While we don’t have to worry about starvation like the Irish due to lack of crop diversity, it is interesting that we are seeing the same mold that caused the Irish Potato Famine widespread in the USA now. – Anthony
Potato famine disease striking home gardens in U.S.
Reuters – Dark brown lesions on stems, with white fungal growth developing under moist conditions, are characteristic … By Julie Steenhuysen Julie Steenhuysen – Fri Jul 10, 5:22 pm ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms, U.S. plant scientists said on Friday.
“Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States,” said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University’s extension center in Riverhead, New York.
She said the fungal disease, spread by spores carried in the air, has made its way into the garden centers of large retail chains in the Northeastern United States.
“Wal-mart, Home Depot, Sears, Kmart and Lowe’s are some of the stores the plants have been seen in,” McGrath said in a telephone interview.
The disease, known officially as Phytophthora infestans, causes large mold-ringed olive-green or brown spots on plant leaves, blackened stems, and can quickly wipe out weeks of tender care in a home garden.
McGrath said in her 21 years of research, she has only seen five outbreaks in the United States. The destructive disease can spread rapidly in cooler, moist weather, infecting an entire field within days.
“What’s unique about it this year is we have never seen plants affected in garden centers being sold to home gardeners,” she said.
This year’s cool, wet weather created perfect conditions for the disease. “Hopefully, it will turn sunny,” McGrath said. “If we get into our real summer hot dry weather, this disease is going to slow way down.”
FUNGICIDES WILL CONTROL BLIGHT
According to its website, the University Maryland’s Plant Diagnostic Lab got a suspect tomato sample as early as June 12, very early in the tomato growing season, which runs from April-September.
McGrath said the risk is that many gardeners will not recognize it, putting commercial farms and especially organic growers at risk.
“My concern is for growers. They are going to have to put a lot more time and effort in trying to control the disease. It’s going to be a very tough year,” she said.
“This pathogen can move great distances in the air. It often does little jumps, but it can make some big leaps.”
McGrath said the impact on the farmer will depend on how much the pathogen is spread. “Eastern New York is seeing a lot of disease,” she said.
She said commercial farmers will be able to use fungicides containing chlorothalonil to control the blight.
And while some sprays have also been approved for organic use, many organic farmers do not use them, making it much harder to control.
“If they are not on top of this right from the very beginning, it can go very fast,” she said.
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E.M.Smith (04:26:42)12th
Regarding bill (12:41:56)11th; Francis(18:47:13)11th; bruce cobb (06:37:39)12th
Here are non-Wikipedia statements of the same meteorological formulas:
Beaumont Period
“Period of 48 consecutive hours, in at least 46 of which the hourly readings of temperature and relative humidity at a given place have not been less than 20_C and 75%, respectively, the occurrence of this period has been widely used as a criterion for issuing warnings of the onset of potato blight.”
Smith Period
“A full Smith Period has occurred when: At least two consecutive days where min temperature is 10C or above and on each day at least 11 hours when the relative humidity is greater than 90%.”
LP Smith worked in agricultural meteorology for the British Met Office. He reworked the existing Beaumont periods for shorter periods of greater humidity.
Quote: “The first duty of a scientist is not to worship knowledge, but to question it.”
bill (12:41:56)llth was right:
“The temperature has to be ABOVE 10C/20C and humid
It is not cold damp conditions.”
You misstate the situation. These parallel formulas both use minimum temperatures. You introduce the interval between them, as if it had some significance, or meaning.
“…but 50(10C) to 68F(20C) with 75% or more RH…” Say no more…
bill(12:41:56)11th also said it better than Francis(18:47:13)11th.
I plead the Phoenix heat: 106F inside my apartment. Thankfully, the repairman has finally arrived.
Can anyone give me info re how this damp and cool weather effects the various fungi and bacteria that attack the grapevine ? tonight, in SE Mich, the low will be 50degrees F.
Jim (12:28:21) :
You may have highlighted a situation where “organically grown” produce is competitive, but by and large it is not competitive with traditionally raised produce. Even 10% more is too much
My mistake Tesco is 5% more expensive!!!
