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New Year's Greetings to you and may 2010 be filled with success.
It occurs to me that my newsletters have often spoken about the many benefits of mycorrhizal fungi and other soil organisms, but there has not been much mention of the details of how those "plant-friendlies" function.
Let's begin by planting a seed. As a root emerges and begins to extend downward into the soil, it actually starts a complex sequence of actions. If there have not been any living roots in that garden's soil, as during the winter months in northern climates, then the microbial organisms will have either gone dormant or deposited microscopic spores (fungi "seeds") during previous growing seasons. A healthy soil will be filled with countless billions of these sorts of tiny organisms patiently lying in wait for a new generation of plant roots to appear.
Also waiting along with the beneficials are viruses, harmful fungi spores, and other plant pathogens. There is always some competition for seeds and roots - good guys versus bad guys - going on underground. Indeed, if a seed takes too long to sprout, as when soil conditions are too cold, some decomposing types of fungi can enter and make mush of meaty seeds before they have a chance to get going.
A growing root has a lubricant coating that exudes chemical signals. Call it a "smell" for sake of simplicity. This smell lets all the soil critters know that a new growing season has arrived - and the effect is like ringing a dinner bell. Mycorrhizal fungi spores activate, quickly attach to the root, and begin fulfilling their dual role of protection/nourishment.
With mycorrhizae, the new root is able to uptake much greater amounts of nutrients than it could on its own, plus there is now a protective zone surrounding it. This "Mycorrhizosphere" consists of sticky fungi root-threads ("hyphae") that physically block many pathogens from gaining access to the root. There are also anti-viral substances generated by the hyphae.
As the plant roots develop and extend further out into the soil, many other soil organisms are supported. Bacteria populations explode into huge numbers, digesting organic matter and dissolving mineral elements into forms that the mycorrhizal fungi can deliver to their host plants. In return, the plant is kept busy gathering sunlight and sharing the resulting photosynthates (sugars and carbohydrates) through root exudates.
Note that endomycorrhizal fungi actually penetrate into the outer layer of plant root cells, where nutrient exchange takes place. This is a more direct approach than simply feasting on exudates outside the root. Ectomycorrhizal fungi (such as occur on oaks and pines) form more of a sheath around roots, but both types are critically important to the health and vigor of plants.
So a sprouted seed triggers all sorts of soil activity, with the growing tips of the roots being the "dinner bell" mechanism. As the oldest sections of roots nearer the plant age and harden, especially for trees and other perennials, they become more like conduit pipes rather than foraging tools. The real action is always out around the gel-covered new roots.
Plants and their soil associates are far more complicated than most realize. There are many forms of communication that take place, and subtle differences in appearance can prompt insects to destroy "unhealthy" plants, alarms are sounded when an attack occurs, and signals from a stressed plant spur increased efforts from their supportive mycorrhizal fungi. It's an ongoing battle between "the forces of good and evil" as far as plants are concerned. Luckily for us, the beneficials usually prevail due to superior numbers and/or powerful defensive weapons that can be used to protect their life-giving host plants.
All this is good reason to encourage bio-life in soil and to make sure that seedlings and transplant roots have the right kind of friendly fungi spores available very early in their life. Blending mycorrhizal powder into potting soils, or drenching trays of young plants with water-soluble inoculant, or dipping bareroot transplants (especially fruit trees, grapes, or berries) into a clinging spore slurry, or putting spores under garden seeds will ensure the immediate presence of "good guys." The new roots will be thrilled to see them waiting (in a silent plant version of thrilled, of course).
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman,
President, BioOrganics
Last fall, I moved to a new home in Palm Springs and began tending the existing plants as well as converting a scruffy back yard lawn area into a vegetable garden. Some of the things I've done may be useful for many of you, especially if you have less-than-ideal soil conditions.
Bordering the sides of the my front yard are several rose bushes, about 10 in each row, growing in narrow beds covered with white gravel. They had not been tended for some time, so I began by removing all the dead canes and cutting the rest back to 12-18 inch stubs.
Next, the decorative gravel had to go. It looked nice, but provided no nutrients or organic matter. Non-organic mulches force a grower to continuously feed the roses with liquid fertilizer, which I was not about to do. My goal is always to create strong and healthy plants by encouraging big populations of beneficial microorganisms and earthworms in the root zones.
So as to not disturb the roots, I like to use an "enhanced mulch" strategy for existing plants, layering useful ingredients on the surface of the soil. For the roses, I first scraped away the rocks to expose bare soil to about a foot out from each bush. Then, I scattered a couple large handfuls of multi-ingredient dry organic fertilizer and a cupful of our MycoMinerals product (which has a broad spectrum of minor and trace minerals, plus mycorrhizal fungi spores and biostimulants - see www.mycominerals.com - around each of the bushes.
Finally, I cover-mulched the fertilizer and MycoMinerals with about four inches of bagged potting soil, keeping it away from the rose graft joints. I would have preferred good compost, but it is nearly impossible to buy at stores. Peaceful Valley has some very good composted material by mail-order - see www.buyorganic.com - but this time I opted to just buy potting soil at a local store. Note that most of the bagged material sold to "amend soil" is pretty awful stuff, but some potting soils are not too bad for mulching purposes.
After putting the above materials around the roses my work was essentially all done except for occasional watering. As the bottom layer of the mulch decomposes, earthworms and soil microbes will feed on it and transport the digested organic matter down to the rose roots, taking some of the fertilizer, minerals, and mycorrhizal spores along at the same time. This will give the roses every possible nutrient they need for maximum good health and disease resistance.
As the colonies of bacteria, fungi, worms and other beneficial organisms build in numbers, the mulch layers will begin to disappear very quickly. As soon as it gets eaten down below an inch, I'll repeat the layering process to maintain a constant source of fodder for my now-abundant soil critters so they (and the roses they support) don't starve.
This enhanced-mulch technique can be used for any shrubs or trees. If you want to gauge how well it works, try it on a few of your plants instead of chemical liquids (but don't ever apply any liquid NPK to the test plants - that unnatural drenching of fast-acting fertilizer will disrupt the soil organisms you are trying to build up).
For my vegetable garden, I removed the grass, turned in a load of compost from a local nursery supply, plus dry organic fertilizer and MycoMinerals. Then, to activate the mycorrhizal fungi spores - which only come out of dormancy when they sense a growing root nearby - I seeded Crimson Clover and let it grow a few inches high before digging it in. A neighbor had told me that there were no earthworms in the desert soil around here (he uses only synthetic NPK fertilizers), and sure enough, I didn't see a single worm in the old lawn area when I first dug it.
But guess what? When I turned under the Crimson Clover, there they were - lots of fat happy worms! I don't know where they came from, but if you provide the food they always seem to show up, and now that I have the garden soil set up with organic matter, minerals, and mycorrhizal fungi I'll never deep-dig it again, which would destroy the worm tunnels and disrupt the valuable microbial colonies. I'll simply do the enhanced-mulch between rows on the soil surface and then seed or transplant without digging any more than necessary. I also try to avoid stepping on the beds. I'll either reach in from the sides or lay down a wide board to walk on. An alternative would be to create permanent walkways between your designated no-step planting areas, making the beds just wide enough to tend from the sides - maybe 3-5 feet wide.
Again, I suggest giving this technique a try if you are still doing springtime rototilling (a horribly destructive idea, from a worm's perspective) or using synthetic NPK "plant food." I think you might be very surprised by how much better your plants perform, plus how few disease and insect problems you have with this biology-oriented method. Fully nourished plants have good built-in resistance to disease, and if a plant is not artificially forced with high-analysis fertilizer it does not invite insect attacks.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
As those of you who have been reading these newsletters for years know, I have a well-developed weakness for tomatoes. I've grown more than 150 varieties in my home gardens and it is always a day of quiet celebration when the first ripe fruit comes off the vine and into my hand.
Like most folks my age (68), I began gardening at a time when manures were the primary fertilizer and observed the change to synthetic NPK "plant foods" during the 1950's, a time when the postwar chemical corporations were looking for new markets. This was touted as a great leap forward in agriculture, promising greater yields and certainly less odor. And it's true, those three macro nutrients were very effective and continue to be widely used today. They are almost certainly not sustainable and contaminate water supplies, but that's a topic for another newsletter
Home gardeners quickly followed the farmers in adopting the convenient granular and liquid synthetic fertilizers. A standard pattern was to rototill, work in the plant food, and seed. Side-dressing the "heavy feeders" during the growing season was also recommended. This was my normal routine until about age 50, at which time I began experimenting with organic ideas, particularly mulching to hold in moisture and prevent weeds.
The next step was to change from synthetic fertilizers to materials like bone and fish meal, along with rock dust minerals. I can't really say that my yields increased, but there definitely seemed to be improvements in flavor, especially for my beloved tomatoes. I knew it wasn't just my imagination when a neighbor began raving about the taste of a tomato I gave him and it turned out to be the same variety he was growing in his chemical garden. I also noted that my plants had very few disease problems or insect attacks, both of which had been problems in past years. I stopped using pesticides and fungicides.
When I next got into soil microbiology and began testing the effects of specific types of mycorrhizal fungi and their companion bacteria, I had my own great leap forward. The wonderful flavors that came from organic mineral-rich soil were still there, but now my yields went way up as well. When you encourage billions of the right microbial organisms to colonize your soil they digest and produce ideal plant nutrients, and then mycorrhizal fungi transport those nutrients into plant roots in exactly the right proportions. No chemical fertilizer can duplicate the continuous flow of good plant nutrition that comes from a biologically-enhanced garden soil.
This season, my first in Palm Springs, I started my tomatoes on December 20th and set them out on February 11th. (Sorry, those of you back East, but that's the recommended schedule here. I'm told they won't survive the summer heat and low humidity, but I've got some ideas about that as well.) After considerable agonizing, my eight varieties this season are: Big Girl, Pink Girl, Park's Whopper, Pineapple, Black Pineapple, Clear Pink Early, Manitoba, and Glacier. I also have a wonderful sweet small tomato called Basket King growing in a hanging pot. If I had a bit more space, I would have added Lemon Boy, Grushovka, and Siberian - all great-flavored varieties. (The latter two are early, bush-form, and highly productive.)
Manitoba is experimental for me. The rest are favorites from over the years. I want to see which ones do well in this new desert setting. Next year, I plan to go with the 2-3 that do best, plus maybe 4-6 new varieties. Dutchman, Copia, Tiffany, Chapman (!), Black Cherry, and Germaid Red are leading contenders.
The one variety that I consider next to perfect? Clear Pink Early. It only gets about 3 feet high, is easily contained in a small cage, and throws off dozens (yes - dozens) of egg-sized fruit that are as sweet and flavorful as any I've ever grown. Pineapple and Black Pineapple might rank just a notch higher to my taste buds, but they develop huge vines and ripen much later. For the home gardener or farmer's market grower, Clear Pink is simply a remarkable tomato - especially in bio-active mineral soil.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
I've often written about how mycorrhizal fungi colonize the root zones of plants and forage for nutrients, but let's take a closer look at this relationship.
Some many, many, millions of years ago (for sake of simplicity, I'll just say "lotsa" millions), a connection was made between plants and a particular type of fungi. As so often happens in nature, two completely different organisms discovered that there was value in helping each other survive.
The fungi found that plant roots contained a particularly tasty substance - the result of photosynthesis, which takes place above ground in the leaves of the plant. As plants are able to produce an abundant supply of these photosynthates, the small amount consumed by the fungi was not harmful. In time, the fungi became fully dependent on this root-exude diet. Without a host plant, the fungi died - but left behind spores in the soil that would remain dormant for years if necessary.
The fungi, which might have originally been a parasite to the plant, also spread miles of tiny root-threads throughout the surrounding soil, foraging for nutrients in yet another cooperation, this time with bacteria and decomposing-type fungi. These other soil organisms are able to convert mineral elements and organic matter into forms that plants can uptake. Mycorrhizal fungi, in effect, became the delivery mechanism for these converted elements.
Over more "lotsa" years, the mycorrhizal fungi was able to tune into the needs of their host plants and began foraging for the specific nutrients and moisture required to support the plant. Research has shown that the fungi became particularly adept at foraging for bacteria-produced nitrogen and phosphorus, elements essential to plant health, growth, and fruit production.
After again "lotsa" years, it seems that a form of communication developed between the two parties, most likely a chemical signal of some sort, that sent the fungi "need more-need less" signals from the plant. For example, we know that a moisture-stressed plant causes the fungi to go into a state of emergency activity, sending hyphae out faster and deeper to seek water. After all, if the plant dies, so does the fungi.
