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Re: [compost_tea] Tilling and tea don't mix.



Dear Jeff:
 
Laying tillage on Jethro Tull is a bit naive, old man. Plows and hoes have been around so long that really ancient poetry can be found expressing a dispute between the two of them....
 
see http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture09/r_9-1.html
 
Plows were depicted in ancient Babylon as well, see
 
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture09/fig_9-09a.html
 
Plows were known in ancient China,  and in the New World among the Inca, as well as in the Middle East.
 
The Wikipedia defines tillage as "the agricultural preparation of the soil to receive seeds".
 
I would also refer you to Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower, 2nd edition, for a very up to date discussion of the need for, and better ways to perform, tillage in field scale vegetable production.
 
Coleman, and many other organic growers, also practice cultivation of the soil to eliminate weed pressure on crops. Such surface cultivation, while not as problematic as deep tillage, also plays havoc with normal foodweb interactions, but it is hard to avoid the reality that weed pressures can seriously affect quality and yield of crops.
 
I know Elaine has met with Eliot at least a few times and I know that Eliot presents as a difficult to achieve ideal a no-till approach, but as Elaine has said many times, there are times when tillage is necessary. We therefore should not utter simplistic absolutes, but adopt a more supple 'Canadian comprise' approach---tillage if necessary, but not necessarily tillage.
 
Can ya dig it?
 
;-)
 
Frank Teuton---who has been Faulknered, Pfeiffered and Stouted on tillage, not to mention Uncle Billed (that'd be Mollison) and Wes Jacksoned, as well as Gene Logsdoned....
 
Here's a pithy quote from a dead white guy found on a live compost guy's home page:
 
http://www.abe.iastate.edu/Faculty/tlr/Praxis.htm
 
 "The plow is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions;
     but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly plowed, and still continues to be thus
     plowed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have
     played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized
     creatures."

     Darwin, C.R. 1881. The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with
     Observations on their Habits (Chapter 7). Murray, London.
     Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882).

 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:45 PM
Subject: [compost_tea] Tilling and tea don't mix.

Let's see if we can't clear up this tilling thing for those who are not clear that using tea requires a good understanding of the soil foodweb and what it needs and doesn't in addition to tea.  The ICTC site (http://www.intlctc.org/  and Dr. Elaine's site( www.soilfoodweb.com) should be on your list. 
 
Why do people till? Yeah, yeah, "to put organics back into the soil". They have no idea the idea comes from a 17th century lawyer who thought that roots ate particles of soil and so the smaller you made them, the easier it is for the plants to eat.  Pulverize he said and for some reason everyone did and most gardeners and farmers still do in the form of disc plowing or rototilling.
 
Back when he proposed heavy turning of the soil, this country lawyer from England had no idea that breaking up the soil would work really great in areas where you had virgin soils like the United States. This was back in George Washington and Tom Jefferson time when their was lots of movement into America forests to create farm land...
 
Worked great because they killed off the fungal domination in the forest soils they were turning into ag soils.  Bacteria thrived and their crops were nitrate lovers and thus bacterially dominated soil is perfect.(Corn likes an F:B of .8 to 1.0).
 
Too bad they didn't realize they needed some of that fungi to keep soil structure, and help buffer pH and to grow even better corn. Too bad they continued to till year in and year out so that they killed worms and displaced all the soil foodweb that did live there....and too bad they started the whole practice of rototilling in home gardens as well. .
 
Unless you want fast bacterial domination where there was once fungal, why till?  Not because Jethro Tull said to.
 
You may still need to break up some of the soil, but you sure don't have to turn it over like most do. You can go shallow and you can drill plant, shallow furrow plow, etc.
 
And to bring it all back to ACT: compost, mulches and ACT in the fall should put the foodweb to work so that by spring there are plenty of good organics back in the soil. 
 
And ACT after you do disturb the soil will help get it some structure again etc.......
 
Cheers,
 
JEFF   


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