Riverford organics £16.45 per box
Tesco standard product £17.24 (itemised below)
http://www.riverford.co.uk/produce/thisweeksbox/
http://www.tesco.com/superstore/frames/default.asp?buttons=&url=/superstore/frames/main.asp
new potatoes UK 2.00
bunched carrots UK 1.50
bunched onions UK 1.00
broad beans UK 2.00
salad pack UK 1.40
cucumber UK 0.70
basil UK* 0.79
portobello mushrooms UK 2.00
tomatoes UK 1.00
radishes UK 0.67
sugarsnap peas UK 2.00
aubergine NL 1.18
rhubarb UK 1.50
bill (14:56:26) :
Are you sure you’re comparing organics to “standard”?
The Tesco site you linked requires registration, but here’s a comment someone made a while back.
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/online-shops/riverford-co-uk/1027227/
If the “standard” product is now 17.24, that would be quite a price increase.
John M (16:03:46) :
Yes it was standard product – not organic and not their special products. Riverford delivery is also included “free”. I would suggest that the prices are suficciently close to be the same (accurate comparison is difficult).
@Chilly Bean
“Here in the uk we are preparing for events like this by banning the most effective fungicides such as Procymidone because we will no longer need them in our warming climate.”
Please produce a veritable link for that.
What upsets me most about “organic farming” is the rejection of clever chemistry – in the way that old remedies like lemon juice, vinegar and honey used to be used for many illnesses. It was because there was nothing better known in those days. Organic farming is a philosophy that does not fit in the Top Science Blog. It is the antithesis.
When you do the science rather than the gut feeling approach, you find statements like these:
Is Organic Farming Sustainable?
http://www.sustainablefarming.info
Consumers pay premium prices for organic produce in the belief that organic farming is more environmentally sensitive than conventional agriculture. However, the scientific literature shows that organic farming can have serious environmental implications along with reduced productivity and economic returns. The booklet by Samuel P. Stacey, which can be downloaded in PDF format (817 KB), reviews the published literature on organic farming, with particular reference to broadacre farming, and questions whether organic farming really is sustainable in the medium to long-term. Certainly, the existing literature shows up widespread serious deficiencies in nutrient management, underscoring the need for improved knowledge and further research on organic systems.
http://www.bml.csiro.au/susnetnl/netwl45E.pdf
Within these references are scientific statements like “Losses in New Zealand have been reported at 42% for organic barley and 32% for organic wheat”. (2 references).
There are also non-science statements like “Biodynamic preparations are made by burying cow horns over winter, that have been packed with manure, herbs and animal organs … the microbial and chemical analyses of biodynamic preparations are secondary to the concentrating effect of the growth of life forces present in the earth during winter”. (2 refs)
I was not having a go at the EU. I was specifically ridiculing those misguided people who believe in organic farming. What quackery!
I rest my case.
Rust , blight, details details…
OK, so I said rust when I ought to have said blight. And the year was 1970.
E.M.Smith (06:58:03) :
John A (16:36:07) : So its not a stretch to say that the organic food fad has put the stability of basic foodstuffs at risk and that prices will rise.
As a great example of why this statement is very wrong, see the link below about the Southern Leaf Blight of 1970 and how we “only” lost 15% of the nations corn crop (with up to 80% at risk due to being of the same genetic type). It’s not the organic folks who are putting the whole food supply at risk, it’s the monoculture hybrid seed folks… AND we have an existence proof in the 1970 blight.
It, too, had a weather component, and as the story points out, but for a change of weather we could have lost a much larger part of the corn crop… In the aftermath, what resistant seeds were available were distributed based on where they were least likely to have blight, based, yes, on the expected weather. You get a real feeling for just how much agriculture is in tune with, and dependent on, moment by moment weather predictions.