After "lotsa" more years, this mutually beneficial relationship was fine-tuned to the point where many plants stopped growing their own fine feeder roots and turned over nearly all underground foraging activities to the fungi, which became more and more adept at plant husbandry. With the fungi's skilled efforts, a plant needed only a few "pipeline" type thick roots.
Then, in the blink of an eye time-wise, man began growing plants with synthetic petro-fertilizers. Seemed like a great idea, except virtually no one realized that high-analysis NPK plant foods destroyed mycorrhizal fungi. Suddenly, plant roots were expected to uptake nutrients by themselves, a job that they were no longer evolutionary suited for.
Some plants, such as grapes, melons, tomatoes, and many types of fruit trees now grew only non-foraging thick roots, so as the mycorrhizal fungi were eliminated, growers had to apply larger and larger doses of NPK to get enough into their plants - so abnormally large that runoff amounts routinely contaminate water supplies. A plant might make actual use of 1% of commonly used liquid fertilizers - the rest runs through to groundwater or steams, or evaporates into the atmosphere.
If leaf analysis shows a lack of some macro element, the usual recommendation is to apply greater amounts of that chemical element to the soil. If a plant shows some purple on the underside of its leaves, then the recommendation is to apply P in larger amounts. The plants that evolved a near-complete dependence on mycorrhizal fungi are called "heavy feeders" and the strategy is to push plant food at them in enormous and wasteful dosages, even side-dressing during the growing season.
Every "soil-chemistry problem" is typically met with a fast-action over dosage response, which only exacerbates the fungi-destroying cause of the problem. Even today with all we have learned about soil biology, this is rarely recognized, but maybe "lotsa" years from now, we'll learn how to use the living organisms in the soil instead of killing them off. Fortunately, even the most depleted, salt-contaminated, compacted soils can be restored to productivity, but it's a shame that soils have to ever reach that level of ruin.
Extra question: The Eastern U.S. had severe problems with a tomato virus last year. I'm curious as to whether our mycorrhizal inoculant customers had the same problem as their neighbors, or were your plants able to survive longer? Lab tests have shown that mycorrhizal plants have greater resistance to many diseases - but how did it work out in real life? If you have any observations on this, please let me know.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
On occasion, usually after a long hot day and a cold Margarita or two, I think about what is happening today with soil problems and the role of Biological Science in agriculture, plant nurseries, landscaping and home gardening. (I know, I could be spending that time pondering far more exciting things but I am, after all, in the business.)
It's pretty clear that the Chemistry majors have prevailed in nearly all areas of growing plants, supported by big ad budgets and industry research sponsorship. You gotta hand it to the Dows, duPonts, Bayers, Orthos, and Monsantos of the world - they've successfully developed countless pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and even altered plant genetics to match their chemical products - all to "solve growers' problems." Kill, control, sterilize, fertilize, immunize - got it right here, pal.
However, when it comes to the science of soil biology I'm reminded of the teacher who asked the class clown to explain the difference between ignorance and apathy, and he responded, "I don't know, and I don't care."
Ignorance, or the absence of knowledge about soil organisms and their functions, is probably the most common condition. I'm guessing that most folks are not even aware that there are beneficial microbes in soil. Much more is known about harmful organisms - like lawn grubs - and the chemicals designed to kill them. I wonder what the results would be of a survey question that asked, "Would you rather try to grow plants in completely sterile soil or in soil loaded with fungi and bacteria?" How many people know that healthy soils are filled with microbial life, let alone that the great majority of soil organisms are helpful to plants?
Wine grape growers, landscape architects, soil restoration services, and some sophisticated plant nurseries are probably the most knowledgeable groups as far as strategically using soil biology, although in recent years I have received orders from a wide variety of customer types - with crops ranging from pastureland to fruit orchards to bonsai nurseries. So, awareness is increasing, both among commercial growers and home gardeners - largely due to magazine articles on the subject. I'm even seeing some some passing mentions of mycorrhizal fungi in chemistry-oriented ag journals, which is encouraging.
Apathy, on the other hand, reflects more a sense of contentment with current practices - sort of, "Yeah, I know there are some good soil bugs, but who cares as long as the 10-10-10 is working fine." This attitude is almost impossible to overcome, because you really can't argue that turning to bio-enhancement techniques will be more profitable, at least in the short run, and unsustainability is one of those off-in-the-future-maybe concepts for those blessed with deep, rich soils. Let's face it, if someone doesn't want to change what they're doing, it's a waste of time to argue with them. (This, of course, is true for any number of unhealthy habits, political stances, and other dug-in positions.)
My overall measured conclusion on the subject is that growers who know and care about the biological heath of their soil represent my best customer prospects, followed by those who are beginning to have issues with the use of synthetic fertilizers for whatever reasons - cost, water contamination, newly restrictive laws, soil compaction, salt buildups, or other problems. And lastly, I deal with lots of experimenters - those who enjoy trying different ideas in their laboratories, greenhouses, farm fields, orchards, vineyards, yards, and gardens. These are some of my most fun customers.
Of course, the fact that you are reading this means that you have subscribed to my newsletters, so I'm probably mostly "preaching to the choir," but why not? - many among you are leading the way to better soil practices, and I hope I can encourage more of that.
By the way, the several responses I received from last month's newsletter where I asked about our customer's experience last season with tomato diseases were all favorable about plants inoculated with our products, but there really weren't any that had what I would consider solid comparisons - like perhaps to a neighbor with the same varieties who didn't inoculate. Thanks to you who responded.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
For those who want to create or maintain good healthy soils, whether they be home gardeners or farmers, here are a few simple guidelines to follow.
1. Avoid fast-acting high-analysis fertilizers, especially in liquid forms. Your important soil organisms are not adapted to big bursts of nutrients. The use of strong synthetic fertilizers (10-10-10, urea, ammonium nitrate, etc.) will eventually result in lifeless compacted soil and salt buildups. If liquids must be used, I suggest well-diluted fish and kelp. If chemical-type fertilizers must be used, try gradual-release (osmocoated) types supplemented with trace minerals. Low-analysis dry organic types (many now available - see www.groworganic.com - work best for sound biological systems.
2. Work the soil as little as possible. No-till is best, limited-till is next best, plowing is next best, and rototilling is the worst. The more you can avoid disturbing the established biological communities and earthworm tunnels underground, the better.
3. Mulch with organic materials that will decompose. Try to add organic matter from the top rather than tilling it into the soil. After earthworm populations build up in the soil underneath mulch, it will quickly disappear as the worms feed on the bottom layer. Grapes, fruit trees, and berries are great candidates for a mulching program. Also, apply mulch between rows in a garden and cover bare spots in flower beds.
4. Add useful organisms, such as nitrogen-fixing bacteria for legumes and mycorrhizal fungi spores at planting time. These can be dusted on seeds or transplant roots, blended into the soil, scattered in planting holes, or added to seed starting mixes. Plants that have the right types of beneficial microbes on their roots can uptake far greater amounts of nutrients and moisture.
5. Do bio-assays to take the guesswork out of soil improvement. Soil Foodweb, MycoRoots, and other labs can give you a biological profile of your soil, much like soil-chemistry tests (which I find are still recommending strong additives like superphosphate - quick death to mycorrhizal fungi). Find ways to keep the living things in the soil prospering, and your plants will also do well. If you don't want to do bio-assays, just stick a shovel into the ground and see if you have lots of earthworms. (If you have trouble getting the shovel in, that's the first signal of soil problems, and it's not just that the soil is clay. Go dig next to a nearby wild shrub or grassy patch. Easier? That's what you are aiming for - soil kept loose by living microorganisms.)
6. Don't let the soil lie bare. Even temporary cover crops in for just a few weeks can provide nutrition for microbial life in the soil, plus they contribute valuable organic matter as their roots decompose. Cow peas, annual clovers, and ryegrass are just a few of the many choices available.
7. Use varieties that have not been developed for chemical fertilization. In general, older varieties (including some earlier hybrids) seem to be much more responsive to biological growing methods than newer varieties specifically bred for synthetic fertilizers.
If you can't do all of the above, just look over the list of possibilities and do any that fit your situation. Each step can help your soil. (I realize that some of these steps may be difficult for big farms but all should be fairly easy for home gardens or market growers.)
I'm often asked about how to convert a lawn away from chemicals. First, use a mulching mower to recycle the cut blades of grass - this is pretty much a must-do. Contrary to a popular belief, this will not cause thatch to build up. Thatch is a signal that the soil is lifeless - killed off by overuse of liquid fertilizing services, weed-and-feed "lawn food" and fungicides. For a lawn with healthy soil, the cut blades get eaten on nearly the first bounce. Also, set your mower a little higher, mow a little more often, top-dress with compost once or twice a year, add mycorrhizal spores plus minor and trace minerals (our MycoMinerals is excellent for this), and fertilize only with slow-acting forms (see above) when necessary.
You might also try to lose the notion that a nice lawn must have a very dark green color. In many cases, that's a sign of way too much nitrogen - not healthy for turf in the long run, and the excess runoff of N is a looming disaster for many cities that rely on well water.
It's not complicated, folks. It might be more effort, but there are payoffs.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
As my tomato plants begin to succumb to July desert heat here in Palm Springs, I'll be taking them out, working more organic matter into the soil (mostly in the forms of compost and alfalfa meal), and planting cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata, or blackeye peas) as a summer cover crop.
The heat-tolerant cowpeas (beans, actually) will capture and deliver solar energy to the soil in the form of root exudates, which will support valuable biological activity underground. Then, when the temperatures cool off enough this fall, usually in early October, I'll cut off the tops of the plants so their roots will decompose. This all helps improve the poorer soils we have here.
I had mixed results from my tomatoes, I think mostly due to the unimproved soil plus my choice of varieties - I tried many of my old favorites just to see how they would perform in this climate. As usual, Clear Pink Early and Glacier produced an abundance of fruits (over 60 each) from short 3-foot bushes, while the hybrids Park's Whopper, Big Girl, and Pink Girl had moderate yields of 12-20 larger fruits each. Pink Girl was by far the best flavored of these.
Consistent with the experience of other desert growers, my great old heirloom varieties didn't thrive. I got a few fruits from Pineapple and Black Pineapple, but probably won't bother trying them again until I've worked on this soil for a couple years. I do hate to give up on delicious older varieties without more experimentation. Newer varieties have been bred to produce in lifeless soils with petrochemical fertilization, but the heirlooms perform best in biologically-active soils with goodly amounts of minerals and organic matter. I'll get there.
For those of you in more moderate growing zones, the timing here must seem strange. I started all my plants from seed just before Christmas and set the plants out in early February. (It can freeze here some years in January, and March 1st is regarded as the fully-safe date.)
Speaking of seed starting, some years back I read of an experiment conducted by a university researcher who tested tomato seedlings under lights set for differing timings, at half-hour intervals. The best growth came from 14.5 hours of light and 9.5 hours of darkness. I would guess that this corresponds to the springtime daylight pattern in the Andes where tomatoes were originally located??? (Please don't bother telling me that 18 hours of light works well for you - I'm sure it does, but 14.5 hours would work better!)
My planting strategy for next season will be to grow a mix of some supposedly heat-tolerant varieties (Porter Improved, Green Grape, Henderson's Winsall), along with a few smaller heirloom types (Flamme, Amerikanskiy Sladkiy, Wapsipinicon Peach) and some more hybrids (Lemon Boy, Tye Dye, Super Bush). If I had more room, there would be at least a dozen more. Given enough time, I'll have an all-star desert-adapted lineup. See many of my selections at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds - they have a wonderful full-color work of art catalog - www.rareseeds.com or call 417-924-8917.
Also, in late August I'll start some tasty short cold-tolerant varieties (Clear Pink, Glacier, Siberian) indoors to be set out in October and (hopefully) produce over the winter months. I know I'll have to protect these plants from frosts, but by grouping them close to each other I should be able to just throw a sheet over them at night. I may start a few more of these in October to be set out in December, just to see how they do and to have succession crops.
This low-desert climate zone is interesting and has great potential, (which is hardly news to all the commercial grape, citrus and vegetable growers from Indio down to Yuma). Maybe some of the things that I learn experimenting with mycorrhizal inoculants, soil amendments, plant varieties, and timing may some day prove useful to other organic growers in severe climates.
With a growing world population and crop soils being systematically ruined by over-fertilization (corn is the biggest offender), it may be helpful to have as much information as possible about converting marginal desert soils into cropland.
And home gardeners may show the way. Who else has more ideas and tries so many different methods?
