actually they weren't entirely pushed, they sold the land around them except for their house and 5 acres. The city was going to condemn their place because of the need for additional grading for the runoff, but dropped it after the local newspaper had a "save the family farm" article. lol!
I think once the political labels and political agendas are dropped, the different methods and goals in agriculture are really one in the same. I find it ironic that the no till organic, sustainable ag or whatever calls for tilling in a cover crop. or adding manure (methane-free?). this is row crop country not cattle country, so we'd have to import the manure, burning more fossil fuels. and what about the occassional e. coli manure fertilizing spinach or was it lettuce? a lot has to do with where you live i suppose, as it's hard to really understand some of the passion of the environmentalists until you pop over the hill on I-15 into ontario, ca and see all the beautiful homes obscured by the filthiest air you could ever imagine!

It is easier to point a finger at the other guy than at ones self. For instance, what are the real life environmental issues in your area? We have environmentalists from around the globe coming in to tell us how to save the forests, clean up our rivers, save the fishing industries, save the spotted owls, save the... And yet when asked where they are from and why they are not at home fighting to save their areas resources they have no answer other than to tell us what we need to be doing.

Scientific studies are being made to advance our understanding of nature and how we can improve our effects upon the planet. But science is ever changing as new things are discovered and old ideas are rediscovered. This can be confusing in itself. Then we have different interpretations of what the latest science means and how it should be implemented or even if it should be implemented.

There are no one size fits all answers. Each area has it's own unique set of needs. Worms that are destroying one area may be just what it will take to restore another area. No till, Low till, organic or chemical, there are places where each could be the perfect solution and searching or experimenting to see what works for each of us and learning from each other are all important. But it is also important to remember that someone else's methods and ideas may have worked equally well for them and that scientific evidence could no doubt be shown to prove both methods to be equally right or equally wrong or right for one section of the planet and wrong for another.

It is important to me to read what worked or didn't work in other areas and to then discover if those things will or will not work in my own back yard or why it does or not apply to my location.

For instance, in one example of worm damage that was given here they say that their hosta and ferns were being damaged by worms. Yet my experience has been that my ferns and hosta did better in a bed rich in worm castings. There may be scientific reasons for this but it may be as simple as the fact that my soil is naturally acidic while theirs may be pH neutral or alkaline or that they are experiencing a different type of worm. Whatever the science of it is, my plants, which are mostly native to my area, seem to do better in my heavily composted and worm filled beds than they do without those additions.

Because of this it would be all too easy for me to scoff at their conclusions and write them off as not knowing what they are talking about and for them to do the same of me. But I would not do that since I do not garden in the same environment they do. So please, tell me what works for you and if it seems likely to work for me I'll try it and I will share my experiences with you. But please don't be offended if I say that it is not for me or my findings differ from yours. In the overall view we are both searching and learning and trying to do the right thing.

I agree zanymuse, I don't like fingerpointing or politics mixed with science. I find the facts fascinating, but am off put by political adjectives. For example, if one adopts an animal from a shelter, i find neutral, but 'rescuing' an animal from a shelter, somewhat arrogant.
I suppose if you rescue an animal that somehow makes you a self-proclaimed hero.
it just engages my skepticism when i run across certain adjectives that are injected to influence my way of thinking or guide my conclusions. sustainable agriculture versus what non-sustainable agriculture? It's not that i might not agree with everything they say, it's just that they've lost credibility with me because of the adjectives. I'm not speaking of the people here, but of the things i have read.

It never occurred to me that rescue animals were any different than adopted animals. The local shelter is called a "rescue shelter".
I needed a dog. The dog needed me.

Sustainable to me is not a buzz word. It refers to something that is good for the earth- a conservation measure.

Gloria, they are the same. It's the semantics and inferences incurred. Why a rescue shelter and not a homeless shelter? lol!

"Science" seems to disprove much of itself every 50 to 100 years. That's one of the reasons I try to look at really long term practices.

This is also row crop country. Our surrounding counties are the nation's "salad bowl". The pathogenic enterohemorraghic e.coli that affected the spinach crop last year came from industrialized cattle operations upstream. When the animals are treated as machines, overcrowded and given waste product for feed, this is what happens. The silver lining to that fiasco is that more & more ranchers are choosing to change over to grass fed operations. The increase in corn prices and consumer boycotts of feedlot cattle are helping that move too.

If a farmer/rancher sells their land to the highest bidder when they are ready to retire, I would not call that being pushed off their land. When the same farmer/rancher is forced to cease operations and sell because a megacorp pushes changes in ag policy, ag land taxation and zoning/ordinance changes that make it impossible for the smaller operations to stay in business or pass their operation to the next generation, that I would call being pushed off their land. We are supposed to have "right to farm" ordinances in many counties. Some counties uphold them, some do not.