The guy at greatest risk of “going under” is the “conventional” farmer with a monoculture dependent on specific chemicals to keep it alive. See the history of the corn rust outbreak of the ’70s (IIRC… but it might have been the early ’80s) where we were on the edge of losing the entire US corn crop because it was all the same cultivar and a fungus figured out how to eat it…
Well, I called it rust and it was blight. The year was 1970. But it wasn’t one cultivar, it was more subtile. The 80% of the cultivars all shared the “T-cytoplasm” type, a male-sterile type used in breeding hybrids of many types, and the blight took advantage of that particular gene.
See:
http://www.victoryseeds.com/information/corn_panic.html
for a decent, if a bit biased, write up of the story. I vaguely remember that there was quite a bit of panic at the peak of the event (at least in farm country…).
THIS is the kind of thing we need to avoid. Wide spread monoculture with narrow gene variation. Unfortunately, it is exactly what we are NOT avoiding. This is why I have a half dozen open pollinated heirloom corn types in my seed freezer. (I can’t have corn, but my family and the rabbits can… so I’m ready to grow “the old types” if I need to.)
A single pint jar of seed packets can hold a couple of dozen types in a freezer. It’s not hard at all to make your own “seed ark”… Put seed packages in the jar, put the lid on, put the jar in the freezer. You now have seeds that will germinate just fine in a decade, or even two (depending on how good and cold your freezer is…)
A couple of gallons of seed packets would plant a small plantation… and can store more varieties than are available at your local seed stores.
Jim (08:10:28) :
E.M.Smith (07:07:06) :
1. I believe the point of defining 30 years as “climate” is because that is long enough to detect a trend.
Unfortunately, it detects “trends” that are only partial phases of repeating cyclical events. This leads to the false belief that we are trending when we are only cycling. It is a fundamental error, but one we all agree to use…
2. If organic farming is so hot, how did we increase the yield per acre by four times since 1866.
Yields per acre have gone up for many reasons. Plant breeding is a large part of it. Look, I’m not a “gung ho pro organic” guy. I’m FINE with dumping all the synthetic fertilizers and spraying all the sprays ANY farmer choses to use. I’m just also FINE with the guy who wants to work his butt off doing it “organic”. BOTH work. BOTH are FINE.
BOTH organic and conventional benefit from things like soil pH and trace nutrient measurement. BOTH benefit from improved plant varieties (though with some differences in which types of breeding programs they use. BOTH benefit from all the mechanization of the modern farm. BOTH have had large increases in productivity since 1866. As I’ve said before, “organic” is more of a pain in the posterior to do since it is more complicated (more manipulation of whole ecosystems) and it is much more labor intensive. But the productivity per acre is not lower, and in many cases it is higher (largely due to that increased labor cost).
It is easy for you to say organic farming can out-produce technology assisted farming, but show me proof. Where’s the study that confirms that.
Google “French intensive system” and you will be up to your eyeballs in reports of the high efficiencies you can achieve. I’m sure you can find a “study” in there somewhere.
For an example of one of the more interesting current “rages”, see the System or Rice Intensification:
http://ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/
That gets big gains in production. It is interesting in that you can use chemicals, or not, and still get large gains. But it is particularly interesting since it shows HOW to get more production in a way that does not depend on chemicals. An organic farmer using SRI will beat the pants off a conventional rice farmer (but only break even against a conventional farmer using SRI too…) and that makes this example particularly useful. Most organic farmers do this kind of “intensification” in their farming, and that’s why they get high yields.
Basically, the question of yields is orthogonal to the question of organic vs conventional. Yields are tied to labor and intensity of effort. Low costs and simpler management are tied to the question of organic vs conventional.
Conventional let a whole lot of folks leave the farm and move to the city, with hand weeding replaced by sprays. In both cases the weeds are gone. The benefit to yield from weed removal is the same in both cases. But one of them takes a whole lot more labor and the other takes more chemical costs.
There is a common belief that farmers are out to produce the absolute maximum yield per acre they can. That is simply not true. They are out to produce the maximum PROFIT per acre. Often, that is achieved with lower outputs than the theoretical maximum. There is an optimum ECONOMIC level of fertilizer, seed, water, and most importantly labor; and those levels are different from the optimum PRODUCTION levels. You are optimizing for a different variable in your production function linear programming model.