Good growing, my friends.
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
I wonder what ever happened to the idea that people should be considerate of those who live downstream. As in, "It's not nice to empty your chamber pot into the river - the people downstream swim in it, too."
Is it ignorance or apathy - "I don't know and I don't care" - that leads us to continue gradually ruining our environment with fertilizer runoff and run-through? (I know, I know, the very use of the word "environment" labels me as one of those enviro-wackos to some fertilizer dealers, but so be it.)
We're all currently distressed and angry at the oil spill in the Gulf. The powerful TV images of struggling pelicans and dying turtles trigger an emotional response for most people, but yet we hardly register a peep about the "dead zone" off the mouth of the Mississippi River. This huge lifeless area in the Gulf (hundreds of square miles) is mostly caused by runoff of petrofertilizers from midwest farms and urban lawns.
I suppose the lack of alarm is because it's a gradual and non-photogenic problem. An oil-soaked bird is inherently more dramatic than underwater shots of emptiness. But which problem is more devastating or long-lasting?
Come to think of it, isn't that the explanation? It's the frog in a slowly heating pot of water concept. Sudden disasters are the lead story on the evening news, while equally bad events that occur gradually get little attention. It's human nature - we're just not as motivated to fix slow seeps as we are spraying pipes.
And if the problem happens way downstream from us or mostly after our life span, it's even harder to get excited. There may no longer be any fish in a large area of the Gulf, but how many Nebraska farmers or Minneapolis gardeners feel personally responsible?
If some Illinois city's water well crosses a toxic-level threshold 20 or 50 years from now, that's obviously bad, but who today is making any mental link between that problem and fertilizing this corn yesterday or that lawn tomorrow? And anyway, with so many, many, acres of crops and turf grass, how can any one person's little bit of added runoff matter?
The director of Florida State University's Coastal and Marine Laboratory, Felicia Coleman, was quoted recently, "There's a tremendous amount of outrage with the oil spill, and rightfully so. But where's the outrage at the thousands and millions of little cuts we've made on a daily basis?"
Whether it's a truckload of synthetic petrofertilizer heading for a farm in Kansas, or a pretty green truck spraying lawns in Chicago's suburbs, or a backyard gardener in Memphis mixing up "miraculous plant food" to drench on tomatoes and roses - it could be said that they are all little BP's, only operating on a much smaller and more gradual time frame. Harder to notice.
I really don't expect that everyone's established fertilizing habits will change any time soon, but I will continue to promote the idea that everyone who grows plants should think about the unintended downstream effects of what they apply to their soil. There are cleaner alternative methods, especially for home lawns and gardens, smaller farms, and nurseries.
If dry organic fertilizers are not suitable or available, then use slow-release coated forms of petrofertilizers instead of fast-dissolving granules or liquids. Try building up plant-nourishing microbial and earthworm populations in the soil. Add some mycorrhizal spores to nursery potting soils and cut back on the fertilizer requirements. Build up the natural fertility of soil with nitrogen-fixing cover crops instead of monocropping year after year. Occasionally spread some compost on lawns instead of just always chemical liquids. Spend a little more to support certified-organic growers.
Unfortunately, cost and convenience usually prevail over the best environmental practices, but if you want to give consideration to all those who live downstream, or to future inhabitants, there really are many ways to do so. The key is wanting to.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
In last month's newsletter, I discussed the problem of fertilizer runoff and run-through, and how our rivers and drinking-water aquifers are being contaminated. I suggested that home gardens, lawns, and smaller farms could all change to cleaner biology-based organic techniques without too much effort, while larger farms are pretty much trapped into the use of synthetic fertilizers.
One of my newsletter subscribers wrote to me afterward. Here is what he had to say about that subject:
"Nice rant, Don:
We own an Ag Chemical Co. and Farm in Southwest Arizona. What you have said is right in line with what we do. We are one of the only farms that has no-tilled for over the past 8 years. We do see an increase in earthworms and good soil biology. We farm 3000 ac. and getting better at it as we learn over time. However it appears you are knocking conventional fertility. This is something that for now is still needed we are trying to transition away from it but it will take time to amend and manure the soils to a point they will self sustain themselves. The biggest reason we are moving is because we can't rely on the major fertilizer company to offer fair and constant pricing. 2008 for example. Currently looking at Myco. Fungi. Any way just my point of view."
Here is my response:
"Hi -
Thanks for the kind words. Sounds like you have the fertilizing thing nicely figured out, and are heading in a good direction with your farm. I think your patience in restoring the soil health will pay off.
You better believe I'm knocking conventional ag, but as you point out large farms really don't have good options. To put it bluntly, after eliminating the biolife in their soils they are now locked into using synthetic NPK fertilizers... or in other words, pretty much screwed. If they want to stay in business they must continue to use "dirty" petrofertilizing methods and monocropping which can ruin soil in the long run.
If important humic/trace elements are never replenished, or cover crops not occasionally grown, then there almost has to come a time when yields suddenly drop off the end of the table. Burned-out is an appropriate term. I can't prove this is going to happen, or say exactly when, but I do believe we will begin seeing it in the next 10-20 years.
I realize that my "rant" would have been better if I had been able to suggest some useful solution to the water-contamination issue for large farms instead of just throwing verbal rocks at them - but I honestly think that the huge-acreage corporate farms are trapped. There's just not enough profit per acre in corn or beans or wheat to pencil out soil restoration costs. So if and when the yields do fall off, I'd expect the corporate types will then mostly just walk away from their unprofitable land. There's no emotional connection for them.
The good news, if there is any, is that almost any soil can be restored and made productive again, but I can't see it being done by anyone constrained by tight profit requirements. Maybe a government soil-preservation program?? Don't know who else would spend the money on major acreage restoration.
Meanwhile, I'll just keep marketing mycorrhizal spores to those who want to establish healthy bio-populations in their soil - and occasionally ranting a bit."
His Response:
"Actually Don your probably not as old as I am. I have a few more thoughts along this line. Some of the big problems for commercial farming. One is availability of raw, organic or composted matter. The cost for 20 ton of cow is $100 bucks an ac. Sludge is $50. When the commercial fertilizer cost go beyond these numbers more growers will take a look but until then they are comfortable doing what's easiest. Ground can be reclaimed but it takes years. The green manure, N building crops cost additional moneys. It takes a huge financial commitment to change your entire operation to no-till, organic fertility, N building crops. Do you have Myco. Fungi priced for the commercial ag user in liquid and dry?"
In Closing-
That's from someone who's actually out on the front lines. I admire his efforts. It's good to know that there are some farmers who are looking ahead and paying attention to the important living elements in their soil. I hope their productive organic soil pays off big-time for them - after cheaper petrofertilizers become not so cheap.
A Related Note: I read that New York retailers have 60 days to sell old inventories of dishwashing detergents that contain phosphorus, and in 2012 a similar ban will apply to lawn fertilizers. (Phosphorus turns lakes and rivers green with algae, and degrades drinking water.) The smarter farmers will see this as a glimpse into the future - when there will certainly be more and more restrictions on fertilizers. I'll help them as much as possible - test plots using organic methods is a starting point.
Cheers, and good growing, my friends.
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
Anyone who spends enough time researching plant physiology will invariably be led to the same conclusion: For best plant health and performance plants need biological partnerships with other living soil organisms, especially mycorrhizal fungi. Chemical fertilizers alone can never match the full benefits of building up great natural soil conditions.
There are many living things in soil that are important to full plant health, including beneficial bacteria, decomposing fungi, and earthworms - and soil chemistry cannot be completely ignored - but the unique symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and plants is the key factor for organic-growing success. A noted USDA/ARS plant pathologist was quoted, "...and the most important organism, in my view, is mycorrhizal fungi."
The reason? A plant that lacks mycorrhizae on its roots has only very limited surface contact with soil. Millions of years of evolution in partnership with the soil-colonizing fungi has led to most plants growing relatively few small feeder roots. The mycorrhizal fungi is such an efficient forager (there can be more than a mile of the fungi's tiny root-threads per cubic inch of soil) that plants essentially turned over that task to the fungi eons ago.
As the microscopic fungi root-threads (more properly, hyphae) attach to plant roots and colonize the surrounding soil, the host plant in effect gains dramatically greater surface-area contact - and is therefore able to gain access to more nutrients and moisture. Studies indicate that a mycorrhizal plant can access and uptake 50-100 times more than a non-mycorrhizal plant. And the hyphae also provide fodder for other soil organisms, loosen compacted soil, and help build up organic matter (OM). This is why wild plants never deplete their soils - there is this process of continuous replenishment going on, needing only the recycling of leaf litter and microbial/earthworm excretions for the host plants to enjoy full health.
Actually, I might argue that the fungi are the hosts and plants simply their tools for accessing solar energy aboveground. The fungi are the older organisms and do exhibit some "intelligence" in their activities (in the same sort of way that colonies of ant or termites have evolved clever survival strategies). As just one example, the fungi are responsive to the needs of their plant partners and can go into a more intense foraging mode if the plant is stressed - such as from drought or lacking some essential nutrient.
So how does one make use of this natural system? First, there has to be a basic change in thinking - away from a grower "feeding" their plants to creating soil conditions that will provide most of what plants need. As the fungi explore the soil, they can only deliver to a plant what they dig up (figuratively speaking). If there is no zinc, then the plant gets no zinc - one of 16 essential elements. If the soil is lacking organic matter, then bacteria do not multiply into the trillions - giving nitrogen as they excrete and die, plus transforming various soil components into nourishing plant food. Bottom line, be sure your soil has all the mineral elements (don't worry too much about chemistry-thinking proportions - the fungi will sort that out) and good amounts of OM.
Many soils are missing some minor or trace elements, which can be supplied with mineral additives - Azomite and greensand are well-known products, along with my company's MycoMinerals (which also contains mycorrhizal spores and biostimulants). Organic matter is relatively easy to add to gardens or small market farms - mushroom compost or steer manure is usually easily obtained, or fall leaves and other yard waste can be added to gardens. Larger farms may have to rely on cover crops and no-till to build up their OM.
To summarize, a natural system of horticulture simply calls for old-fashioned soil improvement, with the added touch of specific microbial inoculants to ensure top plant performance. A pinch of mycorrhizal spores underneath a vegetable seed planted in mineral-rich organic soil can produce strong, productive, and disease-resistant plants with little or no added fertilizer. It's a plant-friendly system that has been proven for millions of years - and counting.
Cheers, and good growing my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
OK, this just feels weird, setting out tomato plants in November. But here in Palm Springs it is one of the recommended times, especially for Determinate types. I'm also trying one Indeterminate, Pineapple - one of my all-time favorites - just as an experiment. I'll start the rest of my Indeterminate heirlooms and tall hybrids around Christmas, setting them out in late February to get a crop before the killer summer temperatures and low humidity arrive in late June.
Last year, my first season here, I was surprised to discover that my most successful varieties were those that were developed for the far north - Glacier, Manitoba, Siberian, and Clear Pink Early. I only planted them because I still had seeds and wanted to try shorter varieties that could be grown in a small wire cage, no longer having a big garden area to work with.
I found Manitoba to be very productive, but a little too tall and the fruit was too mild-flavored for my taste. Clear Pink Early was, as usual, loaded with delicious thin-skinned sweet fruit and produced over an extended period of time - unusual for a Determinate type. Glacier and Manitoba both had a great number of tasty Ping-Pong ball size fruit, and when they slowed down their production I cut them back to 10-inch stems, just as an experiment. I was surprised when they re-grew into new bushes and bore fruit in July and August - a time of year here when you would not expect tomato plants to even survive (118-120 degree temperatures and 10-15% humidity).
Overall, I was somewhat disappointed with my tall Indeterminate types, but further soil modification should help. I'm adding much more organic matter (compost, steer manure, and peat moss), along with coarse sand. The soil and water here are alkaline, so the peat moss should help reduce the pH to a more neutral level. My sulfur is already on the high side, so I'd rather not add more of that. I did get fruit production, especially from the delicious Pink Girl, but not nearly the sort of heavy neighbor-giving harvest I'm used to. When the high heat season came, I removed all the tall types rather than trying to keep them alive during the summer months. At temperatures over 100, I could see that no new fruit were setting anyway.
So, why did the far-north varieties perform so well here in the desert, while standard types gave up? My theory is that tomatoes that have been bred to tolerate colder conditions in Canada or Russia or Alaska are not just more cold-tolerant, but tougher plants, period. I doubt that many growers in the deep south or desert areas have thought to try plants named "Glacier" or "Siberian"." If I didn't have the seeds, I would have chosen mostly varieties that claim to be heat-tolerant, like Heat Wave.
