Welcome to a Sustainable Farm
Some of the different animals and compost piles (click to enlarge):
Aerated compost tea with ingredients:
Charcoal and river rock powder:
Mulching and beneficial soil microorganisms
Aerated compost tea for disease prevention and soil and plant nutrition
- 7 to 10 pounds of compost (mix of 50% worm, 50% thermal composts)
- 1 pound of kelp (Maxi-Crop, Acadian, Sea Kelp)
- 1/2 gallon humic acid (Hydrahume, Terra Vita, Horizon Ag or Turf Pro liquid products all seem to work really well)
- 1/2 gallon fish hydrolysates, protein meals like alfalfa meal, soy meal, oatmeal, barley meals for fungal tea
- 1 liter/quart of unsoldered molasses (for beneficial bacteria microorganism production)
- 1 liter/quart of EM (effective microorganisms)
- Alternative ingredients: Instead of kelp: algae (e.g., blue-green cyan bacteria), rock dusts or rock flours, paramagnetic material
Brew these ingredients in container in non-chlorinated water with an aerator motor for 18-24 hours and apply in the early morning hours.
Visit Dr. Elaine Ingham’s website - soilfoodweb.com - for more info and details about the benefits of compost tea.
More on Sustainable Farming from www.Attra.org
Sustainable agriculture seeks in principle to promote economic viability, environmental stewardship, and social responsibility. These three tenets are to be embraced as one functional unit. Decisions concerning a sustainable agriculture should then enhance the environment and the farmer's economic situation and benefit the regional society. Holistic Management gives us a way to move forward on these three tenets. It gives us a way to design agriculture to truly mimic nature's principles of sustainability. It gives us a way to make decisions that automatically take into account the society, the economics, and the environment before they are made.
To better understand how nature functions, her basic processes need to be considered. Looking closely, four basic processes can be found in all natural systems. First, water falls to earth as rain, filters through the soil and is either taken up by plants or continues downward to become ground water. When water is cycling effectively, floods are infrequent and of lower impact, water is released slowly through underground flow into springs and streams, and erosion is virtually non-existent. If on the other hand, bare soil is exposed and plant density is low, most water runs off the landscape rapidly resulting in soil erosion, much less water entry into the soil, and severe and more frequent flooding. So, an effective water cycle is apparent in nature and essential to a sustainable agriculture.
A second natural process we can observe in nature is the mineral cycle through the biological system. Minerals needed for biological growth are constantly recycled from soil to plant to animal and back to soil again. There is very little waste in the natural mineral cycle. There is no need for fertilizer in nature, as all the fertility is recycled again and again with very little loss. Ultimately, to be sustainable, we need to find ways to utilize the natural mineral cycle while minimizing our off-farm purchase of minerals. Farming practices that inhibit the natural mineral cycle, only reduce the sustainability of our farm.
A third natural process shows us that plant and animal communities strive toward
high biodiversity. Not only is diversity high in the numbers of species,
but also the genetic diversity within species, and a wide age structure of
each population present. Greater diversity produces greater stability within
the system. It also assures minimal pest problems. Large expanses of monoculture
represent a simple level of diversity. Monocultures are almost never present
in nature. Monocultures require great energy expenditure, either with fossil
fuels or animal and human power to maintain. Weed invasion is nature's way
of injecting diversity into monocultural cropland. When biodiversity is increased,
the cost of pest control and fertilizer is decreased.
Crop rotation is the first step toward increasing biodiversity on the farm.
It helps break weed and pest life cycles and provides complementary fertilization
to crops in sequence with each other. Advancing from rotation to strip intercrops
represents an even higher level of biodiversity. Our strip intercropping of
spices, lumber trees, flowering and essential oil plants are several examples.
Increasing habitat for more beneficial organisms with more borders, windbreaks,
and special plantings for natural
enemies of pests such as pennyroyal represent even higher levels of biodiversity
and stability.
The fourth natural process involves the flow of energy from the sun through the biological system. The sun is the fuel driving the biology of our farm. Energy flows from the sun through the ecosystem from one level to the next. Sunlight is absorbed by the green plant, enabling it to grow. Plants are eaten by animals that are in turn eaten by predators which are eaten by even higher predators. During each step, energy is being transferred from one level to the next. Energy is transferred below ground through plant roots that eventually die. The dead roots become food for decomposer organisms. The waste and by- products from the primary decomposers are consumed by another set of secondary decomposers. Finally the residue is broken down into plant available nutrients and soil humus. At each step of the decomposition process, energy is either transferred from one organism to another or is lost as heat.
In summary, the holistic decision-making process incorporates values-based goal setting, the appropriate use of tools, financial planning, land planning, biological planning, and careful monitoring of effects. All these aspects are managed as a whole unit. The benefits are higher quality of life, financial stability, consistent profitability, and the confidence of knowing that your decisions are improving the environment and the community you live in. It provides people with a means to make decisions that more accurately mirror the way nature functions (in wholes), and thereby ensure that our civilization is truly sustainable over time.
By Preston Sullivan
NCAT Agriculture Specialist
July 2001
www.attra.ncat.org