Now, many farmers will tell you they want the max production they can get; but they don’t go hiring big crews to hand weed all their fields, and they don’t do soil assays on a per acre basis, and they don’t plant at the closest possible spacing. They know those things will cost more than they will return in profit, even though they would increase yield. What those farmers actually do is to get the most production they can within their standard way of doing business with low costs. They are optimizing locally, not globally. (And that’s OK.)
We are and have been a well-fed nation. Our life expectancy had gone way up, and not all of that is medicine – after all, all the liberal know the US lags in medical care.
While those things are true and good, they are not the issue in organic vs conventional.
Frankly, I’ll have the cheap veggies thank you.
As will I. But often (not always, but often) my local grocer has nearly identical produce at the same price. One marked “organic” the other not. The price differences have come down a lot on many products. And if my neighbor wants to pick out the “organic” one (be it cheaper or not) I think that is FINE. (I often take the organic one if it’s the same price or cheaper, which it sometimes is! Occasionally I’ll pay a bit more if it looks better. Most of the time I grab the one that’s closest to me 😉
A couple of helpful links:
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~christos/articles/cv_organic_farming.html
“Results from the first 8 years of the project show that the organic and low-input systems had yields comparable to the conventional systems in all crops which were tested – tomato, safflower, corn and bean, and in some instances yielding higher than conventional systems (Clark, 1999a). Tomato yields in the organic system were lower in the first three years, but reached the levels of the conventional tomatoes in the subsequent years and had a higher yield during the last year of the experiment (80 t/ha in the organic compared to 68 t/ha in the conventional in 1996). Corn production in the organic system had a higher variability than conventional systems, with lower yields in some years and higher in others.”
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/cs_1
“Conventional corn yield was superior in our early tests, during the years when the soils being farmed organically were going through the transition process and building up their biological activity. Soon, the organic plots entered a long phase (1985 until 1993) when yield was statistically the same as the side-by-side plots of conventionally farmed soil.
Continuous soil improvements after two decades have resulted in dramatic environmental improvements, production resiliency during weather extremes, and—averaged over the past 12 seasons—slightly higher corn yields in the organic system. From 1995 to 2006 organic corn yields (119 bushels per acre) have out-yielded conventional corn yield (110 bu/A). This period included both severe drought years and a record wet summer. (The yield difference between organic and conventional is statistically significant at P=0.03.) ”
And there are others. Google “organic farm yield increase conventional” and wander through it all…
Francis (13:12:24) :
You misstate the situation. These parallel formulas both use minimum temperatures. You introduce the interval between them, as if it had some significance, or meaning.
“…but 50(10C) to 68F(20C) with 75% or more RH…”
You misstate my statement. Sorry if you took the “to” to mean “ranging from low to high as bounds”, my intent was only to site them as a set of lower bounds “cold in the range of 50F lower bound in once case to 68 F lower bound in another”, not as a range with an upper bound. So I have not introduced any interval between them and have not misstated the situation.
My only real point was that 50F is cold, as is 68F cold to cool, especially to folks in the USA in the south and west, doubly so in context of summer gardening temperatures, so the original posting calling those cool is, to my ears, quite accurate. Those temps and dank are more prone to mold growth than 100F, bright sun, and the lower relative humidity that comes with it. (Which is what the original article was saying, IIRC).
BTW, it’s presently 2:30 AM and it’s 50F on my patio… Another cold night in California. Good thing I got tomatoes to set while it was warm, I’ll not be getting new ones set with temps at 50F and below at night. Typically this time of year I’d have the windows wide open and a fan exhausting hot air trying to get the place cooled off to livable. As it is, I just “buttoned up” and I’m contemplating the heater…
John M (12:24:44) : Well, it seems you must be getting one heck of a bargain. Either that or you “conventional” grocery is a 7/11.
Nope. My local retail food chains have organic and non-organic side by side often for about the same price. Mostly what changes is that the organic stuff has more seasonal variation to it (since there are fewer sources and things sometimes must be shipped quite a ways off season).
