[snip ... much deleted]
> LionKuntz' recent posts have contained some interesting ideas... but I
>
> think think his/her style and lack of accuracy in describing some
> soil ecology/plant physiology/farm finance concepts (e.g. Magnesium not
> Molybdenum is the central atom in chlorphyll molecules, sundried tomatoes
> don't sell for $250/lb, hundreds of tons/acre of compost are an
> environmental
==========================================
Lion >> I admit to being far from my familiar library, unable to return to a
book or article at any moments notice. I also admit that age has played
tricks on my memory so that occasionally I make a mistake in recall of
something I read years before. Magnesium very well be the element which my
memory should have recalled, but molybdenium still sticks in my mind. It is
not a critical life-or-death, success-or-failure error. It was equally
relevent whether it is molybdenum or magnesium, in the context of the writing
of microbial/plant co-evolution and exchange of elements and services.
I never said that tomatos sell for $250/lb. A lady farmer was profiled in
the Santa Rosa Press Democrat last summer for growing her business to ten
million dollars per year on ten acres, concentrating mostly on sun-dried
tomatoes, but also including some dried fruits in her product line. She uses
organic farming methods. At the time the article appeared I was daily driving
through the valley she operates in, and promised myself that I would stop in
one day when I felt like it and see her operation. I didn't ever stop in, and
now my memory will not cooperate to reproduce every article I ever read in
every newspaper in my life on demand. I can however give instructions on how
to drive north from Healdburg on US-101until the geysers exit, turn left under
the freeway and go past the big black winery sign, go about four miles until
you meet a T-intersection, turn left and go about 1 mile and ask around at
that first country store for the name and address of the place. Check it out
for yourselves if any of you are in Northern California. Now my memory is not
as bad as yours.
I have an excuse or reason why my slip of the key came out with the wrong
word, but what is your excuse in butchering my statements and exact words that
were right in front of you only this past week? Why caricature my writings?
The public peer-review process will quickly dispose of the
molybdenum/magnesium controversy so we can all sleep better at night.
Everybody who writes takes a chance of making a misstatement or being found in
error. I take my chances, and accept my lumps, when I deserve them. You are
trying to invalidate everything I ever said by making an object of ridicule.
If that molybedenum/magnesium issue is the only concrete error you can find,
than I actually didn't give you much leeway to find errors in my statements on
the Roots of Fertility, did I? If you don't like it that some lady can make
$10 million than you can't, take it up with her -- she's real, although people
often lie about their incomes.
==========================================
> hazard) has obscured some of the practical soil ecology concepts that are
> applicable to all farming system that are trying to cost effectively
> sustain soil productivity.
==========================================
Lion >> I obscured nothing. Compost is not a hazard. The exercise in math
only clarified that my ideas are not applicable on the large-scales some call
small-scale, which I myself presented to amplify that I am not, definately
not, advocating stewarding more land than one can do wisely and well. The
average forest floor has hundreds of tons of compost on the floor per acre.
It is you who are making exaggerated statements that this is a hazard, and you
ought to cite your references for such a statement. That too is peer review,
being challenged when you make a misstatement which obscured the truth of the
Roots of Fertility article I wrote.
==========================================
> Healthy soil will perform functions such as nutrient cycling,
> bioturbation (biological tillage), suppression of soilborne pests
> and diseases, filtration and storage of water, preservation of
biodiversity...
> that are replaced to varying degrees by mechanical tillage, pesticides,
> fertilizers, irrigation... in industrial model agricultural systems...
[ snip ... much deleted]
>
> If LionKuntz has a system such as the one he/she proposes in current
> operation, lets hear more about it...
>
> I am lucky to have my families 15 acre homestead to use for many
> agricultural/foodsystem experiments... one that I have tried each fall for
> the last several years is only eating food grown on my families land... as
> I embark on this falls dietary experiment, I encourage LionKuntz to join
> me... we can compare experiences in a couple months...
==========================================
Lion >> Why don't you make a similar challenge to each and every participant
on this group? Dale, Misha, Gordon, Douglas, etc.: you all cannot talk about
anything which you don't personally grow, according to these new rules.
==========================================
> To those of you out there that want more practical discussion.. start
> throwing out some practical questions... lists of questions like
> the one posted by Dale Wilson are perhaps too monumental for busy people
> to tackle all at once...
>
==========================================
Forget the lists. Post answers to sustainable farming which is
economically sound, ecologically compatible, and humanly possible. Or just
post one question you personally want an immediate answer to. Or post an
informational article, or post an opinion, or post a rhetorical question which
provokes people to think deeper and reach inside themselves for their secret
feelings. All of these things are practical. In the six days between Joel's
message and this reply, 18 species have gone extinct. Post how you feel about
that, and practical things farmers can do to make living space for other
creatures. Post how your kids are dying from cancer and you think its
connected to the local agriculture practices but you can't prove it. Maybe
somebody will respond with practical steps you can take. Why are you making
new rules Joel? The First Amendment really bugs you, doesn't it? You don't
want me to have it or use it, do you?
I have said that I speak for the voiceless species in the councils which
arbitrate their fates. My lungs are directly connected to the green leaves of
the plants and through their roots to the microherd. It is one vast connected
web of life. I am not made smaller by refusing to be a species apart, masters
of the universe in their own minds. By being part of the ecology I am as
large as the world. Once you make that fundament transformation you cannot
treat the biosphere as nothing but raw material for fast food shacks serving
tattooed tounge-pierced generation-X spawn of couch-potatos. This is the only
habitable planet the Hubble telescope can actually find, and you can't afford
to blow it. These are the kind of statements that create critics who get
apoplectic and can't read the actual words I write. In my way I write very
very very practical things which pass right through without registering.
Ecologically-Synergistically yours, Lion Kuntz
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