Organic works

[sumdumguy]

Government cheap food policy, systemic waste and market manipulation puts farmers at a disadvantage. Universities, research programs and governments are on-the-take and so they pander to the big input companies. Propaganda and data from these "legitimate sources" can easily contort the minds of the masses. As far as I am concerned, I can make judgement calls and take chances on my own experience, experience of my peers and some people that I can trust. Then they are my own mistakes. If I seem cynical, I am because of the crap. For example, the BS about the ice melting at the North Pole, legitimacized by many "credible" sources. Turns out the North West Passage had thinner ice and has been open and navigable many times in the last century alone.

The internet is such a convenient avenue for sowing propaganda. "Facts" from the internet or news sources have become so bogus because of people with motive. Scads of people are making money off of it and it's so easy to blast the crap out there. Think it is any different when farmers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on inputs and are so hungry for the big yield? Slice and dice and swallow a small part until you see proof.

[pourfarmer]

"I have yet to see a weed that has been resistant to steel, conventional or organic. "

Agree but during the growing season, the billions of weed seeds germ and grow IN the crop, go to seed for more billions of weeds to come.
Maybe market gardens, row weeded, hand pulled, never field crops.

Incrop tillage is a thing for organic producers. Also a good healthy crop will compete heavily with weeds even before it canopys.

Maybe I've just been lucky for the past 15 years. My fields are cleaner then when I started, not completely weed free but they look better then some conventional fields with rr resistant wild oats, where you wonder if there is actually canola under the wild oat canopy.

I don't doubt there are poor organic growers out there half assing it, but to paint all organic producers with the same brush, is crazy. I take pride in my crops and my fields. They are not perfect, some lack OM, some have areas with prevalent weed issues, but I feel i am gaining ground using nutty, unscientific methods. My soil tests and yield data are helpful and reassuring.

I am sorry you had a poor experience with your neighbouring organic farmer(s).

[Klause]

Well the fact nh3 causes harm is common knowledge in many circles..

https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/blogs/1-covering-no-till/post/5012-should-you-quit-using-anhydrous-ammonia



Btw even the NCBI is now studying the use of and effects of humic and fulvic acids.


Right on... Triburon-methyl will kill narrow leaved hawksbeard... Dandelion... Suppress thistle kill volunteer canola etc etc at about 4 grams per acre.


Think about that. 4 grams. On an acre.

[Guest]

Farming without inputs doesn't work, regardless if you're organic or conventional.

The conventional farmers use herb/insect/fungi-cide and fert. Organic guys inputs are time, fuel and steel.

Some of us crazy organic guys choose to make use of innoculants, foliar sprays, plow downs, animal manure, compost tea, bacteria, fungi, etc.

There is a ever growing list of approved inputs, big money is being spent on developing organic inputs, just this year one of the larger chain of suppliers started carrying organic fertilizer made from (city) food waste that has been commercially composted and pelletized. It is affordable, and seems to works well when used in conjunction with green manure, high rate inoculation, and those pseudoscientific foliars.

I have yet to see a weed that has been resistant to steel, conventional or organic.

Keep you're head in the sand, listen to that fert/chem sales rep, ignore the market trends, tell yourself that modern mining and fert production is "sustainable", and most importantly: keep growing BIG BUSHELS for LOW DOLLARS to Feed the Worldâ„¢

Hard to argue with this post !
Like a green roughneck told me on the rigs years ago when i was bitching about having to do my job with a computer when they first started showing up in the patch . His words of wisdom were : "change with change , or change will change you out ". I have contemplated that many, many times over the years !! I did change, but the guys who never went home

[bucket]

Klause

I have hit my narrow leaf hawksbeard with db858 plus 1.5 liters of glyphosate plus barricade in crop. ....it doesn't kill it....

[Klause]

Klause

I have hit my narrow leaf hawksbeard with db858 plus 1.5 liters of glyphosate plus barricade in crop. ....it doesn't kill it....

When did you do it? What were the conditions? What pH and tds ppm is your water?


There's a lot to chemistries and how they work... They will function as designed if used as designed.

Once again talking about 4 grams... A teaspoon... Per acre. Doesn't take much to screw that up...


I'm not advocating summerfallowing and the use of no chemical I'm saying what many are doing today will eventually be looked down on much like we all look down on summer fallow and half cropping.

The comment about micros not doing anything... Well ergot is exacerbated by a copper defficiency in the soil. Add a bit of foiliar cu and presto ergot problems decrease massively.


There's a lot of international research now on the degradation of gluten, and rising incidence of disease in wheat and linking it to excessive use of nitrogen.

None of these studies get done in Canada.... Because our research departments are funded by chem and fert companies.


Just once try a 10 acre plot of canola with 50-100-100-50 for fert and see what it looks like. Meanwhile the canola council is studying high nitrogen protocols.

[bgmb]

Well the fact nh3 causes harm is common knowledge in many circles..

https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/blogs/1-covering-no-till/post/5012-should-you-quit-using-anhydrous-ammonia



Btw even the NCBI is now studying the use of and effects of humic and fulvic acids.


Right on... Triburon-methyl will kill narrow leaved hawksbeard... Dandelion... Suppress thistle kill volunteer canola etc etc at about 4 grams per acre.


Think about that. 4 grams. On an acre.

Yes many circles, amazing how some circles dismiss peer reviewed science. Klause nh3 and fungicides have given us over 90 field averages on cwrs. And we have been using nh3 for 30+ years. Fungicides and glyphos for 25-30 years

[hobbyfrmr]

I keep hearing about these successful organic farmers but have yet to see one.....
The blooming Canada thistle sure are pretty though!

I love the thistle argument. Last weekend I worked an outdoor event beside a conventional field of oats. The guy sprays the grass on his headlands, leaving no competition and the thistles thrive. The wind was the right direction, the half mile thistle fuzz blew into the crowd all day. It was so awesome, I laughed all day.

Look at your headlands, pasture, against the highway/ditches. Its awesome when my neighbors complain about thistles, then I take them for a drive and show them that row of thistles on their side of our properties because the they spray the grass. I should sue them for being stupid.
Once they see what they are doing on their own special pristine land, they shut the **** up real quick.

[Klause]

Yes many circles, amazing how some circles dismiss peer reviewed science. Klause nh3 and fungicides have given us over 90 field averages on cwrs. And we have been using nh3 for 30+ years. Fungicides and glyphos for 25-30 years

At what cost? Humanity has farmed for over 3000 years. And you're claiming your practices are the best they are can be and ever will be because they have been done for 30 years?

I'm sure the first farmers of the prairies thought half cropping plowing and summerfallowing where the be all end all practices too... And yet it changed.


To simply dismiss different ways of doing things is to eventually fail because the only constant in life is change


Again I'm not saying you need to do things "my" way or "differently"

[hobbyfrmr]

Incrop tillage is a thing for organic producers. Also a good healthy crop will compete heavily with weeds even before it canopys.

Maybe I've just been lucky for the past 15 years. My fields are cleaner then when I started, not completely weed free but they look better then some conventional fields with rr resistant wild oats, where you wonder if there is actually canola under the wild oat canopy.

I don't doubt there are poor organic growers out there half assing it, but to paint all organic producers with the same brush, is crazy. I take pride in my crops and my fields. They are not perfect, some lack OM, some have areas with prevalent weed issues, but I feel i am gaining ground using nutty, unscientific methods. My soil tests and yield data are helpful and reassuring.

I am sorry you had a poor experience with your neighbouring organic farmer(s).

Dont do it. Its not worth the risk and there is no money in it long term.