Now I’m in Silicon Valley / Trendy Town / California, so maybe the increased supply here drives prices down more than in Chicago or on the banks of the Big Muddy; but I don’t think so…
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Consumers+willing+to+pay+a+premium+for+organic+produce.-a0200409391
That is a marketing study of what folks are “willing to pay” and not a production study of “cost to make” or a competitive market study of “price to competition”. Folks will pay more for a lot of things that have no cost increase. ( I know of a welding gas regulator company that makes a chrome oxygen valve for “medical” use and charges WAY more for it, despite the cost to manufacture being roughly equal to the welding regulator… the only difference being the chrome plate. It’s just that medical markets are willing to pay more…)
It is a common belief, but wrong, that cost determines price, especially for specialty items. “Cost plus markup” is the most primitive of pricing strategies you can use. More common today is the market survey that finds what the market will bear, then prices are set with no relationship to costs (other than hopefully being above costs 😉
So here on the loony left coast, organic is not much different in cost from conventional. We have a large supply and a market demand size for organic that is large enough for competition to drive prices toward parity. Someone in a small town in the midwest might well find “organic” to cost 2 or 3 times conventional, but not because it costs more to make, just because the only grocer in town to have it knows they can jack the price up.
For example, I regularly price celery. The store I go to has 3 kinds. Large and small conventional and “organic”. The “organic” typically is priced at identical to the same sized conventional. (Frankly, I suspect they just buy all organic celery and don’t bother to label some of it as “organic”, but their marketing plan has the organic stuff in one section together so they need celery to be in 2 places. That is speculation on my part, though.) Bulk celery at Walmart or Costco is typically about 2/3 the price at this store, though, so comparison across all sellers would find “organic” priced at a premium, when the reality is more that it isn’t sold at the bulk heavy discounters near here at all. (Though the WalMart Superstore did have “organic” IIRC… and it was near, but not at, the conventional price.)
Basically, price tells you next to nothing about cost or efficiency to produce. It tells you much more about the state of seller competition and volume of buyers.
Geoff Sherrington (01:19:06) : What upsets me most about “organic farming” is the rejection of clever chemistry – in the way that old remedies like lemon juice, vinegar and honey used to be used for many illnesses. It was because there was nothing better known in those days. Organic farming is a philosophy that does not fit in the Top Science Blog. It is the antithesis.
You are astoundingly wrong here. Clearly your have strong biases that are preventing you from seeing the science in farming without chemicals.
(Technically, it’s not ‘without chemicals’ so much as it is ‘with a reduced list of chemicals’ since things like nicotine and copper are approved, and you get ammonia from pee and poo rather than from DOW, but it’s still a chemical, but I digress… The bottom line is that it takes more understanding, not less, to work with a smaller pallet of chemicals and a broader pallet of biological properties and interactions.)
An “organic” farmer must know a great deal more about botany of all the different crops and weeds. They must know a great deal more about the life cycle and preferences of insect pests. They must know a great deal more about the life cycle and weaknesses of infections and a broad pallet of ways to treat them. They must know a great deal more about the interactions of different plants (what can be planted together and what can not, and how this impacts pests). The science involved is much more complicated than the conventional approach. That is why most farmers don’t do it, it’s just a pain in the arse to learn all the methods.
In conventional farming I can just dump on “the usual” amount of fertilizers and “the usual” amount of pesticide on “the usual” schedule. Heck, I remember when “integrated pest management” first came out and folks just ignored it. It was easier to just spray on “spray day” and not bother to even look and see if you had pests to spray. (Yes, folks did that, and some still do it.) It is much more a “by rote” business where “organic” is much more adaptive and with a much more subtile understanding of the science of how all these things interact. Just focused a lot more on biology and a little less on chemistry.
Is Organic Farming Sustainable?
The question is silly. My Amish relatives have been running traditional farming for hundreds of years. ALL farming was “organic” for several thousand years and only recently did we start using synthetic chemicals. We have a several thousand year long global existence proof that “organic” farming is sustainable.
Then you cite some folks who do a poor job of it and call that science?
Sheesh. See the links up thread for folks doing it right and out producing conventional (that really ought to be called “chemical tech”, since for most of history the “convention” was “organic” in every way but a certification) with steady increases in yields over time.
