Re: Mustard meal seed treatment

From: Elaine Ingham (Soilfoodweb@AOL.COM)
Date: Tue Jan 21 2003 - 08:38:19 EST


Hi Dale,

I don't really care how small the area affected is, if you have to kill a
bunch of organisms in order to get a plant to grow, the soil isn't healthy.

Don't confuse healthy soil with "we can get the plants to grow if we add in
bunches of chemicals and lots of fertilizer."

If we put you in intensive care in the hospital, we can keep you alive. But
it is not healthy. We can grow plants with extensive inputs of chemicals
too, but it's not healthy.

Brassica and the cyanate or glycosinylate compounds are not that common.
They occupy a certain stage in any successional process. The crops among
these groups of plants do not occupy that much cropland in the US, or
anywhere in the world that I am aware.

But where you can use them, why not? But please be aware that decomposition
of brassica elevates the actinobacteria, and the work by Rose back in 1984 or
so, and our own observations in field soils strongly indicate that
actinobacteria are not beneficial for plants that need mycorrhizal
colonization. Lack of mycorrhizal colonization can be a big problem, if your
plant needs mycorrhizal colonization.

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com


.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Apr 21 2003 - 15:26:37 EDT