What’s New in Michigan Organic
Production??
Nov 1-17, 2006
1. Source of Flavor-Is it in the soil or in
the handling?
Soil amendments contribute to more than
soil health
2. Corn Rallies, Calves Fall -- Fear And
Greed Take Control
3. Markedly different gene expression in
wheat grown with organic or inorganic fertilizer.
4. Risk of Corn Mold Higher Due to
Extended Rains in Michigan
5. Banning Backyard
Poultry to Control Avian Flu???
6. Organic agriculture for the future:
Designing farms for
better soil and pest management.
7. Salmonella Outbreak Update Information
on the Food Domain
8. Great Lakes Fruit and Vegetable Expo,
Nov 5-7, DeVos Place Conference Center, Grand Rapids, MI
9. Business and Market Planning for
Farmers' Markets
10. LEARN TO KEEP AGRICULTURE IN THE FAMILY
AT FARM IT FORWARD PROGRAM
11. Yes you can
can! A workshop on canning food
12. A chance to share innovative approaches to farming and marketing
13. NTS Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture at ACRES Dec 4, 5, 6 in
St. Paul, Minnesota
14. Animal Rights
Initiatives A Little Scary Go Arizonia!! J
15. 2007 Agri-Energy Conference will be held March 13-14,
2007
16. NEW ORGANIC FARMING COURSES for Spring 2007 at Michigan State
University!
17. The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the
Global Competition˛
1. Source of Flavor-Is it in the soil or in
the handling?
Soil amendments contribute to more than
soil health
Raquel & Greg wrote:
> Hi all. As some of you may
remember, I started marketing my own
> organic brown rice this year.
The reasons we took the leap are
> many--wanting to escape the
commodity system, wanting more connection
> with consumers, tired of
letting other companies put their name on my
> rice, etc. One of the great
benefits of doing this has been the
> feedback I get from people who
have eaten my rice, because they love
> it. People regularly tell me
that it is the best rice they've ever
> had, and didn't know rice could
taste like that.
How can I buy 2 25 lb. bags or 1 50
lb. from you and get it shipped to me here in North Carolina?
> This is great, but now I want
to figure out why, so that I can repeat
> it! One reason could be that I
let our rice mature and dry down in
> the field, as opposed to the
normal practice of cutting it green and
> drying it with air and heat in
the bin. Like tree-ripened fruit, I
> think it allows the flavor to
more fully evolve.
That's probably it.
> But could there be more? Some
organic farmers swear that soil
> nutrition plays a huge role in
making sweet peaches, for example.
> Charles Benbrook refers to a
"dilution effect" caused by nitrate
> fertilizers that essentially
waters down nutrient levels and flavors.
> The article below shows that
"specific genes have surprisingly
> different expression levels in
the grain endosperm when nitrogen is
> supplied either in an organic
or an inorganic form."
>
> Does anyone know of any more
work in this field, especially with
> grains? What do the rest of
you do to grow tasty produce? Does
> flavor correlate with nutritive
value? I'd also like to hear any
> general thoughts on the topic.
Great topic. I grow vegetable crops
on four acres using a finely tuned grid of raised beds that cover slopes,
curves and flat terrain. This system of parallel rows of beds has water/erosion
breaks/dams every 50-150 feet to contain rainfall and prevent erosion. Half of
the beds are very tall with deep furrows between and the other half are lower
and wider with shallower furrows but with more growing area and less water
impoundment between them. So, I get a lot of free irrigation and almost no loss
of nutrients and micronutrients to runoff or leaching.
When the furrows fill with rainfall
and runoff from the tops of the beds this water will be absorbed laterally back
into the beds before going into the subsoil. So, I keep my nutrients on site
and recycle them.
The equipment in the order used:
1) Yeomans Plow
http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/Yeomans-Plow-2.jpg
2) Bottom plow
http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/HowardRotavator-50inch.jpg
3) Howard Rotavator
http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/HowardRotavator-50inch.jpg
(there's a pile of quarry rock
dust in the background)
4) Tillage tool/spring tooth field
cultivator http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/bottomplow-tillagetool-YeomansPlowToolbar.jpg
5) Hiller-bedder with chisel plow
shanks http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/hiller-bedder-3.jpg
Maintenance involves always using 5)
and often 3) and occasionally 1)
I grow a lot of
"sustainably-grown" spinach each year. Stores I have sold to have
told me their customers have commented on its good flavor. A world traveller
gourmet diner friend told be that my spinach was the very best he has eaten,
anywhere, ever. My arugula, lettuce, squash, cilantro and collards also have
exceptional flavor.
My crops also look great with robust
color, size and yield. I get excellent germination, rapid growth, drought
resistance, almost no insect predation and no fungal or bacterial diseases or
blight of any kind so far.