Within these references are scientific statements like “Losses in New Zealand have been reported at 42% for organic barley and 32% for organic wheat”. (2 references).
And they just had a near 60% loss in South Africa with Monsanto GM seeds that were bogus. A “lab problem” in fertility. ANY farming method will have times and places that have losses. That isn’t science, that’s just tabloid “my number is bigger than your number”.
There are also non-science statements like “Biodynamic preparations
Please don’t try to confound “organic” with the biodynamic mumbo jumbo. Makes about as much sense as confounding conventional production with the rate of cancer from under power lines crossing a farm. Yes, there are some dope smoking hippies who believe in biodynamics and want to grown an organic product. That does not say a thing about the bulk of the organic farming done in the world. Nor does the racist redneck who owned a farm in my home town say anything about other conventional farmers.
I was not having a go at the EU. I was specifically ridiculing
Yes, you certainly were ridiculing… I was asking you to consider that ridicule says a great deal about you and not so much about organic farming methods and I was suggesting that you might find it more productive to aim at the thing that is really causing grief, that the EU has a one size fits all policy that is broken. You seem to wish to wallow in ridicule. OK, but I won’t join you there.
those misguided people who believe in organic farming. What quackery!
Clearly you have a closed mind filled with errors of understanding and little desire to change. “Non-organic” farming has existed for about 100 years maximum (roughly the era of synthetic chemicals in agriculture, as a guess based on when the Haber process first started) and only really got going about 60 years ago with widespread use of synthetic pesticides. So your statement is a statement that for all of history farming was ‘quackery’ and there were no effective nor efficient farms, until just now, and only done one way. Riiiight…
June 21st I was on an organic farm. Toured the whole place (spread over a few hundred acres near Monterey) and it was a marvel. The farmer who ran it knew more about his crops and processes and ran a more involved operation than any I’ve ever seen in the ‘conventional’ world. He runs a mixed truck vegetable and fruit operation. Most farmers work hard to master one crop. This guy had a couple of dozen going. His wheat field was ready to harvest and looked spectacular. I’ve got a tub of great garlic we hand braided in the field. The strawberry patch was in mid-production and was identical to the ‘conventional’ fields in layout (with black plastic mulch on ridges so the berries never touch dirt) with good yield and great quality. We got to eat them strait from the plant. He was able to identify a particular weed that I’ve been trying to get identified and even told me how to get rid of it without herbicides. Frankly, his operation put to shame the folks in my home town who would farm one of rice, or peaches, or cattle, but that was all the complexity they could, or would handle. If I had to pick a “master farmer” it would be the organic guy.
I rest my case.
I’m sure you do… but perhaps you could stop resting just long enough to go visit a farm and see what actually happens on one. I grew up in farm country raising rabbits, cows, the odd chicken, and some field crops along with a garden. I have a family tradition of farmers for as far back as we have history. I went to an “Ag School” for my college education. I love plants and growing them (and have bacteriology and upper division genetics classes under my belt too) and I’ve developed a few of my own varieties of various garden vegetables. (a large robust cocozelle squash, a sturdy potato, and an oversized purple pod green bean).
You have an opinion…
Dinner tonight was ‘from the garden’: yellow & green squash, sauteed with onions and shallots and a bit of tomato in olive oil & garlic. All the vegetables grown without synthetic chemicals. Just bunny poo. And a lasagna made with commercial organic noodles. But you claim that can’t work. I say existence proof.
Might I suggest that an informed opinion based on practical experience would be more useful.
BTW, I still use “lemon juice and honey” as a “cure”. The acidity with the osmotic pressure from the honey pretty much busts up a wide range of bacteria. The vitamin C helps nuke some viruses too. That is why sugar and acid, like vinegar, are used as food preservatives. So it’s my first step when the throat gets scratchy. (I pick the citrus from the tree by my front door, so total time it takes is about 2 minutes). Works very well and for well understood scientific reasons. In the one case in 10 or more when it’s not enough, well, I’m happy to then waste a day at the doctors getting antibiotics. They also work, but they tend to screw up my gut bacteria, so when I’m done with the course of antibiotics, I need to eat some yogurt to get the plumbing back in order (and less gassy / irritated). FWIW, rabbits have the same problem, only more so. You can kill a rabbit with antibiotics by killing off their gut bacteria that are essential to their lives. Any rabbit farmer needs to know that… so having both antibiotic based “cures” and non-antibiotic based cures is of great benefit.
