One field will make it!

[checking]

100 - So Parsley, would you agree that since you are an honest organic grower that you would inform your customer that there is a little bit of something conventional in everything you grow? Would you also admit that you are not getting away with a spring seeding expense of $20.00/acre?

[parsley]

checking,

The way an audit trail works for organic is this....if I buy registered seed from a registered seed grower, say you, I list it. It becomes part of the audit trail. I think that's a good thing. Some seed growers have even worked hard to establish themselves as organic.

Organics is about saying to the consumer, "Look, here is who's grown and handled and shipped your food,what we've done, to the best of our ability."

Seed growers are a very very important part of the audit trail. And they have worked hard to be credible and grow with excellence! What consumer would not be pleased?

I don't assume that "Who felt more stress the guy who had 20 bucks an acre for a bill or the guy who had 125 for a bill that still had to be paid" was referring to seed! (There is organic ferttilizer....green manuring, or planting a piece of land to a nitrogen fixating crop such as sainfoin.)

Actually, checking, we can benefit each other. After all, we're just farmers living beside each other in the same community. Some have goats. Some have cows. Some have garlic.

Kinda like life. Pars

[parsley]

btw, I'm not 100, and I have a little bit of spunk in me yet. LOL

But all certified organic seed, all of it, was grown on ordinary farms at one time or another.

Harrington barley, for example, was bred by plant breeder. It was grown and exanded by seed growers. It was grown by cowboys, too! It was saved. It is still grown On a plain old ordinary farm. And on an organic farm. The organic farm charts it.

But the organic farm does not want genetically modified wheat.

[checking]

Would an agrarian grower care to enlighten the industrial guys as to what their real cost of production is? I use, as a yardstick, my neighbour who for all intents is really a half and half guy. Summerfallow isn't cheap, and certainly discing in a legume can't be done for 20 bucks an acre. I'm tempted to say that your costs are not that much less than my own. But hey, I can be forgiven because I'm under stress. (lol)

[parsley]

Every kind of farming is expensive!

Half and half guys? Hmmm.

Stress? With all that pipeline income you should be<p></p>
<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://www.canadafishingonline.net/great_slave_lake.html"](here)[/URL]</strong></p>

[checking]

105 - getting closer to your age! Did I say age? I meant IQ!!! I recall a certain human who claimed to have sent IP addresses to the CWB, hence an Aver was receiving junk mail. My trust went out the window from that point on, so I hesitate to go near anything in brackets. I'll agree that farming is expensive, and say that $125/acre is a bare bones minimum for us. I apologize to Sf3 for getting caught up in a highjacked topic message, and we know who changed it - right? Those evil, but necessary underground structures you mention make this area liveable for everyone, provide employment, and provide the RMs with a healthy yearly ongoing tax base. For landowners, there is no windfall in accepting them as they destroy our type of soils, are usually a one year capital damage payment, and present a receptive environment for kochia growth. If you want them, I'll be pleased to route them to your farm.

[parsley]

checking, if you have developed chronic nervousness over links, simply right click on the link above called "here", and then click on "open in new tab, and read to your heart's content.

If you close that window by clicking the x in the right hand corner when you're finished reading, you'll be safe.

Add my adventurous directions as a bold act to your life today!

And I'm sorry for hijacking the thread. I take responsibility for it. Didn't mean to make AV'ers mad. Just wanted to stir the hot summer's mental lethargy a bit. Pars

[parsley]

checking,

I'll try to answer a bit of your question:

Take a 150 acre field cropped backed to back four years.

Then seeded to sainfoin for eight years or so, to put nitrogen back in the soil.

Sometimes the sainforin is cut and combined for seed.

Sometimes the sainfoin is cut for hay and sold as bales.

Sometimes the sainfoin is pastured/cow/day

And often a combination of any of the above in the same year.

You may get seed money and pasture money and hay money all the same year while you are fertilizing.

Sainfoin revitalizes those bare spot hills where nothing will grow. Sainfoin cleans up weeds. Revitalizes poorer soils.

Not being flippant, but hard to put a benchmark on cost of fertilizing with a legume fixating crop. Pars

[Hopperbin]

Pars I am surprised you don't say can do this and can do that like I have heard other organic growers say. Is there a rotation that actually works? Sure your going to have wrecks and plow down the nutrients for the next crop., I can see Sainfoin mining minerals from deeper in the ground and making them available for following crops. Your obviously not going to be able to give all your agronomic advice right here, how about on your website?

[parsley]

<p></p><p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong>[URL="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/2008/09/forage-crop-called-sainfoin.html"](a proven rotation on our farm for years and years)[/URL]</strong></p>