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Re: Soil management around trees
> Steve Diver wrote:
> >
> > Vegetation control around trees is the single most important
> > factor. This has been proven to be true in countless
> > research trials and through decades of experience by tree
> > planters and landscapers. It outweighs fertility and irrigation.
> >
.....................Stuff deleted.....
Eduard writes back:
> Hello Steve, thank you for your information. I'm looking for
> references and suggestions in order to develop soil management according
> to sustainable agriculture. On my opinion soil crops losted their
> capability of autoregulation as they losted their own ecosystem.
>
> I'm interested in soil management (specially in semiarid zones
> such the Mediterranean and Californian are), and related items as
> microclima, soil ecosystem, herbaceous comunities, fertilizers (I work
> in a fertilizer company), etc.
>
> If I could help you in some way, please mail me.
>
> Yours: Eduard
Eduard,
I gather you are looking for a wide range of information and
literature citations and references on:
soil management according to sustainable agriculture
especially in Mediterranean and California climates
microlima,
soil ecosystem
herbaceous communities
fertilizers
This is a huge request because each topic in itself is so
broad. I suggest a major university library and access to
databases such as AGRICOLA, CAB Abstracts, and AGRIS.
Also, look for literature reviews in such journals as
Advances in Agronomy, Annual Reviews of ...., etc.
The National Agricultural Library in Beltsville, Maryland,
has already compiled many many Quick Bibliographies and
Special Reference Briefs on a wide range of topics. This
is the best place to start because they have already
conducted keyword searches of AGRICOLA and listed the
references. They have a Web Site and they also manage a
Bulletin Board System called ALF (Agricultural Library
Forum). ALF can be accessed through FedWorld.
If you have access to the Web, just type in these key words
(National Agricultural Library, ALF, and FedWorld) on a search
engine such as WebCrawler and you will no doubt find them.
If you don't have access to the Web, you can ask at your
university library about NAL publications (QB and SRB).
The information you are looking for exists. There is a
mountain of good information to support sustainable
agriculture.
Is there any question left that sustainable agriculture
practices are viable and point towards the future?
It is just a matter of choice that some farmers do no adopt.
And this choice is largely affected by the many barriers
such as economic, peer pressure, stagnant culture,
industrial agriculture paradigm versus biological
cooperation paradigm, etc.
The role of the many players such as innovative farmers,
extension service, farm advisors, and non-profits is to
create educational, demonstration, and economic
opportunities for whole watersheds of farmers to adopt
sustainable agricultural practices.
But alas, there is still the planetary wide problem of
transportation and packaging. Regardless whether the
agriculture is so-called conventional or so-called
sustainable, the pollution and earth-tapping of oil
into gas and diesel, coupled with mountains of plastic
and cardboard packaging outweigh the simple adoption of
a practice such as cover crop versus bare soil.
Thus, we need a really visionary group of leaders at
the highest levels who can stand up and put focus on
these life-threatening tragedies in the making. Already
school children in Austalia are required to weat hats
at playtime because the ozone is so thin due to carbon
monoxides from the stupid automobile. The solar rays which
give life....now they take life in the form of skin cancer.
The leaders will have to say to the corporations and
engineers, "Deliver a vehicle that runs on non-polluting
resources or else you're in big trouble."
It ain't a "we" (organic types) versus "them" (corporate
agriculture types) situation.
No way. We are all in it together. We drive to the
permaculture workshop to discuss ways to save the planet?
We package organic basil in plastic clam-shell packages
to ship across the country? What difference has it made
to raise it organically and then enter the earth-polluting
stream of transportation and packaging?
Will it take massive numbers of biological indicator species
(Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, sperm-reduced males, Mad Cows,
dissapearing frogs, etc.) before the world peoples get fed up
and demand a system-wide change, or will some visionary leaders
rise from outside the current power structure and lead the way...
before super tragedy strikes?
Well, after reading all of this you may not want to read
that agricultural literature available at your
university library because look what kind of radical
farm advisor it has turned me into.
Jesse Jackson once said at a speech on campus,
"Is it radical or reasonable?"
Steve Diver