Why you want to limit yourself to a single small straight jacket is, well, a mystery… but one no longer worth pursuing…
E.M.Smith (02:21:53) : My attitude towards organically grown veggies is similar to my attitude towards solar and wind energy. If it can compete in price and quality without government or other subsidies, then I am fine with it and will even buy it and eat it. Until that happens, I’ll stick to conventionally grown ones.
We may all need a little luck if this continues. Things are getting serious when you see weather reported as financial news. As the old saying goes, follow the money!
Rain washes away tourism dollars in Northeast
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Rain-washes-away-tourism-apf-1837983148.html?x=0
I see a lot of change but no hope!
Mike
E.M.Smith (06:18:24) : said “…So I grow citrus that needs no spray here. There is probably some organic process I could learn to do the apples, but I haven’t had the time. So the rabbits and ‘possums get the apples….”
Yes “organic apples” are the pits to grow. Thats why fruit was eaten with a knife. For apples the Plum Cucurio is the big problem, takes 98% of our crop. A sray with mineral oil while the trees are dorment and chickens to pick off the bugs and pigs to eat the drops would be a real help, but that was illegal in our town. “Composing” the drops (a super bug incubator) was practiced by our neighbor so we gave up.
I am now sitting on 100Ac of old tobacco farm in NC. The Soil survey book shows over 2 feet of the best topsoil in NC. In actual fact the soil is now pure clay (98% inorganic) thanks to “modern farming practices” As a chemist I am not against the intelligent use of petro-chemicals but “organic Farming methods” with recourse to petro-chemicals as a last resort makes more sense if you want to keep the land productive. Unfortunately Obama, the USDA and the FDA will be outlawing the use of manure etc. US citizens cause such an uproar about the food (un)safety bills, Obama decided to side step the issue according to American Vegetable Growers http://www.growingproduce.com/news/avg/?storyid=2146
History of the corporate food monopoly strategy http://yupfarming.blogspot.com/2009/05/food-safety-bills-more-dangerous-than_08.html
Meanwhile here in NC it is 68F and we have yet to hit 100F this year. I have noticed the “reported” highs and lows for my area are ALWAYS 2 to 5F higher than the actual real time temps!
E.M.Smith (05:01:34) : Good Grief, you almost convinced me to shun my warmist-ish ways with that!
One other point about the “veggie box” system is packaging.
The box is reused (52 times over a year and havent seen an unusable one yet)
Packaging is just about non existent
paper bags,
compressed compostable mulch for small boxes (tomatoes, mushrooms),
Any plastic bag is collected with the return box at the time of delivery of the new box.
A recipie leaflet is usually included for oddities (what do you do with chicory?)
The real downside is turnips and swede in winter!
If you check out packaging on supermarket organic produce you will most often find plastic is compostable and trays are compressed paper. The extra cost is included in the higher price you pay for the organics.
Another leading indicator of hard times ahead. Think it’s difficult now? Ain’t seen nothing yet.
E.M.Smith (05:01:34) :
So where is your contribution to science on this science blog?
A series of rambling anecdotes, some debatable, is a PROBLEM for scientists, not a help. That’s the type of ignorance that we are trying to fight. Ignorance is why so many innocents are being led like lambs to the slaughter by the warmist zealots.
Show me a valid reference that “An ‘organic’ farmer must know a great deal more about botany of all the different crops and weeds.” (In an odd way you are right, because weed abundance on organic farms is a problem for clean neighbours and you will need an armoury of pseudo-scientific excuses to plead your innocence.)
