Steve Diver
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>From ddale@cce.cornell.eduThu Apr 6 11:38:26 1995
>Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 05:26:29 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Dick Dale <ddale@cce.cornell.edu>
>To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
>Cc: Dick Dale <ddale@cce.cornell.edu>
>Subject: Soil quality and Biodynamics
To watch this discussion evolve from what is involved in soil quality
to whether or not Biodynamics is a sustainable and beneficial system
of agriculture has truly been fascinating. The truth is, the things we
measure when we talk about soil quality are only the tip of an
enormous iceberg. And the same may be said when we go about designing
experiments to demonstrate the effects of Biodynamics. I have been
acquainted with Biodynamics for over twenty years. There is ample
research to demonstrate that Biodynamics does work in some sense.
Although most of the research has been done by thos within the B.D.
movement, that is not sufficient reason to dismiss it. After all, they
are the ones who have some understanding of it, plus, other
researchers have not been quick to examine it. However, remember what
I said about the subtlety of the effects we are talking about, too.
Since Biodynamics is a system of farming, it should be examined
holistically, by comparing a B.D. farm with a conventional or organic
farm in the same region. Western Germany before the unification
studied B.D. farms in this manner and found real differences in
productivity, use of farm labor, farm income, etc. Ther have aslo been
shown to be real differences in in the quality of produce grown using
Biodynamic methods. Using the B.D. preparations or Pfeiffer's compost
starter has been shown to have reproducible effects on compost. I
could go on, but I would suggest that anyone who is interested should
consult either Bio-Dynamic Agriculture by H.H. Koepf, B.D. Pettersson
and W. Schaumann, or Culture and Horticulture by Wolf Storl.
Which brings me back to the original question, is there a demonstrable
effect on soil quality with the use of composted manure vs. raw
manure, something that Ann Clark talked about. She said that it should
be better to compost organic materials before applying them to the
soil. You can try this out in your home garden, and I don't think
there is any question, a compost pile can work a lot better than sheet
composting. My point is, however, that it was a Biodynamic idea to
compost farm manure in the first place (at least in recent Western
circles). The reasoning was that where you have a limited amount of
animal manure and other organic wastes available to provide nutrients
to a farm, you should be applying them in a manner that conserves and
makes the best use of these materials. What a good compost does is
stabilize the organic matter and make it into long-lasting humus. You
may lose some nitrogen and some of the gross yield-increasing effects,
but the soil will benefit more from an application of compost than one
of fresh manure. There are other benfits of composting as well. To
B.D. farmers, that question was important, because they were not
importing feeds and fertilizers from off the farm. They were
interested in the farm as a functioning organism - sustainable, in
other words, living and viable.
Dick Dale
Crop Consultant, Central NY Crop Management Association
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