For those of you in the northern climate zones, I highly recommend getting ground-up leaves or other organic matter worked into the top layers of your garden soil (no need to till deeply) before it freezes solid. Come spring, they will have decomposed into worm-friendly soil nutrients. I've also found that earthworms absolutely love newspapers - especially the society section (joke). The cellulose and soy ink are true happy meals to them. I tear the paper into narrow strips and cover them with a light layer of soil in the garden bed. Add some trace minerals, some mycorrhizal fungi spores, a little dry organic fertilizer and you have the makings of a wonderful root environment.
This, of course, is only the sort of thing that home gardeners can do - not practical for large farms - but keep in mind that a home garden bed is not a farm, and you can do all sorts of "impractical" things to improve your soil conditions, things that farmers only wish they could do.
Whenever I've moved, I've left behind highly-productive garden soils and lush low-input lawns with strong populations of beneficial organisms - mycorrhizal fungi colonies, nutrient-producing bacteria, and scores of earthworms. It's really not that hard to set up a healthy organic soil system, and your tomatoes will appreciate the effort (not to mention the beans, squash, lawn, fruit trees, flowers, shrubs, streams, lakes and underground water supplies).
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
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First, my best wishes for a Happy 2009 to all of you. I know it's hard to see any positive economic signs at the moment, but we humans are supposedly resilient and adaptable organisms. This too will pass. Helpful definitions: Recession = your neighbor is out of work; Depression = you are out of work; Panic = your wife is out of work.
Farmers in particular know a lot about surviving lean years. And if the new administration encourages more sound agricultural practices and soil conservation, our descendants may actually inherit some productive crop lands for growing their food. I'm hopeful, but realistic, too. The sustainable-ag folks don't command the sort of lobbying budgets that chemical corporations and GMO pushers have, but there's at least some reason for optimism come January 21st.
If the cost of petroleum-based fertilizers remains high, this will continue to provide motivation for the USDA and university scientists to explore alternative methods of growing crops, including our biology-based methods. Other motivations are drinking water contamination by nitrates; ocean "dead zones" being caused by runoff of NPK fertilizers; depletion of essential humic and trace elements in soil; and compaction problems caused by elimination of beneficial living organisms. Seems like someday these sort of issues will tip the balance toward clean, sustainable, growing practices. Could this be the year? (It's hard to type with these fingers crossed)
But amidst all the gloomy news, I'm sure many of you share my view that the annual arrival of the seed catalogs is very welcome. To me, they represent a sense of optimism in the future - the promise that you will be able to poke some tiny little seed in the ground and have some wonderfully tasty eating a few weeks later. There are always lots of new (but most likely not really better) varieties of vegetables to consider, thoroughly immodest descriptions of fruit trees, new labor-saving-gadget inventions, and photos showing produce with the unblemished beauty of centerfold models. For a few minutes at least, reading the catalogs always gives my cranky old spirit a welcome boost.
As we enter our 14th year of business, the BioOrganics lineup of Inoculant products and the MycoMinerals soil additive is unchanged this season. As usual, orders for our Mycorrhizal Root Dip take off during bareroot planting time (beginning about now). Several of the major wine grape growers in California and other states routinely inoculate their thousands of new vines, as do many nut, fruit and berry growers across the U.S. Based on the feedback we have received, it seems that grapes and stone fruits - cherries, plums, apricots, peaches, nectarines - respond especially well to mycorrhizal inoculation at planting time. That's the best opportunity to introduce top-performing species of the beneficial fungi.
One small change - we now offer nine types of Endomycorrhizal fungi in all our products - having added the spores of Glomus etunicatum. (Trust me - somewhere, sometime, a plant will be thrilled that we did this!)
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
I recently ran across an article I saved a few years ago entitled, "Fungi slay insects and feed host plants" that you might also find interesting. It describes experiments by researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, who were studying the feeding habits of springtails (tiny soil bugs) which normally eat fungi. The researchers were wondering if the insects were having a negative effect on the environment by eating certain species of fungi and indirectly starving plants (such as pines) that depend on mycorrhizal fungi to help them get their nutrients.
They fed various types of fungi to groups of springtails to see which ones the springtails preferred. To their surprise, when the ectomycorrhizal fungi Laccaria bicolor was served, almost all the springtails died. The researchers likened this to seeing a pizza eating a human - it was the complete reverse of what they expected.
Further analysis found that the fungus first paralyzed the springtails, quite likely with a toxin, then extended nutrient-seeking filaments into the insects, in effect taking the nutrients from the springtails' bodies to their host plants.
To confirm their chance findings, the researchers treated roughly 500 springtails to a helping of L. bicolor. After two weeks, only five percent of the springtails remained alive. In contrast, all the insects that were fed different species of fungi or whose diet was devoid of fungi survived.
Then, to see how much of a plant's nitrogen might come from insects, the scientists radioactively labeled nitrogen atoms in the insects' bodies and followed their trails in eastern white pine seedlings. They found that after two months, 25 percent of the plant's nitrogen had come from the insects. "That's very significant," said a molecular biologist at Michigan Technical University. "It's almost like the plant is actively seeking nitrogen from the insects and getting it through the fungus."
My only quibble with the last comment is that the biologist credits the plant and not the fungi for developing this insective feeding strategy. More and more, I believe that it is fungi that control much of the underground world - orchestrating host plant feeding/protection by foraging throughout the surrounding soil and even attacking plant predators if that opportunity presents itself.
To support this idea, there are microscopic photos from other researchers showing fungi trapping nematodes in hyphae loops to immobilize and kill them. And yet another study reported that the fungus Glomus mosseae (one of the types in our inoculant products) reduced nematode damage in clover roots by 70%. Add in other research with radioactive tracking that documents how mycorrhizal fungi routinely transport nutrients from adult trees to nearby seedlings, and a picture of an interlinked fungus-based feeding system emerges. This elegant system apparently obtains plant nutrients from a variety of sources; bacteria, earthworm castings, soil fauna, neighboring plants, soil minerals - wherever.
A plant that has the good fortune to have the right types of mycorrhizal fungi colonizing its roots has it made as far as food and root protection issues are concerned. Its success is pretty much guaranteed, being plugged into a very efficient plant-tending network. In time, I'm sure we humans will better learn how to utilize these sort of biosystems to grow our food crops and ornamental plants. I doubt that chemisty alone has all the answers for the long haul.
A couple key points: Not all fungi species have developed this insect-devouring behavior. Further research could help pin down (fairly quickly, I would think) specific fungus types that might be most useful for specific plant protection. Also, it remains to be seen if critters other than microscopic springtails and nematodes can be fungi-controlled. For example, is there a type of fungus that would make nourishing meals out of phylloxera, a soil louse that attacks grapevine roots, or is that pest too large? Maybe we need put the word out to researchers that we're looking for a Tony Soprano type fungus for vineyard duty.
Cheers, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
There are more than 150 named types of mycorrhizal fungi (so far). Our inoculant products contain the spores of nine endo-types and seven ecto-types that have shown wide adaptability and match up to most plants. A couple types are especially well-suited for grape vines, as grapes are highly dependent on mycorrhizal fungi.
Wine grape vineyards routinely apply spores to new plantings, as a vine with the right type of mycorrhizae on its roots can uptake ten times or more nutrients and often comes into production a year sooner. A young vine without mycorrhizae grows very slowly if it even survives. Grape roots are really not designed to function effectively without mycorrhizal fungi.
During the 13 plus years that I have been working with these beneficial fungi, our customer feedback has been a good indicator of which other plant types also respond strongly to inoculation. A few observations:
Besides grapes, top small-fruit performers are strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. I wish we had available a product for blueberries, but they use an ericoid-type fungus that is not available as an inoculant as far as I know.
For tree fruit, cherries, peaches, nectarines and plums are extremely responsive. Apples and pears also benefit, but usually not as dramatically as the stone fruits. I recall one orchardist in eastern Washington who didn't treat one row as a test, and then called a couple months later to order more inoculant to help those trees catch up to the rest of the field.
All types of citrus need the fungi, while walnuts stand out among the nut crops, avocados and bananas among tropical fruits. Those growers with desert-type soils (like the Coachella Valley area in California, or Yuma, Arizona, for examples) will find that mycorrhizal fungi clump together sand particles to form a moisture-holding growing zone around each tree. This bio-zone greatly reduces water requirements as well as generating essential nutrients for the host trees.
The vegetables most benefited seem to be melons, older-variety tomatoes (newer varieties have been bred for chemical fertilization), peppers, beans, potatoes, cucumbers, and onions. Peas, carrots, and lettuce do not seem to rely as much on the fungi, although one hydroponic grower did report reduced lettuce root diseases after inoculation. Many of the competitive giant-pumpkin growers are regular customers. In general, I think that most plants that originated in tropical or desert areas tend to be much more mycorrhizae-dependent than those with northerly origins (because of more thinner and marginal soils?).
Roses are by far the strongest responding flowering plants, but chrysanthemums and geraniums are also up there. Most of our customers are food crop growers, so I do not get as many reports on ornamentals. However, landscapers and landscape architects are discovering the value of the spores for valuable transplants, flower beds, and turf grass areas. A middle-eastern country is currently testing our inoculant on an enormous landscaping project to see if they can improve on plant survival rates. I'm pretty sure they will see a big difference.
Pines and oaks simply cannot live without the fungus - period. Forest nurseries either introduce the fungus to seed beds or use a mycorrhizal root dip when setting out the seedlings.
It's interesting to hear from growers of many differing crops around the country who are successfully using mycorrhizal fungi and other living organisms to replace expensive and soil-damaging chemical fertilizers and fungicides; as well as from USDA and university researchers who are currently experimenting with the fungi in laboratory environments. I would expect that some of the most fungi-dependent types of plants, such as those listed above, will use mostly biological methods in the future for cost and environmental reasons, as well as producing superior plants.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
One of the most effective things that can be done in a garden or farm is to use a living mulch. The idea is to seed "nurse" plants, such as crimson clover or vetch, in advance of a main crop such as tomatoes or melons. The seeds of the nurse crop are inoculated with mycorrhizal spores, which are brought out of dormancy by sensing the sprouting roots nearby. (I recommend using our micronized BEIM product, which clings to slightly dampened seeds very well.)
As the mycorrhizal fungi attach to the nurse plant roots and multiply, they send out millions of tiny root threads (hyphae) to explore the surrounding soil for nutrients to bring to their host plants, forming an interconnected web that soon fills every cubic inch of the topsoil. These hyphae separate clay platelets to loosen tight soils and bind together sand particles to form a moisture-retaining biomass - either type of soil is greatly improved.
The beneficial fungi also protect roots from various pathogens, stimulate root development, enhance rooting of cuttings, prevent diseases, and reduce drought stress. All of these benefits are important, but the fungi must be active and have a chance to colonize the entire root zone before the good effects can happen.
This is the function of the nurse plants - to get the soil filled with mycorrhizal fungi (and their accompanying beneficial bacteria) before the main crop goes in. For example, in my garden I scatter crimson clover seeds about six weeks in advance where my tomato plants will go. Then using a scuffle hoe, I scrape off the clover plants in a 12" circle and put a tomato transplant in that small bare area. I let the other surrounding clover continue to grow, as the mycorrhizal fungi will move nutrients between all the plants in their network, including the tomatoes.
The fungi only activate when there are growing roots nearby, so by pre-activating them with the clover there is no lag time before the tomato transplants begin to be protected and nourished. Also, by leaving the "companion-plant" clover growing nearby, I am providing a continuous source of free nutrients as-needed to the tomatoes. Before the clover matures and scatters seeds, I scrape off the tops of those plants, leaving their roots to decay, release many more nutrients, and provide fodder for the now-plentiful earthworms.
This same sort of method can be applied on a larger scale by market-vegetable farms that wish to get maximum value out of their acreage. A small amount of mycorrhizal inoculant on any seeded short-term nurse crops will quickly multiply, and fertilizer inputs can be reduced by half or more if the soil is not damaged by over tillage or high-analysis plant foods.
The fungi are particularly sensitive to heavy doses of P. If chemical fertilizers must be used, use only slow-release types. An 18-6-12 Osmocote type formulation at half the recommended dosage should be sufficient and non-harmful - use nothing stronger. But, dry organic types of fertilizer are much preferred. Occasional light applications of volcanic minerals to ensure the presence of all minor and trace elements is a good idea as well.
Note that no-till or limited-till methods are advised for maintaining top soil health, and that main crops should be planted as quickly as possible after the nurse crop is knocked down - while the mycorrhizal fungi are still fully active.
