A picture to challenge some preconceptions

[farming101]

Is there any info on the interweb about this?
Strange, 15 posts and no link

[wd9]

You don't need links for a religious discussion.

[sumdumguy]

Article must come from the “Climate Change Bible” available at Tommy Douglas Square. If you look closely you can ‘see’ all the cobs lean to the left.

[grassfarmer]

No I dont love input companies but to think you can grow 400 bu corn with a cover crop is nuts. It would take 5 yrs of the best nitrogen fixing cover crop and cattle grazing the land to do that. 400 bu corn would need 1000 lbs N. So I am supposed to be impressed the land netted zero for 5 yrs and then hits a whopper? Then probably irrigated with pig sludge on top of that.

Works for about .0001% of the producers out there.

It may have 5yrs of cover crops grazed by cattle - but why would that net zero? It may have been incredibly profitable, maybe more so than this huge corn crop.

[Klause]

mucilage-associated diazotrophic microbiota

[Hamloc]

Grassfarmer you are not comparing apples to apples. Growing 1 crop after 5 years of cover crops and mob grazing compared to continuous cropping is not a fair comparison. I think the symbiotic use of cattle and growing corn is very interesting but would be difficult to use on a prairie wide basis.

[wd9]

mucilage-associated diazotrophic microbiota

Doesn't matter how many syllables you post, you're still removing and not replacing.

Hats off to Edmonton taking the phosphates from the poop and returning it back to the land. https://edmontonjournal.com/business/epcor-launches-new-wastewater-technology-to-reduce-phosphorus-in-water https://edmontonjournal.com/business/epcor-launches-new-wastewater-technology-to-reduce-phosphorus-in-water

[Klause]

Doesn't matter how many syllables you post, you're still removing and not replacing.

Hats off to Edmonton taking the phosphates from the poop and returning it back to the land. https://edmontonjournal.com/business/epcor-launches-new-wastewater-technology-to-reduce-phosphorus-in-water https://edmontonjournal.com/business/epcor-launches-new-wastewater-technology-to-reduce-phosphorus-in-water

No, you're actually replacing. Use Google before posting.

[grassfarmer]

Grassfarmer you are not comparing apples to apples. Growing 1 crop after 5 years of cover crops and mob grazing compared to continuous cropping is not a fair comparison. I think the symbiotic use of cattle and growing corn is very interesting but would be difficult to use on a prairie wide basis.

I wasn't comparing anything to anything, merely highlighting an interesting picture to challenge some preconceptions.

[chuckChuck]

So who is replacing all the mined phosphorous fertilizer that is applied to all the crops around the world? No one. Non-organic farmers are depleting a finite resource.

There are estimates that we have only a few hundred years of easily mined phosphorous and then we will be carefully recycling every source of P that we can.

It will bring new meaning to "get your shit together"!

[Klause]

So who is replacing all the mined phosphorous fertilizer that is applied to all the crops around the world? No one. Non-organic farmers are depleting a finite resource.

There are estimates that we have only a few hundred years of easily mined phosphorous and then we will be carefully recycling every source of P that we can.

It will bring new meaning to "get your shit together"!

Exactly.


We're burning fossil fuels to replace a resource that makes up 75% of the atmosphere. .. something plants are very capable of doing themselves all te while mining the soil of nutrients that are finite.


But we call it progressive agriculture.


All the whole allowing industry to take more and more profit from us every year.

[jazz]

mucilage-associated diazotrophic microbiota

I googled. Thats one type of rogue corn variety that fixes its own nitrogen. Probably irrigated. A small number of producers would be able to do this.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

It may have 5yrs of cover crops grazed by cattle - but why would that net zero? It may have been incredibly profitable, maybe more so than this huge corn crop.

Agreed, considering that the vast majority of the corn produced goes to be animal feed anyways, feeding cattle directly, with no fossil fuel for harvesting, while mob grazing previous cover crops, looks very efficient compared to continuous cropping of what will become cattle feed anyways.

When we were contemplating going organic, one issue which convinced me out of it was when I calculated how many cattle would be required to make full use of cover crops and rotations on this many acres. In order to make the system as sustainable as possible, and maximize income, copious amounts of livestock were a necessity.

[Klause]

I googled. Thats one type of rogue corn variety that fixes its own nitrogen. Probably irrigated. A small number of producers would be able to do this.

Wtf does irrigation have to do with it.

It's also not the corn variety it's a strain of bacteria that has a symbiotic relationship with certain corn varieties that naturally evolved to support the bacteria. Like the rhizobia strain for soy peas lentils and clover (all legumes)... That have been modified and selected by humans for higher efficiency.

There is a technological race on right now to commercialized this bacteria on corn. 5 years from now it'll be a commercial trait and game changer.


There are more acres of cornin the Americas than total acreage in Canada.

The other crop is beans (N fixers).

Also 300 but corn only needs about 350 unis of N. So where your 1000 came from who knows.

https://www.deltafarmpress.com/southern-corn-and-soybean-production-guide/busting-300-bushel-corn-barrier-becoming-regular-feat-tim https://www.deltafarmpress.com/southern-corn-and-soybean-production-guide/busting-300-bushel-corn-barrier-becoming-regular-feat-tim


By the way... Lots of parts of the Americas get 30 plus inches of rain a year. They don't need irrigation.

Just because you're farming in a semi arid plain doesn't mean the rest of the world is, and the rest of the world is a lot bigger than the southern prairies.

All of a sudden big ag is talking about soil microbes... Soil health. Microbiomes.


Hmmm maybe the "add lots of N and spray a lot" advice of the past decade didn't quite work out the way they thought.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Klause, thanks for posting, this is the first I had heard of this. Very good news for agriculture and humanity in general. But closer to home, this isn't good at all for western Canadian farmers, most of whom can't grow corn or soybeans. It means we may eventually ( or maybe much sooner) be competing with corn that is grown without the additional expense of N fertilization, while our crops nearly all need copious amounts of N. I doubt that canola, or barley and other minor crops in the world wide scheme will be high on the priority list of crops to try to make this N fixation work.