On 8/16/07, Peter Todd wrote: > > A similar issue is how often when you trace where nutrients are coming > from you find that organic farming is indirectly dependent on chemical > fertilizers. Farming will always remove nutrients from the soil, for the > obvious reason that plants are made up of more than carbon, oxygen and > nitrogen. Organic farming is often heavilly dependent on adding > manure to the soil to make up for that loss. But, where do the nutrients > in the manure come from? Usually from chemical fertilizers, applied > to a nearby non-organic farm... > Like James, I use a mulch method in my vegetable garden and I agree that it difficult to scale to a large scale farming operation. But I have to disagree about using manures to make up for lost trace elements in the soil. Many organic farmers are concerned about using manures because of the antibiotics and other chemicals that are used in the raising of cattle. These people will use ocean based supplements, whether it's seaweed, algae, fish fertilizer, ground shellfish shells, etc. It's a wonder that our farming society has survived for 2000+ years without petroleum based fertilizers at all! ;-) Alex -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist