Paul Gautschi - no till method

[mountaindweller]

The bushcare ladies would beat you now castanea. Yes there's stuff growing under a gum tree, but it's all native. People here if they do vegetable gardening at all mostly do sheet mulching (Aussies are not exactly workaholics) and I see quite some healthy veggie gardens under gum trees despite the poisonous leaves falling onto them, but it is sheet mulched. I use the stuff for Hügelkultur beds and I don't think there is a disadvantage. You must use what you have anyway. What is really true that I like having some decidious trees, because they give me leaf mould and gum trees never do that, this is why Australia is so infertile.

[raymondo]

Jul 4, 2012 1:14:01 GMT -5 mountaindweller said:

...What is really true that I like having some decidious trees, because they give me leaf mould and gum trees never do that, this is why Australia is so infertile.

Australia's low fertility, compared to Europe say, is because it is the oldest exposed land surface on the earth. There's been no geological activity, except erosion, for perhaps millions of years. Many minerals are now in the oceans. Our vegetation is a result of that low fertility, not the cause of it.

[circumspice]

Desertification?

[raymondo]

Jul 7, 2012 23:55:10 GMT -5 circumspice said:

Desertification?

Not really, just old and tired. European settlement hasn't helped any either. The early settlers used their European farming practices here and on the whole the effects have not been positive! Only now are some Australian farmers beginning to realise they need a different approach.

[caledonian]

I'm surprised there have been no attempts to culture kelp in the oceans, then produce compost with it. You'd think someone would have tried it as a way of resupplying soils with micronutrients.

[edwin]

I wonder if it would work on asparagus beds.

I don't think I'd be too quick to put salt on my veggie beds again

[raymondo]

A good idea for coastal regions but even then I doubt it could be done on a scale that would have much of an impact.

[castanea]

Jul 8, 2012 8:08:09 GMT -5 caledonian said:

I'm surprised there have been no attempts to culture kelp in the oceans, then produce compost with it. You'd think someone would have tried it as a way of resupplying soils with micronutrients.

There are companies that sell agricultural extracts derived from kelp but I don't think anyone does it on a very large scale. The real problem in the US is that farmers have bought into the idea that growing crops with only N, P anf K fertilizer is just fine. And most medical doctors, who know as much about nutrition as squirrels know about nuclear physics, say that food grown on mineral depleted soils will supply all of your nutritional needs. So as long as the prevailing paradigm in the US is that minerals are unneeded, there won't be any large scale culturing of kelp here.

[raymondo]

I strongly suspect the same applies here castanea. There are indeed seaweed products available, as well as humified mineral products. From what I can tell though, only a small percentage of farmers are interested in remineralising their land. Oddly though, in the area that I live, a sheep and cattle area, I'd say the majority of farmers are looking at ways to improve things soil-wise. Mind you, that's a drop in the ocean really.

[caledonian]

Jul 8, 2012 8:13:57 GMT -5 edwin said:

I wonder if it would work on asparagus beds.

I don't think I'd be too quick to put salt on my veggie beds again

Well, you DO need to rinse off the kelp before using it. But the plant itself doesn't have especially high levels of NaCl.

I can't think of *any* sustainable ways to remineralize soil other than selectively removing it from the oceans with algae. Rock dust has all the obvious disadvantages.

[bonsaioutlaw]

What are some of the obvious disadvantages of rock dust?