Pretty simple, really - build up the microscopic little critters to big populations in the soil, then just put your crop plants right in among them.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
In the last newsletter, I described the technique that I use for my tomato seedlings - basically, seeding crimson clover in the area where the tomato seedlings will be transplanted 3-4 weeks later. Then, clearing off the clover plants in about a one-foot circle where each tomato is set.
This accomplishes at least three important biology-based benefits:
There is one very important point that needs to be understood by anyone using this companion-plant method. When the tomato transplants are first set out, they will not look very healthy right away. It takes several days for the mycorrhizal fungi to attach and begin nourishing them, during which time the tomato leaves will show purple undersides - the classic sign of lacking phosphorus. There will also be very little growth, if any.
I've had many nervous customers call and ask if they should give their plants a drenching of liquid fertilizer because they are so obviously stressed. The answer is, "No ,no, no!" - unnatural doses of fast-acting plant food will indeed make the seedlings look healthier, but will disrupt the powerful soil biosystem they are trying to promote.
Within a couple weeks of setting out my seedlings, I can almost tell the exact day when the full root colonization takes place. The purple leaves suddenly turn a vibrant green underneath, growth takes off (with considerably thicker stems than chemically fed plants), and no further fertilization is needed for the season.
I do blend small amounts of dry organic fertilizer and mycorrhizal inoculant into the top couple inches of soil before seeding the clover, but I never rototill or dig my soil very deep, as that can destroy all the earthworm tunnels. This "working from the top" approach simulates the natural process of recycling leaf litter and keeps the soil looser. Rototilling does give a quick fluff, but this effect is temporary and also does a lot of damage to important soil habitat - like a tornado destroying a town above ground. Limiting the depth of tillage and using living mulches (like the clover) are excellent strategies for improving soil health and gaining maximum plant performance.
Note that this general advice applies to both large farms and small gardens. And be patient with your young plants - give the little plant tenders in the soil time to adopt and begin caring for them.
Cheers, and good growing,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
About 14 years ago, I happened to meet a fellow at an Earth Day show who was experimenting with mycorrhizal fungi. As he explained how they function on plant roots and how they could greatly reduce the need for fertilizers, protect roots against pathogens, reduce water requirements, improve soil, etc., I began thinking that the idea had enormous business potential. It seemed obvious that anyone who grew plants, from farmers to nurseries to landscapers to home gardeners would leap at the chance to use this revolutionary biology-based method to replace soil-damaging chemical plant foods.
I had grown up on a large farm in Oregon, so ag wasn't new territory to me and after a few hasty calculations as to how much sales volume would result from just 10% of the corn farmers in Iowa converting to this new growing technique, I plunged enthusiastically into the world of microbiological agriculture, the Next Big Thing.
It should be simple enough. All I had to do was describe the many good reasons for using this powerful beneficial fungus to get initial usage. After that, of course, word-of-mouth would spur tremendous growth. I had a concern about being able to accommodate too-fast growth, but decided I would deal with that problem as it came.
One of my first opportunities to introduce the concept to farmers came at a grower luncheon near Fresno one hot summer day. I was invited to be a guest speaker before lunch. After showing some slides of big-plant, little-plant, comparisons (as all growing-product companies must do) and telling the twenty or so farmers about the many wonders of using mycorrhizal fungi, the initial reaction of my audience afterward was silence. I confidently asked, "Any questions?."
I will carry the memory of the next moment to my grave. A particularly grizzled old farmer stood up, hooked his thumbs into the suspenders of his bib overalls, and asked, "Are you trying to tell us..." (Now, in my long business career, I had learned that any customer questions that begin with these particular words are unlikely to end well.) "... that instead of using fertilizer, we should put some fungusses on the roots? That's the biggest damn fool idea I've ever heard of."
I very briefly considered letting him know that the plural of fungus is actually fungi, but somehow it didn't seem to be quite the right time. It may seem hard to believe, but things actually went downhill after that, as one farmer after another took turns loudly expressing a profound lack of enthusiasm for the enlightenment I had brought to their meeting. I spent the long drive home revising somewhat downward my estimates of the market potential for mycorrhizal inoculants.
But I was too stubborn (or whatever adjective might be more suitable) to give up, and it turned out that wine vineyards in the Napa-Sonoma area already knew that these fungi were critically important to grapes and were happy to learn that BioOrganics was packaging mycorrhizal powders and root dip. Wine grape growers soon became regular customers.
These days, the use of beneficial fungi to grow healthier edible and ornamental plants is slightly less of an outlandish notion and BioOrganics has proven to be a very satisfying business venture. I hope that our thousands of mycorrhizal inoculant customers around the world will help show the way to more productive and sustainable agricultural practices, maybe even for those 10% of Iowa corn farmers some day!
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
Any experienced grower can recognize great soil. It has a loose structure something like potting soil, a darker color that indicates good amounts of humic matter, and an "earthy" sort of aroma. These type of soils are often found in forests or undisturbed grasslands where years of decomposed leaf litter or annuals have been taken down into the soil by earthworms and other living organisms.
Mycorrhizal fungi are major contributors to this type of excellent soil, primarily through the effects of their hyphae (tiny root-threads) which fill every square inch of soil surrounding their host plants and form an inter-linked underground food-gathering web. While each individual root-thread is microscopic in size, many trillions of them can combine to have powerful effects on their soil environment. Just a gram of healthy soil can contain miles of hyphae.
For heavy clay soils, these hyphae penetrate between the densely stacked clay platelets and aggregate them into small "chunks," allowing air to enter and water to drain. This opening-up aeration of the root zone is vitally important to plants, large and small. Plant roots in clay without mycorrhizal fungi get no oxygen and are either in an "underwater" situation or in brick-hard material if it dries out.
On the other hand, sandy soils have plenty of air in the root zone, but lack organic matter and need more frequent watering. For these soils, the mycorrhizal hyphae bind together the grains of sand and form an underground "biomass" to hold water and nutrients. Desert growers from Egypt to Arizona rely on mycorrhizal fungi.
The specific material that makes great soils is called glomalin, as named by USDA-ARS scientist Sara E. Wright who discovered that mycorrhizal hyphae secrete a sticky protein that coats soil particles to form aggregates. You could think of glomalin as a sort of super glue that creates wonderful soil texture from either clay or sand. Humus is typically credited with improving soil, but it is more likely the glomalin that actually does the job. As the hyphae age and die off, they also add organic matter and nitrogen to the soil.
Personally, I deal with clay soil by adding large amounts of clean sharp sand, and when I say large amounts I mean aiming for roughly a 50-50 blend in the top 6-8 inches. This is the one and only time that I suggest using a large rototiller on garden soil. The combination of sand, some compost or ground-up leaves, dry organic fertilizer, and mycorrhizal inoculant blended into heavy clay results in a wonderfully aerated and productive soil for years to come. Late fall or early winter is the perfect time to do this one-time soil-improvement project. (And, no, sand and clay do not make concrete - no matter what you may have heard.)
Obviously, this technique will not be practical for large farms, but it makes great sense for home gardeners or market growers who want top performance from their plants. Get the glomalin busy!
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman, BioOrganics
It is apparently time for me to experience yet another growing climate. At the end of the month, BioOrganics and I will be moving from Santa Maria (Central CA coastal zone) to Palm Springs. No real specific reason - the low desert area just seems like an interesting place to live at my age, especially during the wonderful winters there.
As the BioOrganics production and packaging operations can be done anywhere, and most orders are sent all around the country by FedEx, there should be no disruption of service to our customers.
I've gardened and experimented with plants now for nearly 40 years, beginning in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, where the topsoil on the family farm was rich and deep. Then as years and careers passed I learned how to deal with clay in Chicago, loose shale near Big Bear in California, ancient sea beds in Camarillo, decomposed volcanic ash in Central Oregon, and sandy loam in Santa Maria. Each represented distinctly different climates and growing situations, but I always manage to develop techniques and discover well-suited plant varieties.
The last 15 years since I began working with soil microbiology have been especially productive for my gardening efforts, and have given firsthand knowledge to pass along to our commercial customers at the same time. For example, I found that newer tomato hybrids are less responsive to soil biology methods than older varieties, maybe because biological dependence has been bred out and chemical-fertilizer routines bred in?
It will certainly seem strange to be planting annual color in the fall and tomatoes around Christmas. Unlike the midwest, where one avoids being out in the weather from December through March, I'll now be semi-hibernating from June through September, and unlike northern areas where you look forward to the first warm days of spring, I'll learn to look forward to the cooler days of fall.
The soil in Palm Springs is essentially sand, so Step One will obviously be to add organic matter. This is also prime territory for the introduction of mycorrhizal fungi to help form a moisture/nutrient-holding underground mass. These two simple steps can quickly create ideal rooting conditions for both vegetables and ornamentals in desert soils. Of course, vegetable plantings must be timed to be finished before the peak heat of summer arrives. I'll try to find a cover crop to occupy the beds during the hot months - perhaps some heat-tolerant annual legume? Any suggestions?
A relative of mine who lives out there has been testing the addition of mycorrhizal spores to her landscaping, which had been struggling. She reports that the improvement has been miraculous for some of her shrubs and young citrus trees. This is really not too surprising, as those sand soils rarely have the important soil organisms needed by many plants.
Also missing from desert sand are many of the minor and trace elements essential to good plant health. I expect that our MycoMinerals product will therefore be very helpful in establishing my new beds. I wonder which tomatoes will do best??? Hopefully, my favorites Pineapple and Ananas Noir (Black Pineapple) will do well. There has not been enough heat here in Santa Maria for them to ripen properly. (Although the very tasty Big Girl and Siberian varieties have thrived)
My web site and email addresses will remain the same, along with the toll-free 888-332-7676 information/ordering number (U.S. only). I will provide a new regular phone number for international calls as soon as I get one.
Good growing, my friends. Wish me luck!
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
The public's enthusiasm for organic produce seems to be as strong as ever, but the economic downturn is leading many consumers to opt for cheaper non-organic store brands. Until the economy recovers (and we have to assume it will someday), it is hard to see the upward sales trends for organics being able to continue.
From a cost standpoint, organics are almost always at a disadvantage. The extra efforts involved in production and often lower yields mean that organics must be priced higher in stores. And at a time when so many home budgets are under strain, it's hard to pay extra for healthier food, no matter what benefits there may be to bodies or the environment.
For organic farmers, this is the time to look carefully at their input costs and crop yields, and consider strategies for squeezing the most out of their valuable improved soils. After many years of working with growers that employ microbial additives, I am convinced that adding the right types of mycorrhizal fungi and beneficial bacteria is a cost-effective method for getting higher performance from organic fields. Taking into account the price of better-quality inoculants, the best candidates are higher-value crops such as grapes, fruit trees, citrus, berries, and vegetables.
I recall a very skeptical master gardener who set up a test-control comparison of Roma tomatoes. He harvested about 50 tomatoes from a chemically fertilized plant (a good normal yield for him).... and 180 from an identical mycorrhizal-inoculated plant. He was amazed, but I think the 180 was simply the tomato plant performing at or near its full genetic potential. Those are the kind of yield increases that organic growers must aim for in order to price-compete.
This concept of yielding at full genetic potential requires a plant to be free from nutritional and moisture shortages - no essential minor or trace elements can be absent from its diet, drainage must be ideal, and diseases/pathogens must be controlled. Well, guess what - each of those issues are precisely the proven benefits of mycorrhizal fungi, which not only bring nutrients to their host plants but greatly improve and protect the soil surrounding the roots. These functions all reduce production limitations - a key point to recognize. The famous image of a barrel with staves at differing heights is appropriate - capacity is limited to the lowest opening. Plant yields can be limited by a wide variety of factors.
To quote Dr. M. Habte of the Department of Agronomy & Soil Science at the University of Hawaii, "Global interest in the fungi has now reached a point whereby any discussion of agricultural bio-technology that does not include the role of vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is considered incomplete."
But it's not the end-all to simply introduce mycorrhizal spores to crop plantings. If some trace element is absent from the soil, then the foraging fungi cannot bring it to the host plant. Therefore, a grower should apply rock dusts that contain a broad spectrum of elements along with organic fertilizers, use limited-or no-till practices as much as possible to avoid disrupting the soil biota, and always strive to maintain large populations of beneficial microbes in soil. They need to think microscopically.
Finally, the guesswork needs to be removed from biological-organic agriculture. Bio-assays should be performed as routinely as are soil tests that measure the presence/absence of chemical elements. See our web site for a link to a good soil lab.