Many animal shelters are called rescue shelters because they were started as a place to house animals rescued from abusive situations. Technically they weren't "homeless" animals, but the homes they were found in were hazardous.

i'll be dead by then unless science once again is wrong and i live to be 150! lol!
the e. coli also occurs in cattle in green serene pastures also, as i saw a program recently on tv where some floods had washed the infected manure into one of the towns wells and it got distributed into part of the water supply making a lot of people sick. the people testing the water supply were charged with falsifying records etc.
Are you sure it's the megacorp's pushing the changes or the citizens? I remember a while back in ca the people were trying to ban wal-mart from their communities.
I've been watching too much tv lately i suppose but i heard about the right to farm ordinances, i think there was a garden somewhere near or in santa barbara that was being threatened by condo developers or somesuch. the people were trying to put it out of business. they grow organic vegetables or something. Perhaps they should put the people out to pasture and not pack them in overcrowded cattle-type condo operations. lol! Out here most animals are dumped or brought to the shelters and not needing much rescuing, especially after they chew or potty peoples houses.

Len. According to science you should be able to live to 150. Unless you eat the food that's available to you, and ingest plastics, drink hormones in your milk, and breathe contaminated air, etc, etc. and subject your self to noise and other kinds of stress.

Interesting discussion.
I like Zany's musings. I think most of my garden/yard addiction is the ability to try to control my little world and see what happens as I do.
We composters know not to use fresh manure around edible crops. We know fresh manure is hazardous.
The well had a major problem since it allowed surface material to get into the water. It's supposed to be sealed against that. Part of the reason we don't have old style wells, where anything could fall in and rot. If it really 'flooded', they know it needs to be sanitized.
I agree people are less than healthy in overcrowded conditons. I will enjoy my new mental image of feedlot condo living !
AHRFC- Animal-Human Relationship Facilitation Center
Why are people homeless, not residenceless?

Because residence less is too hard to say much less spell? LOL

residence seems like a hospital or rest home.
How about long-term care facility. I always thought folks who were admitted there, that their days were numbered.lol!
ARC - Animal Recycle Center sounds so green and responsible. Like you are doing your part for the environment. You no longer have to be intimidated around your green friends, you can say, yes i recycle!

LOL- Animal Recycling Center!

The abreviation e. coli refers to an an entire species of bacterium, most of which are harmless, some of which are probiotic (the healthy ones, like the ones in your gut that make vitamin K for you), some of which are highly toxic (serotype O157:H7).

O157:H7 was first noticed in the 1980's and has been linked with feedlot and CAFO operations that use certain types of feed. These operations can and do contaminate other pastures and fields that are downstream. Most outbreaks are associtated with undercooked beef or food items coming in contact with infected beef. There are fewer incidences of illness when the livestock is not overcrowded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli_O157:H7

"Out here most animals are dumped or brought to the shelters and not needing much rescuing". Have to disagree with you there. Dumped pets are very much in need of rescuing. They grew up in a human environment and did not grow up "in the wild". Most don't have the skills to survive on their own. They are dependent on humans.

garden mermaid- I appreciate the information, and had not thought about animal rescue in those terms That's an excellent point.

But I am still laughing over ARC , Len!

I live in the country and last summer someone dumped a dog not far from me and of course it came to my house. Just out of the puppy stage probably about 6 mos or so my guess. I am out of town often or should be, so a large dog is just not possible. I tried to give it away and no luck, it was a nice dog. there are no shelters in the county i found out so i had to take him to the local vet and have put down. the vet even called a lady who takes in strays. the vet only charged me for the humane societies' disposal of the body.
I suppose you could say i rescued him, though i certainly don't feel like a hero. I feel more like i took away a life of uncertainty to one of sure death. but i also could not stand the thought of an animal starving to death either.

“EARTH: The only known planet to support and sustain life, home to many beautiful, fascinating and wonderful forms of life. All of these life forms are sustained and maintained by a thin layer of Topsoil.
That thin layer is created, kept fertile, healthy and productive through the decay of rock for minerals and decay of organic materials for structure and energy.
The quality of that topsoil determines the quality of all life on earth, including the fish in the sea. If we allow the thin top layer to degrade to any degree, the life it supports degrades along with it…”


http://malcolmbeck.com/articles/energy.htm

gm, I thought that one of the ca e-coli157 outbreaks was caused by wild swine getting in the lettuce farm......kind of an irony maybe...back to nature turned into a problem?

organic1. Very concisely put.

I thought e-coli was spread by animal feces. Whether that be in a slaughter house or lettuce field.