I think the good flavor of my produce
is due to:
1) The extensive use of finely
ground rock dusts from rock quarries as soil amendments:
When I have manure or compost to put
on the gardens I always mix it 50%-50% with rock dusts before applying with a
skid loader along the tops of the beds; I then rototill it all in - this leaves
the rock dust in the top 12-16"
of the soil.
I have applied hundreds of tons of
this over 4 acres:
Quarry #1 - volcanic tuff (basalt?)
Quarry #2 - granite (grom grey rock
with the little reflective sparklies) Quarry #3 - other powdered grey granite
Quarry #4 - pyrophyllite screenings (an aggregate no larger than 200 mesh
containing some talcum; .2% potash)
I have noticed that the root systems
of my crops are huge and penetrate very deeply. Today I pulled a half inch
carrot with a 3" taproot and a 3' turnip green plant. The extensive
rosette of fine feeder roots that develop on most of my crop plants is
astounding. If plants are spaced correctly with plenty of room, light and water
they will grow to enormous size.
Some of these rock powders are so
fine that when put into solution with water it turns cloudy and stays that way
for quite a while. Some people living in high country near Hunza area drink
white/grey cloudy water from pure, clean cold mountain streams. A high
percentage of them live to a hundred and beyond, in robust good health.
2) adequate, balanced plant
nutrition using a wide variety of soil amendments that include:
manures: chicken, cow and horse,
some goat
compost: weed and crop plowdown, baled
hay (grass and weeds; broomstraw makes the very best for mulch) This coming
year I will be mulching about an acre of beds for tomatoes, potatoes and
peppers with unrolled new round bales of broomstraw hay.
aragonite, high calcium limestone,
azomite, alfalfa meal, blood meal, dried kelp seaweed meal, rock phosphate,
colloidal phosphate from: Idaho, NC Black, Tenessee, Florida rock & Florida
colloidal [CalPhos]) New Jersey Greensand, crab meal, fish meal, dolomitic
limestone
3) highly aerated, highly mineralized,
well drained raised bed culture of crops, eventually highly biologically active
once I kick the rotovator habit (when I have reduced the weed seed bank to the
point that I can get a food crop rather than more humus from having to till
everything under to keep the weeds from going to seed.)
4) I haven't tried enhanced compost
tea (Soil Foodweb recommended), EM or IM or Gil Carandang's methods but I feel
this will eventually be necessary and will make a huge difference in crop
flavor and yield.
LL
--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
Venaura Farm
Proc Biol Sci. 2005 Sep
22;272(1575):1901-8. |
*********************************
2. Corn Rallies, Calves Fall -- Fear And
Greed Take Control
Sure, corn carryover supplies have been reduced, yields have been lowered in
some areas and ethanol demand is exploding. But, we're also going to post one
of the largest corn harvests in history.
The base for corn demand has been altered and that's a reality the cattle
markets and farmers will have to understand. The implications are real. The
market is behaving like 3-4 weeks ago when it woke up and everybody decided
ethanol production would require 20% of the corn crop. It's as if this increase
had never crossed anybody's mind.
Funds, speculators and everyone has jumped in for the ride, sending the markets
to new contract highs one right after the other. However, as is often the case
the market is also likely overreaching against itself.
Already the experts are predicting that 2007 will see the largest corn
plantings in history. Perhaps the market has sent the signal to plant corn from
fence row to fence row. But as a good friend explains it, you bring flowers and
then a very big diamond when you're proposing marriage, once you're married,
flowers once a year usually suffices. There may be some wisdom there for those
who are talking about $5/corn.
-- Troy Marshall
3. Markedly different gene
expression in wheat grown with organic or inorganic fertilizer.
Lu C,
Hawkesford MJ,
Barraclough PB,
Poulton PR,
Wilson ID,
Barker GL,
Edwards KJ.
Rothamsted Research, Harpenden AL5 2JQ, UK.
Nitrogen is the major determinant of crop yield and quality and the precise
management of nitrogen fertilizer is an important issue for farmers and
environmentalists. Despite this, little is known at the level of gene
expression about the response of field crops to different amounts and forms of
nitrogen fertilizer. Here we use expressed sequence tag (EST)-based wheat
microarrays in combination with the oldest continuously running agricultural
experiment in the world to show that gene expression is significantly
influenced by the amount and form of nitrogenous fertilizer. In the Broadbalk
winter wheat experiment at Rothamsted in the United Kingdom and at three other
diverse test sites, we show that specific genes have surprisingly different
expression levels in the grain endosperm when nitrogen is supplied either in an
organic or an inorganic form. Many of the genes showing differential expression
are known to participate in nitrogen metabolism and storage protein synthesis.
However, others are of unknown function and therefore represent new leads for
future investigation. Our observations show that specific gene expression is
diagnostic for use of organic sources of nitrogen fertilizer and may therefore
have useful applications in defining the differences between organically and
conventionally grown wheat. [The sequences reported in this paper have been
deposited in the GenBank database (accession nos. AL 208216-AL 831324).]