Michigan Organic
News list
Happenings and Events:
1. Year 2006 is breakthrough
for organic no-till corn yield
2.
MSU launches Spring Semester 2007 UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development speaker series
3.
Would you like to be included in a list of Organic Farmer mentors in
Michigan???
4.
Needed: Organic Food for Conference in Ann Arbor, MI
5. Dr. Oran B. Hesterman to Lead New 'Fair Food Foundation'
6.
Corn pest expansion consequence of transgenic crops?
7.
New Year, New "Organic"
8.
Is the FDA's Cloning Proposal Ready for Prime Time?
9.
Look what Massachusetts is doing for their local markets!!
10. Goodness Greeness - New Partnership Benefits Beginning
Farmers
11. Alternative Energy - Solar Energy
12.
Hey Michigan Farm Business
Owners-Ever Consider Wind Power on Your Farm?!!
13. Sustainable
Farm Groups Outline Farm Bill Agenda
14. Air-freighted food may lose organic label
15. BIOINTENSIVE GARDENING WORKSHOPS WITH JOHN JEAVONS
16. Grand Rapids Food Film Series Feb 28, 2007
17. Choices Conference, March 7 at Kellogg Conference
Center
18. 2007 Michigan Organic Conference Saturday, March 3,
Kellogg Conference Center, Michigan State University
Note: MSU has their own version of this crimper for
no-till systems called “Black Magic.” Dr. Dale Mutch had it built
and conducts research with it at Kellogg Biological Station at Gull Lake (SW
MI). Are any of you interested in going there for a demonstration and see how
it has performed in the field. The purpose of this system is to allow a no till
in an organic system; using a crimping system to break vegetation rather than
herbicides. Please let me know so I can begin to make arrangements for such a
visit.
1. Year 2006 is breakthrough for
organic no-till corn yield; tops standard organic for first time at Rodale
Institute
Roller system creates moisture-saving mulch from cover
crop to suppress weeds and build soil as it slashes fuel and labor inputs.
New Farm, Jan 07, Rodale http://www.newfarm.org/columns/research_paul/2007/0107/notill.shtml
By Paul
Hepperly, PhD; Rita Seidel, project leader; Jeff Moyer, farm manager
Posted January 12, 2007:
Harvest records show last season’s cost-slashing, soil-building, no-till
organic corn yields topped comparable tilled organic and tilled non-organic
fields here at The Rodale Institute.
Using an
improved design of its no-till roller—and only a legume cover-crop for
fertility and weed management—the institute’s no-till organic corn
plots produced 160 bushels per acre (bu/a), compared to 143 bu/a for tilled
organic plots.
This
means the one-pass, roll/plant no-till system—with no additional field
passes until harvest—significantly out-yielded normally tilled and
cultivated organic plots that experienced eight or nine field passes (plowing,
disking, cultipacking, planting, two rotary hoe passes and two to three
cultivator passes). Yield on comparable chisel-tilled non-organic
(conventional) plots was 113 bu/a.
Figure
1:
[log in to unmask]">
For full
details of the system’s development here—and how it’s
spurring innovation with collaborators across the country— check out our No-till Plus section.
For the
past 15 years, TRI farm manager Jeff Moyer has been working with Dave Wilson
(resident agronomist) researchers and operations staff to actively
problem-solve and develop no-till and reduced-tillage applications that work in
our organic production systems. We continue to improve these systems year by
year. The 2006 results verified the benefits of improvements made in the
no-till system in seed placement and weed management, giving us no-till yield
superior to our normal organic system for the first time. Plot size was about
20 acres each.
The organic
no-till figures show the competitive nature of established organic grain
crops—after the required organic transition period and using
well-selected crop rotations—compared with non-organic production
systems.
One of
the myths about organic agriculture is the common claim that organic yields
cannot equal those of conventional agriculture. For the past 26 years we have
been growing corn and soybeans in replicated, randomized large plots under
organic and conventional farming systems. Over the long haul, among
well-managed organic and conventional systems in our trial, we have seen that
crop yields between these systems are not statistically different.
This key
result was reviewed by panels of scientific peers and published in the highly
regarded international scientific journal Bioscience (Pimentel et al.
2005).
This
year’s superior results with the “holy grail” of organic
cropping—organic no-till—show further potential to improve yield
using the innovative low-input crop system where applicable.
Support needed to improve sustainable systems
The
long-term documentation from our farm’s unique living laboratory provides
results giving us the scientific platform for testing the limits of organic
production strategies.
It’s
true that, in the short-term, organic transition can represent a real
management challenge to create healthy, living soil using a suitable cropping
system. The transition also requires new marketing efforts to capitalize on new
crops and crop attributes.
Despite
these challenges, our studies show that, over the long run, well-executed and
entrepreneurial organic agriculture can be completely competitive with
conventional methods for yield and represents real opportunities for
conventional, sustainable and organic farmers alike.
Conventional
agro-industrial food production has received virtually all food and
agricultural research support over many decades. With a jump up to an allocated
$3 million per year for the current Farm Bill, organic is still less 1 percent
of the pie. We believe that with additional research and attention, organic
agriculture will surpass the productivity of high-input agriculture.
Research, demonstration and field production at The
Rodale Institute are yielding important activities to improve our agriculture
and food systems. Imagine the potential of a more broadly supported initiative.
[log in to unmask]">
2. MSU
launches Spring Semester 2007 UN Decade of Education for
Sustainable
Development speaker series
at 7:30pm in Erickson
Kiva (103), East Lansing, MI (MSU campus)
Speakers in the series:
March 14, 7:30 pm, 105
S. Kedzie, Dr. Debra Rowe, President, U.S.
Partnership for
Education for Sustainable Development, "Creating a
Sustainable Future -
What Every Educator and Student Needs to Know"
April 4, 4:00 pm, 228
Erickson, Dr. Julie Fox Gorte, Vice President and
Chief Social Investment
Strategist, Calvert Group, "Financing Our
Future - Higher Ed's
Responsibility for Teaching and Practicing
Responsible
Investing"
April 11, 7:30 pm, 105
S. Kedzie, Laury Hammel, author of "Growing
Local Value: How to
Build Business Partnerships That Strengthen Your
Community", owner
and president, The Longfellow Clubs, "Healthy
Individuals and Healthy
Communities - How Can Higher Education Help"?
Sponsors for the series
include MSU's Office of Campus Sustainability,
CS Mott Group for
Sustainable Food Systems, MSU Auxiliary Services
(HFS), Residential
Initiative for the Study of Environment (RISE),
Sustainable Michigan
Endowed Project (SMEP), Department of Educational
Administration, Program
in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, and
the Dr. Mildred B.
Erickson Chair in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong
Education, and the
Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability,
and Community,
Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies (CARRS).
For more information
contact:
Terry Link, Director
Office of Campus
Sustainability
Michigan State
University
106 Olds Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824
1-517-355-1751
(Phone/fax)
]