There is no reason that biologically-active soils cannot outperform lifeless chemically-treated soils.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
Well, this should be interesting! My relocation to Palm Springs is hopefully nearing completion - after a near-comical series of blunders by the sellers and mortgage company. I'm sure that some day I'll laugh at the delays in closing on our new home...but not yet.
There is a 7x25 patch of scraggly-looking Bermuda grass in the back yard, surrounded by concrete and just begging to become a vegetable garden. As with any organic garden conversion, it calls for a great deal of work at the beginning, followed by little or no effort later.
First, the Bermuda grass must go. As I am firmly against the use of any chemical herbicides near my food, this is going to require hand-digging and careful root removal. As this is not exactly a thick lush stand of grass, I think I'll be able to get most of it in my first pass. Any survivors will then be dealt with on one-on-one as time goes on. I shall prevail.
Then, it's soil amending time. I'll work in several bags of compost and manure, along with volcanic mineral rock dust, dry organic fertilizer, and mycorrhizal inoculant. This will be the one and only time that I do any deep tillage to this plot. In the future, I'll just use a mulch cover and light applications of organic fertilizer to the surface of the soil. Increasing populations of earthworms will do the work of transporting nutrients down to the root zone and keeping the soil aerated.
I'll still put a light dusting of mycorrhizal inoculant on my larger plants each season - the tomatoes and melons especially - but once the beneficial fungi have colonized the entire plot, this probably is not necessary, but I like to give my plants every advantage.
This start up procedure illustrates the difference between farms and home gardens. To do this sort of radical amendment of soil is relatively easy for gardeners, but would be a near-impossible task on a large farm. For both, the goal should be to create biologically-alive sustainable soil, which is quickly done on a small plot but much more difficult when dealing with hundreds or even thousands of acres.
Home gardeners should never rototill, period, flat statement. Rototilling damages and disrupts the bio-life that help sustain gardens. Work from the top and the soil will become wonderfully rich and alive all season long, not fluffy at the start and rock-hard a few weeks later.
Farmers can also improve their topsoil every year instead of simply plowing deeper as their top layers become nonproductive. Short-term cover crops, rotations, no-till or limited-tillage, re-introducing beneficial microbial organisms when seeding, and other well-tested methods can be used to replace the plow-fertilize-seed-harvest-and repeat practices that are creating lifeless depleted soils.
I anticipate having a highly productive garden this season, where there was terrible soil before. I also expect that the garden soil will become better and better in the years to come, with virtually no added effort. It's going to be a little odd setting out tomato plants around Christmas, but summer is not exactly prime growing time around here.
Good growing, my friends. My apologies to those of you who had orders delayed during my move.
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
I knew it was going to be a mistake before I ate it. But it was a very appealing-looking slice of tomato on the plate at the restaurant - perfect shape, nice attractive red color. It looked much like those beautiful photos in glossy seed catalogs. So I cut the slice into fourths and popped a wedge into my mouth, hoping that my expectations would be wrong this time.
Wrong! While chewing, my taste buds vainly tried to coax something like a tomato flavor from the oddly neutral material. No luck. I sighed and left the remaining pieces uneaten. In hindsight, I should have known that it was really intended more to provide a little color to the plate than to be consumed.
Yes, I know. Everybody and their crazy uncle have ranted on and on about tasteless tomatoes. We all agree - those pretty, uniformly-sized red things at the supermarket are "like cardboard." There's no need to further belabor that point.
Instead, let's consider the opportunity that this creates. There are varieties and growing methods readily available that can produce marvelous tasting vegetables, not only tomatoes but beans, melons, asparagus, corn and all the others. And the flavor difference in the same potato or sweet corn eaten within hours of being harvested versus several days later is huge.
Sadly, many people never get a chance to savor freshly-picked flavor-packed varieties of vegetables. The growing popularity of farmer's markets is a step in the right direction, but even there the rows and rows of identical "pretty" vegetables are a tip-off that vendors are selling inferior-flavored produce bred more for high production than for high flavor.
At a recent local farmer's market, I did spot some ugly heirloom tomatoes in a back box. There were various colors - near-black, yellow, red-streaked gold, as well as red. Many were cat-faced and none were perfectly round. I was loading a bag with some of each when I noticed the price - $5.99 per pound. The big red and yellow tomato (maybe Hillbilly, Georgia Streak, or Pineapple?) in my hand would cost me over seven dollars all by itself. Whoa!
But I still bought it. And thoroughly enjoyed eating it at home later, one delicious slice at a time. I managed to stretch the experience out over a few days.
I think there's a lesson and an opportunity in this story. Some people care enough about flavor in their food to pay a premium price for great-tasting stuff...and there's not enough great stuff readily available. If I were younger, I'd seriously consider finding a few acres within range of a city, load up the soil with minerals, create big populations of beneficial soil organisms - earthworms down to nitrogen-fixing bacteria - and plant only high-flavored varieties of vegetables.
In California, the commercial strawberry variety Chandler is widely touted as having excellent flavor - a little strawberry taste has been bred into them. A neighbor once told me how he was now looking for Chandlers in markets (and outside of apples, not much produce is identified by variety - a bad thing). I took him back to my garden and offered him an Earliglow berry. I think I forever ruined Chandlers for him.
There are heirloom tomatoes as well as older hybrids that taste wonderful and produce enormous crops of (misshapen) fruit - Mortgage Lifter, Big Girl, Beefsteak, Pink Girl, Lemon Boy, Clear Pink Early, Grushovka, to name a few. There are varieties of SE sweet corn (Incredible is a good one) that taste far superior to the insipid Supersweets now dominating produce stands. Beans, strawberries, melons - even carrots (Nelson, for example) - can all produce an "Oh,wow!" response when grown in good soil and eaten soon after picking.
That's both the problem and the opportunity - growing top-flavor fragile varieties in mineral-rich living soil, and then getting them quickly into the hands of consumers after picking is not easy, but there can be rewards for success.
This isn't exactly an innovative idea, but I just don't see many growers making the most effective improvements of their soil, or growing the highest-flavored varieties, or promoting "unattractive" but highly-flavored produce at farmer's markets. Yes, a few are doing some of these things, but the entire process could be done so much better (and more profitably at the same time).
Look good or taste good? It's a shame that we typically have to make that choice. Growing your own is the ultimate answer - and don't overlook the importance of activated soil and tastier varieties. "New and improved" rarely works for vegetables.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
In some ways like our political parties, there are a few loud extremists at both ends of agricultural procedures and many quieter degrees of different perspectives in between.
At one extreme, some growers approach organic methods with a near-religious fervor. Over at the other end of the spectrum are growers who would spray their crops with anything that promises a fast knock down of every bug in sight. It seems many people make the mistake of thinking that these polar opposites are the "organic" and "conventional" growers, just as in politics where the shouters on the far left and right are often seen as representing the opinions of their entire parties.
Many of the growers I speak to say the same thing - "I try to grow organically as much as I can." Usually this means that they are experimenting with compost, mulches, limited-tillage, and/or organic fertilizers, and are trying to avoid the most toxic pesticides. There seem to be relatively few who are still totally unconcerned about the longer-term health of their most valuable asset - the soil.
Even some USDA scientists are now attempting to promote the idea of restoring bio-life to croplands after decades of helping foster the exclusive use of soil chemistry and synthetic fertilizers. It's like a seed has sprouted, albeit only after salt buildups, soil compaction, water contamination, and other environmental problems have become a bit too obvious to ignore.
You can probably divide food growers into three groups - those who closely follow organic guidelines, those who use purely chemical methods, and a middle group that combines some elements of both. It is my impression that the latter group is quietly increasing, again as in politics where an ever-increasing number of voters are registering as Independents.
The use of soil biology is gaining ground (no pun intended) on chemistry-only growing. There is currently kind of a sorting-out process going on, after a few decades of chemical's dominance among both farmers and home gardeners.
"What works?" is always a key question, although "How much longer will this work?" may pop up more in the future as sustainability issues become more of a problem worldwide. I read that even China is becoming concerned about their over use of nitrogen fertilizers, and whether they are burning out vast areas of prime cropland. Hunger can be difficult to govern.
I predict that promoting beneficial soil organisms (mycorrhizal fungi, nitrogen-fixing bacteria, earthworms, etc.) will gradually become more routine, but also that chemistry will always have a place on farms and home gardens. As just two examples, gradual-release fertilizers (such as Osmocote) seem to be compatible with mycorrhizae and stricter human/wildlife health standards seem to be resulting in more responsible 'cides being marketed by the chemical companies (let's hope).
There's no need to feel that your choices are either to go beard-growing-organic or stubbornly refusing to use nothing but powerful chemicals. More growers every year are looking for a sensible middle ground (this time, pun intended) to produce great yields of healthy food crops. Some will lean more toward biological methods and some more toward soil chemistry, but both disciplines have something to offer growers. By all means, use what works - but please also think about what will work for decades to come, not just this growing season.
I'm sure common sense will prevail, at least in agriculture. Not so sure about politics.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
Other than a nice continuing movement toward organic production, it's hard to find any significant changes in how we grow our food compared to 50 years ago. Sure, the process has become much more mechanized and farms have become much larger, but the basic plow, soil-testing, and fertilizing routines are mostly the same.
Even in organic farming, the major difference is usually just a switch to natural rather than man-made plant foods. Most farmers still feel that they need to provide all the nutrients that their crops require, while the harnessing of microbial soil organisms that can nourish plants remains largely confined to endless lab experimentation and exquisitely worded journal articles.
I'm afraid that the new push to grow more corn for ethanol fuel is just going to give a major boost to the already-emerging problems of soil depletion, salt buildups, and fertilizer runoff into streams and aquifers. Corn is regarded as a crop that hungers for heavy nitrogen fertilizer, which is consequently going to lead to higher nitrate levels in underground drinking water, larger "dead zones" off the mouth of the Mississippi, etc., etc.
Add in the complete removal of plant residue, which would really benefit the soil if it remained in the field, and I for one am shaking my head at the shortsightedness of it all. One scientist who has done a great deal of work with marginal soils has predicted that even our richest crop soils will see yields suddenly take a tremendous drop after they fall below some essential threshold level of humic or minor/trace elements that are not being replenished.
This debate will go on for years, but using food crops to fuel motor vehicles seems nuts to me. I have a fairly good working knowledge of solar collectors, and if there were strong enough rebates (free, even?) the U. S. has millions of existing south-facing and flat roofs where individual collectors to heat water and generate electricity could be installed. Heck, throw in some generous government rebates for electric/hybrid cars and we could eliminate much of our air pollution at the same time. Why not preserve and protect our valuable crop soils as much as possible for those who come after us, and use free and clean sunshine as much as possible? (Intentional use of "as much as possible" twice in that sentence)
But, of course, there are powerful vested interests in keeping fertilizer and other petroleum-based product sales up, and farmers are always conservative when it comes to changing proven practices, and research is conducted more to produce publishable reports than for helping develop practical applications. And, most likely, this is the way things will remain until some disaster-emergency-crisis level is reached. Let's face it, that's how we typically run our world.
One bright spot - in my business, I do get the opportunity to deal with some truly innovative and dedicated growers who are doing wonderful things with compost, mulches, tillage, mineral additives, and microbial organisms. Many of them routinely conduct bioassays to get scientific about managing their living soil, and I expect the things they are learning will prove extremely valuable for future growers. I hope these smart bio-farmers will document what they are doing and invite university and USDA soil scientists to observe their techniques. I'd suggest that any feelings of keeping their methods proprietary and confidential should be trumped by the general good that could come from sharing the knowledge.
One note about my last newsletter regarding the conversion of the scraggly lawn at my new home to a nice bio-lawn: I use a mulching mower - an absolute must if you want to avoid fertilizers as much as possible. (That phrase again!)
Cheers, and good growing,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics
It's difficult to think of anything in this world that we humans alive today will leave in better condition than we found it - air, rivers, forests, oceans, fisheries, the ozone layer, crop soils, drinking water, etc. etc. You name it, during the past 50 years or so we've managed to either deplete, destroy, diminish, pollute, exterminate, or contaminate just about everything in sight. I guess urban deer and coyotes are thriving, and bald eagles have made a comeback from DDT, but mostly we've plundered and consumed resources at amazing rates - all of us.
The increases in world population plus consumption-oriented lifestyles in developed countries has led to our putting crushing pressure on all sorts of natural resources that once seemed endless in supply. But how do you fault a starving native in some impoverished country who kills an endangered whatever to feed his children, and how does any nation find the will to clamp down on its factories because future polar bears will be short of ice, or criticize a homeowner for innocently spreading some smiley-face-advertised "plant food" on the front lawn, or a "conventional" farmer?
