Roberto Verzola wrote:
> >another version of this thread) is that when vegetables are grown
> >side-by-side on the same soil (the only difference being fertility)
> >the mineral content _may_ be very close. That's one aspect of organic
>
> But isn't this precisely one difference between organic and chemical
> farming? The organic farmer improves the soil while the chemical
> farmer destroys the soil. You can't therefore insist on "same soil"
> conditions, because the soils will become very different between
> organic farms and chemical farms.
>
> Roberto
I'm talking about scientific validity.
In order to conduct the experiment (and accurately report results from said
experiment), the fewer variables that are dependent (i.e. under control of
the experimenter) the better. When results like these are compared from two
different fields then there will always be a question of soil property
differences. However, if the experiment is run side-by-side
(organic-synthetic, in a randomized complete block, or split plot design)
then the experiment carries much more weight by eliminating soil differences
that could be said to cause the differences (as Joel so eloquently pointed
out).
The nay-sayers want to doubt the experiments anyway (e.g. the agribusiness
community, and the Dennis and Alex Averies in our midst). Careful
experimental design would eliminate the potential problems with
mis-interpretation of data. . .Russ
--------------------
Russ Bulluck
Visiting Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Plant Pathology
1 Shields Ave
UC-Davis
Davis, CA 95616
lrbulluck@ucdavis.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------
The soil population is so complex that it manifestly cannot
be dealt with as a whole with any detail by any one person,
and at the same time it plays so important a part in the soil
economy that it must be studied.
--Sir E. John Russell
The Micro-organisms of the Soil, 1923
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