The recent trend to planting vast acreage of highly fertilized corn for ethanol fuel represents the latest problem legacy for downstream descendants in our country. The run-through of petroleum-based nitrogen fertilizers from past years is slowly making its way down into underground aquifers as you read this. "Plant foods" (and pesticides) that were spread on crops or lawns way back when are now endangering wells throughout the grain/cotton-belt states here in the U.S.
And if we somehow completely stopped all chemical fertilizing right now, that cocktail plume of contaminants would continue steadily entering the drinking water for another 10 to 50 years, depending on soil and depth of the water reservoir. As many communities are entirely dependent on wells for water supplies, this is not the sort of pass-down our descendants will appreciate. "Sorry you can't drink the water kids, but grandpa used to grow corn and he had the nicest dark green lawn in the county."
I like the saying, "If you find yourself in a hole, first thing stop digging." I believe that chemistry-oriented agriculture, horticulture, landscaping, and gardening have already caused huge soil-water contamination problems and we are digging it deeper like groundhogs on espresso.
There are other and cleaner methods, especially for growers who are not dealing with thousands of acres. No one expects widespread overnight conversion to organic or biological methods, or for every homeowner to suddenly forsake spray-and-enjoy lawn foods. The use of synthetic fertilizers is convenient and produces quick effects, which tends to trump other considerations in the short run. I think the best we can hope for is for a few more savvy people every year to find ways of growing plants that reduces runoff. This won't stop the toxic plume that's already in the ground, but would slow down the rate of water contamination.
Another old saying is, "Whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting over." If too many wells becomes non-potable, there may be a lot of truth to that.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics
It is very simple for home gardeners to use biological methods to grow super-healthy vegetables and flowers, and not too difficult for landscapers, small farms and market growers - but what about large corn and other grain farms that have been following a chemical fertilization routine for decades?
In most situations, heavily-fertilized farms have eliminated the beneficial bio-life in their soils - as evidenced by lack of earthworms and compaction problems. These vast acreages across the grain belt of the country are now dependent on continued applications of synthetic fertilizer, and one can't really argue that it isn't an effective way to force good yields.
The question is whether chemically-pushed soils are sustainable. Is there a point at which minor and trace elements, plus humic matter, become depleted? Can NPK fertilizers continue to produce yields from lifeless soils forever?
This is the gist of sustainability arguments. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that there will probably come a threshold point at which some "unimportant" soil factors are used up and yields will then suddenly drop off the end of the table, no matter what amount of NPK is applied. Contributing to this sudden drop-off will be the build-up of salts, which is already a serious problem for more marginal soils. Rich volcanic and deep glacial soils will be the last to fail, as farmers with those type soils can plow deeper and deeper as a delaying strategy.
There are many different soils, crops, and farmers. For those who see problems developing and want to get off the chemical treadmill, a program of reducing amounts of fertilizer, using slow-release types, replenishing organic matter, and reintroducing beneficial microorganisms can create productive soils that will last indefinitely.
Seeds can be used as the carrier for mycorrhizal spores to be scattered evenly throughout a field, and the plant-assisting fungi will then spread from one plant to its neighbors. In a matter of weeks, if not harmed by excess fertilizer, the entire field will be colonized. After that, the field will require less fertilizer and become more drought-tolerant - a financial as well as an ecological benefit.
The first step for conversion is to have both a full chemical analysis and a bioassay done on the soil. This can accomplish two goals - to serve as a benchmark measure to compare future readings; and to help develop a strategy for reducing the fertilizing. Note that some amount of fertilization may always be required, but there are types that are less harmful to the bio-life, allowing them to multiply their populations.
During the growing season, another bioassay should be done on samples of plant roots to see what degree of mycorrhizal colonization is present. If taken at the same growing stage each year this will be a valuable measure of year-to-year success in restoring full soil health.
Or maybe the first step is seeing any need to change from "conventional" use of heavily promoted "complete" petro-fertilizers, and I'm doubtful that this will happen as long as yields hold up. It is a good thing that so many gardeners and smaller growers are now following a biological-organic program with their soils. They will be the models for the big farms to copy some day down the road.
Cheers, and good growing,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics
Well, it seems that more and more soil products at garden stores now "contain mycorrhizae." Guess we've arrived, eh? Actually, to be accurate, the labels should say "contains mycorrhizal fungi propagules" as mycorrhizae is the term that describes the actual linking of a plant with the fungi, but why quibble over semantics?
Of course, a close reading of the labels always reveals propagule content nearly as microscopic as the fungi themselves, so it's more of a marketing pitch than a serious ingredient. Still, any recognition of biological organisms is probably a good thing, and we appreciate our commercial customers who are adding our products to their potting soils and soil additives. One told me that by blending in MycoMinerals, they have completely eliminated transplant shock in their nursery operation - their seedlings are now much sturdier and tougher. Another is getting near 100% germination from tree seeds in as little as nine days, where before the rate was only about 50% in 28-40 days. It does make a difference.
On another topic, I wonder how many of you are receiving spam emails supposedly from BioOrganics? It seems that some vermin are using our name to send out sales pitches for the usual phony stuff. It's SO nice to receive spam that's supposedly coming from myself. My server says that its usually a waste of time trying to stop them, as they are probably in a foreign country and use clever methods to avoid detection. It's one of the hazards of publishing a business's email address, I'm afraid. (Sigh.)
You might want to look at our web site. All the old newsletters from previous years have been arranged in a more orderly form so they are easier to sort through for topics that might interest you.
For the gardeners among you, remember that beans and onions are among the most responsive of plants to mycorrhizal fungi - it's not just for tomatoes, peppers, melons, and squash. Scatter a little inoculant under one section of a row of beans and do your own grow-test comparison this season.
Cheers, and good growing,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics
I recently had the following exchange with one of the newsletter subscribers. I think it illustrates how microscopic soil diseases and other pathogens can take advantage of opportunities to enter damaged tree roots. I really wasn't able to offer him much encouragement about the situation, but I'll be happy to pass along helpful suggestions from any of you.
To: Don Chapman
Subject: Verticillium Wilt
We have purchased a variety of products from you over the years for use with seeds or transplanting a wide variety of plants and receive your email newsletters.
A very serious problem has arisen with one of our old mature Japanese maples (25' x 20'). The almost certain diagnosis is verticillium wilt. There are several organism-specific biofungicides on the market and there is, of course, your own endo- and ecto-mycorrhizal products. I am wondering if you might have any experience in dealing with such problems in maples or can offer advice on the usefulness of drenching the area around this large, mature tree.
Arvid-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Arvid -
My view is that the mycorrhizal fungi have been proven capable of preventing many diseases and warding off soil pathogens, partly by creating a better nourished tree and partly by directly blocking some problem organisms, but I doubt that putting our inoculant around the roots of an older tree would do any good after a disease is present. I have heard of some success with mature problem oaks by removing grass or other plants from underneath their drip area, putting down a coarse mulch, and then allowing the soil to dry out completely between waterings. The oak can survive extended droughts, but the soil pathogens cannot. Not sure if that applies to your maple??? Does it maybe receive too much watering?
Sorry I can't be more helpful.
Best regards,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Don --
Thank you for your response. Our troubled Japanese maple has occasionally irrigated lawn within six feet of the trunk on one side, every-other-day irrigation twelve to fourteen feet from the trunk on another and no irrigation on the other 150 degrees. I re-sodded the non-irrigated section last fall in preparation for our daughter's wedding last fall and kept that area drenched for several weeks. Before re-sodding I had to remove the old sod and in the process noticed that the maple had a dense root system right on the surface just underneath the sod. Needless to say, the roots were scuffed up during this process. If I'd had my wits about me I should have inoculated the scuffed areas prior to laying down the new sod. This is the only stress that this tree has had and is coincident with the winter die-back.
I will use up our remaining innoculant -- however old it may be -- on the surrounding lawn and reduce irrigation to a bare minimum. Anything further that I try or learn I will write to you about.
I don't mean to involve you unnecessarily in this problem, but having read so many of your newsletters, you may just have a passing interest.
Cheers,
Arvid ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Arvid -
I think you've figured out the cause of the problem. Some trees are much more sensitive than others when it comes to disturbing their roots. Then, after the roots were scuffed, keeping the soil soaked for a long time allowed the disease organisms to multiply and enter the unprotected root openings. These diseases are always present in soil, but normally a tree and the mycorrhizal fungi are able to keep them outside the roots. Letting the soil go dry between waterings also keeps the disease populations low. Unfortunately, at this point the disease is systemic and I don't think that there is much that can be done beyond cutting back the dead parts of the tree and hoping that it will recover and re-grow.
Good luck with it,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics
Once again, my personal garden plants are reminding me of the difference between chemically-forced plants and those grown with a biological emphasis. My young corn, squash and tomato plants are all considerably different in appearance from those in neighboring gardens. I also have an older rose bush that I have "converted" from the chemical fertilizer routine of the previous homeowner to a soil biology routine.
My plants are generally shorter, lighter green, and have much thicker stems with not much distance between branches or leaves. Over time I have learned that these are signs that mycorrhizal fungi have colonized the root zones and are creating stronger plants that will not require much tending or protecting.
Once you realize that height and a darker green color are just the result of fertilizer overdosing, then your bioplants begin to look right to the eye. One theory regarding plant-damaging insects is that plants with any unnatural coloration appear sickly to bugs, and an insect's role in nature is to destroy sick plants - like lions who can spot weak herd animals. So while we humans may define tall dark-green plants as truly healthy specimens, that same plant might be sending a "I'm not well - come eat me" signal to every hungry bug in the neighborhood. This makes some sense to me, as I almost always observe more insect damage occurring on the control plants (without mycorrhizae) in my grow tests.
I know that my shorter corn stalks will soon have multiple ears, the tomatoes will set nearly every blossom, I'll run out of neighbors willing to take more squash, and the rose will bloom all season without constant spraying - all with minimal fertilization. It's quite a difference from the days when I used synthetic "plant foods" that actually created the need for all sorts of protective 'cides. Now that the emphasis is on maintaining healthy soil filled with good populations of beneficial microbial life, I have virtually no pest or disease problems. And shorter, thicker, lighter colored plants look just fine.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
President
On the mixed vegetable, grain and dairy farm in Oregon where I grew up, you often heard the phrase, "How does it pencil out?" With the soils and climate in the Willamette Valley you could grow nearly any crop - vegetables, berries, grain, Christmas trees, nursery stock, etc. The issue of how possible crops would "pencil out" involved adding up all the expected input costs and guessing at harvest prices.
It seems pretty obvious that the current huge increases in oil prices will have a major effect on the penciling-out for farmers, who can expect dramatic cost hikes in petro-fertilizers as well as their equipment fuel. Much higher food prices in the future seem inevitable as a response to these higher farm input costs, and poorer countries that depend on imported food or fertilizer are in for very tough times. (I recently read that filling a transport ship with fuel can now cost well over a million dollars.)
As many of you know, I've been saying for several years that more research and trials should be conducted on less-expensive biological alternatives to chemical fertilizers. While chemical fertilization methods have been developed and fine-tuned with huge research budgets, the science of employing microbial plant nourishment is still at a beginning stage. Crops can be successfully grown with far lower input costs through harnessing beneficial microbial organisms, but relatively little formal, controlled, testing has been done outside laboratories.
I once was told about a Middle East sheik who bought a large amount of mycorrhizal fungi spores and arranged to have them scattered over a desert area by helicopter. He was bitterly disappointed when the desert didn't turn green with plant growth. Whether this story is true or not, it makes the point that simply throwing biological inoculants into business-as-usual farming is not likely to produce great results. Somewhere, somehow, demonstration acreage need to be set up for trials of bio-methods, and various types of beneficial organisms need to be tested to establish localized techniques. We really should get more farmers and microscope jockeys working together on this.
Decades of abuse by over tilling and killing off beneficial soil organisms with strong NPK fertilizers can't be fixed overnight, but higher input costs may finally provide the motivation for both soil scientists and farmers to get serious about modifying "conventional" growing practices. It won't be easy to make large-scale conversions from chemical to biology-based methods, but it can be done. I could argue that it must be done if future oil prices continue to spiral upward.
We live in interesting times. Sharpen those pencils, and stop by a car dealership that sells SUV's if you want to feel some real loving.
Good growing, my friends,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics
You can see a lot by just looking sometimes. I recently took a two week vacation. Before I left, I had removed the weeds from three rows of sweet corn in my garden, but didn't get to the fourth row. On my return, I saw that the corn plants that had weeds growing right next to them were several inches taller than all the others.
I gave every plant identical amounts of organic fertilizer and mycorrhizal inoculant, so the difference in height was puzzling. You would think that the weeds would be competitors for nutrients and water. Shouldn't the corn with neighbor weeds be smaller and less vigorous?
Then I remembered a very interesting book that I read some years ago called, "Let Nature Do The Growing - The Fertilizer-free Vegetable Garden" by a Japanese gardener named Gajin Tokuno. I dug out a copy and reread the section about weeds. Here's a quote from the book (available through Amazon):
"In short, instead of regarding them with hostility, it is wiser to realize that weeds loosen the soil and provide important nutrition and to allow them to grow together with vegetables in a natural ecological system."
Mr. Tokuno's advice came from closely observing his garden for many years. He generally advised cutting off taller spring weeds to soil level, but then allowing lower summer weeds to grow alongside the crop plants. This made good sense from my bio-organic perspective, as mycorrhizal fungi link together all adjoining plants in an underground "foodweb" - more plant roots mean more support for that entire web network.
It seems obvious that my taller corn benefited from the presence of the weeds growing next to them, and the weeds may have contributed to the corn's vigor by bringing deeper-buried nutrients up through longer tap roots or even sharing photosynthates derived from solar energy. The mycorrhizal fungi are known to transfer elements from plant to plant within their web network, so in effect the weeds probably "fed" their neighbor corn.
What implications does this have for gardeners and farmers? Well, it does tie in with some USDA experiments where tomatoes were transplanted into chopped-off stands of hairy vetch, which resulted in very impressive yield gains. The researchers were at a loss to explain their findings, but it wasn't a mystery to me nor would it seem odd to Mr. Tokuno.
Cover-cropping, inter-planting and the use of "companion plants," whether they be weeds or legumes or whatever, is a growing strategy that deserves more attention. I would not go so far as to say that any and all weeds are welcome - I'm certain that some are helpful and others are harmful or overly invasive. Next season, I plan to seed some early crimson clover in every-other corn row a few weeks before seeding the corn, just to see what happens. This variety of annual clover is easy to control if you don't let it go to seed.
For large farms, especially those growing vegetables, employing "helper" plants may allow for considerable reduction in the need for fertilizers. The idea would certainly be easy enough to small-scale test on various crops. Once the best types of companion plants are identified the cost benefits could be substantial, not to mention the improved health of the soil as more and more roots decay and build up organic matter to support subsequent crops. If our valuable crop soils could be gradually improved from year to year instead of being gradually depleted, our descendants would be grateful.
I'd be curious to hear from anyone who tried or observed anything similar to my experience with the corn plants.
Side note: Some spammers have been using the BioOrganics email address as a fake to send their garbage. I know because I recently had over 10,000 "returned - undeliverable" messages flow into my inbox. I was not in a good mood that day!
Cheers, and good growing,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics
I've seen articles about mycorrhizal fungi that give the impression they are sort of an "add-on" to a plant's root system - something like an alternative fertilizer - instead of accurately describing the beneficial microorganisms' powerful role in plant performance.
Just picture removing 90 percent of a plant's roots and then trying to obtain a good yield from that plant. In effect, that is what a plant without mycorrhizae on its roots is up against. Over millions of years, the plant-friendly fungi have created an underground system to deliver nutrients and moisture to their host plants. During that long process of evolution, the fungi and plants came to rely on each other. Remove the mycorrhizae and you then make the plants grower-dependent.
The relatively recent development of "conventional" agriculture, featuring frequent tillage and petro-fertilizers, has unintentionally destroyed much of the natural bio-life in soil - from earthworms down to microbial fungi and bacteria. To compensate for the loss of these living nutrient-providers, synthetic plant foods have been developed. These human-made fertilizers do work, but have some very undesirable side effects such as salt buildup, nitrate run through to drinking water supplies, phosphorus runoff into streams, less disease-resistance, and gradual depletion of organic matter in soil. Also, soil organisms normally provide an aerating effect for topsoil and compaction occurs when they are absent.
That's the overview of the problem, but I'm coming to realize that it makes more sense to applaud and encourage the farmers who are getting serious about protecting and building up their populations of soil organisms than to get preachy toward those using chemical methods.
Some of the organic techniques being increasingly used today are a welcome first step, but I think there is entirely too much emphasis put on "natural good, man-made bad" by the organic certification agencies. In my opinion, the ultimate measure and goal should be healthy sustainable soil, whether that comes from natural or man-made inputs. A very gradual-release Osmocote-type fertilizer with minors might be better for promoting happy soil organisms than strong natural additives (such as overly hot chicken manure, for example).
If a shovelful of soil has 100 or more earthworms, there's a quick and accurate indicator of soil health. If the soil organisms are thriving, then the farmer is doing things right from a sustainability perspective. To those of you who are figuring out how to create this type of long-term productive soil that will still be supporting your grandchildren, I say bravo!
We need those little soil critters.
Cheers, and good growing my friends,
Don Chapman
BioOrganics
My last newsletter spoke about how earthworms are an indicator of good soil health - the more worms, the better - and that excellent soils can have more than 100 worms per shovelful. One subscriber questioned this high number of worms, saying that he had been gardening for 60 years and had never seen that many in his soil. Here is the answer I gave him:
Hello Bob -
You raise a good question. I had gardened for more than 50 years (quite successfully, I might add) before discovering that there was another level of plant health/performance beyond what I had been obtaining. And let me assure you, 100 earthworms per shovelful is not unrealistic - although you don't get there overnight. I just read an article about a farmer who invited his skeptical neighbors to dig anywhere on his property to find more than 150 worms per shovel.
You didn't say how you've been gardening, which makes much more of a difference than how long you've been doing it. Do you rototill? What specific types of fertilizer do you apply? Do you add compost and how much? Do you use mulches and what types? These are all important issues as far as promoting populations of not only worms, but many other beneficial bio-organisms in your soil.
Try an experiment - don't rototill, just scatter a little dry organic fertilizer on top of the soil (I've found the best is fish pellets) and dump a couple large bags of potting soil mulch 4 inches deep and about 18 inches across on one part of your garden next season. Push the mulch aside to seed and/or transplant down the center line. When it comes time to harvest, see how many worms per shovelful are under that mulch layer, and compare the number to the rest of your garden. By providing that sort of constant forage, the worms will rapidly multiply (and the 4 inches of mulch will begin to disappear pretty fast as the worms feed on the bottom of it). Their tunnels and excretions underground will aerate and nourish the plants better than any commercial chemical fertilizer ever could.
As I said, I was surprised by the results after decades of thinking I knew a lot about gardening. Maybe you will be as well.
He said that he will try it next year.
You should note that the key points are to avoid destroying the existing worm tunnels (and killing them) by rototilling, and to provide an always-available source of food with a mulch cover.
I do not recommend blending organic matter directly into soils, as this can create chemistry problems. Also, it is very difficult to find decent compost. Most bagged products are best applied as mulch. As the worms multiply and feed on the decomposing bottom layer of the mulch, they will transport it down to the root zones and deposit it in digested form - an ummmmm treat to plants! The speed at which their populations can increase with mulch-feeding is amazing.
And if you are fighting heavy clay soil, add sand to the mulch cover - maybe a 50-50 mix of clean sand and bagged "compost" or potting soil. The sand will also end up being taken down into the soil to help permanently loosen it. I think this is one of the best and easiest methods of soil improvement - basically just dump stuff on top of the ground and then let huge numbers of worms do the tillage work for you. Push aside the mulch to seed or transplant, and be sure to add more as it disappears (which will happen quicker and quicker).
Larger farming operations will have a greater soil-improvement challenge than will home gardeners or smaller market growers, but employing minimum-tillage, leaving crop residues behind, and strategic use of cover crops can produce improved worm counts even in huge fields. A periodic survey of earthworm populations will show how healthy your soil is - just do a count from ten shovelfuls dug in different spots at the same times each year.
The worms are the visible indicators of soil health - what you won't see are all the billions of beneficial microorganisms that also result from this no-till mulch-cover approach.
Cheers, and good growing,
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
Many years ago I used to set up a booth at farm and vineyard trade shows, sort of a missionary for bio-methods, where I would answer questions about mycorrhizae and have discussions with all different kinds of growers. While I doubt that those long days ever paid off with enough orders to cover the costs, it did provide an education and some memorable conversations.
I recall one tomato grower, from somewhere near Sacramento, who told me that he had converted one of his many fields to organic a few years back. As he put it, "I got curious, and it looked like organic was starting to become a big deal for some grocery buyers. The first two seasons the yields in that field were a lot lower, but in the third year I started to see a real difference in the soil and the plants really took off. That was a bad year for disease, but there wasn't a hint of disease in the organic field and it had the best production. You could stand on the road between the fields and see how much healthier the organic plants looked."
I asked, "What made you keep the field organic after two years of losing profits on it?"
He said, "Well, to begin with I'm kind of stubborn. And the more I learned about organic growing and soil improvement, the more sense it made. I'm going to convert the rest of my acreage to organic now, one field at a time. But it's really not about money - I guess I started thinking that it's just the right thing to do, even though it's more work."
That last phrase has always stuck with me. I think it's wonderful that there are still some people who will make decisions because, "It's just the right thing to do."
Under what is called "conventional agriculture" farm fields are viewed as areas of inert dirt, to be tilled and reused year after year with nothing much added beyond major-element NPK fertilizers ("complete" fertilizers to the industry's marketing people). That is certainly the most profitable short-term approach - but such soils can gradually lose their essential living organisms and/or humic elements, leading to compaction and increased disease-insect problems. I believe this is the most important argument for using organic, sustainable, growing methods - to keep farm soils healthy and productive for generations to come.
Organic growing might not pencil out right away, and not many old-school farm advisors will be helpful, but the information is out there for growers who want to get off of all-chemical routines. Your local ag university's extension service might be a good starting point - but realize that some agents are a lot more progressive than others.
First, of course, you need to feel that it's the right thing to do.
Thanks, and good growing!
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
OK, I'll admit it - I'm very nervous about the state of the economy. I've lived through many recessions, downturns, and bear markets... but this seems different, more serious. This feels like something that could have a dramatic impact on some of the fundamental ways we live and work and travel and eat during the upcoming years.
Home foreclosures are predicted to increase through most of '09, as many more ARM's with 2-5 year teaser rates reset in coming months, plus some leading economists expect unemployment to reach 9% a year from now, even if the Detroit automakers manage to somehow stay afloat.
Store brands are gaining in popularity, high-end wines are seeing their sales drop, small cars are suddenly popular, retirements are being postponed, and hundreds of other big and small changes are taking place as we collectively struggle with "new rules." Let's face it - the folks who knew how to fix everything themselves and grew most of their own food have been dwindling off. It may be time to relearn some of those old self-reliance skills.
Along those lines, there does seem to be an increased interest in backyard vegetable and fruit growing. I recently read about a new venture in Portland, Oregon, which has expert gardeners contracting with homeowners to convert yard space into organic vegetable gardens. The entrepreneurs do all the labor of skinning off grass, amending the soil, seeding and tending the spaces. In return, the homeowners receive a generous share of the produce. The extra vegetables are then sold at farmer's markets or through subscription programs. As I understand it, the available yard space must be some minimum size and, of course, not shaded or too steep.
One thing I found especially intriguing about this idea was the number of people who signed on to the program and how many more have indicated interest in doing it next year. Conceivably, it could lead to farm-like food acreage being created piecemeal within urban settings throughout the country. (Here's a business idea for you good gardeners with time available - in effect, become a sharecropper!)
With all the unexpected-extended-family situations and other hardships that are now developing because of foreclosures and unemployment, turning a back yard (or even a front yard) into food production makes good sense, sort of a modern-day victory garden effort. I really like the concept of knowledgeable gardeners setting up the growing process, thereby eliminating the trial-and-error that often frustrates beginners. Also, I hope that everything we've learned about soil biology can help new organic gardens thrive even during their first season.
Besides the food cost savings of the Portland program, I would expect the participating homeowners to be amazed at the wonderful flavors that they encounter, maybe for the first time in their lives. Just picture someone taking their first bite into a Brandywine tomato fresh-picked from their own yard. It's hard to imagine them ever turning their growing beds back into nonproductive lawns again, even after our economy recovers.
Good growing, and my best wishes to all of you for the upcoming holidays.
Don Chapman
President, BioOrganics
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