Show me an estimate of how the present world population could be sustanied with “organic farming” and I’ll show you how belief in “alternative” science can kill millions of people. In part of my professional career I studied problems just like this, so I’m talking from personal experience from a number of countries, China in particular. I’m not playing some silly little propaganda exercise and I’m not in the pay of Big anything.
Many comments here along the lines of “Texas is hot and dry.”
Your “monsoon” (e.g. sea breeze fronts and tropical moisture incited convection) has failed. Why has it failed? Lack of warmth to your north, combined with the fact that the ITCZ has failed to move poleward. These are consequences of global cooling.
BTW – this is not limited to Texas. A number of northern hemisphere places in similar settings are afflicted.
@Gail Combs (09:09:21) :
Thanks for the apple guidance! I only have 2 very small trees, so it’s not a big deal to me (and the bunnies are happy, so it’s not a waste.)
The Soil survey book shows over 2 feet of the best topsoil in NC. In actual fact the soil is now pure clay (98% inorganic) thanks to “modern farming practices”
That is the often ignored downside to chemical farming. You basically end up running a once through hydroponic system with a poor root media. Over time, the biological component is lost (plant matter oxidizes and rots, worms die, bacteria die) and you end up with a mineral soil (sand, clay, whatever was in the original soil). The “tilth” is gone.
I’m all in favor of hydroponic gardening (even bought a small table top kit once to play with it). It can give great yields, and hydroponic greenhouse production of salad greens gives the best product and the highest production you can get. I’m just not so much in favor of backing into it in a less thought out way by destruction of soil tilth…
As a chemist I am not against the intelligent use of petro-chemicals but “organic Farming methods” with recourse to petro-chemicals as a last resort makes more sense if you want to keep the land productive.
And that is exactly the way I garden. One of my major complaints about the “organic certification” plans is that they prohibit that “last resort” to chemicals. If you get an uncontrolled pest on a crop, you can’t just go nuke that corner and then sell that produce as “conventional”, you lose the organic certification for some number of years for the whole place… Way over the top, IMHO.
Unfortunately Obama, the USDA and the FDA will be outlawing the use of manure etc.
What?! If manuring is outlawed, I’m joining the “Freedom of Religion” lawsuit that will follow. Amish tradition depends on manuring the land and forbids the use of technologies not found in the Bible. If they “go there” the majority of America that does believe in religion will be lined up against them. Religious persecution of a quaint minority does not sit well with the public…
While my line of the family moved to the city and embraced technology, some stayed behind. They have every right to live as their religion tells them.
BTW, the Cow Poo E.Coli “problem” could be easily solved by taking a butt wipe of the nations cows and culling those with the particular mutant that causes illness. That everyone is all ‘panties in a bunch’ about the risk of E. Coli, but only AFTER the cows are turned into bulk ground beef, says a great deal about where focus is in the process. Why do a “one shot” simple and permanent ‘cure’ when you can let all the cows be sold to the meat processor first then let it be his problem… It is MUCH easier to find the E. Coli O157:H7 when it is concentrated in one single colon than it is after it has been mixed into a few thousand cows worth of ground beef…
But somehow the understanding that this is one rare odd mutant of E. Coli and it is not just “all E. Coli” that are the problem, gets lost. And with it, the most effective solution: Wipe out the mutants at their source (Shades of X Men!)
Re: SteveSadlov (18:11:16)
“Your “monsoon” (e.g. sea breeze fronts and tropical moisture incited convection) has failed. Why has it failed? Lack of warmth to your north, combined with the fact that the ITCZ has failed to move poleward….”
Exactly. You’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s always pretty hot here this time of year. The problem this year is we’re not getting the heavy afternoon rains which tend to moderate things for us here. Pretty unusual, although not unprecedented.
Geoff Sherrington (17:32:20) :
E.M.Smith (05:01:34) :
So where is your contribution to science on this science blog?
Well, short of a replay of the last year or two worth of postings, it would be a bit hard to list it all. Please see the archives. A nice example to start with, that started as a posting here, would be:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-trouble-with-c12-c13-ratios/
A series of rambling anecdotes, some debatable, is a PROBLEM for scientists, not a help. That’s the type of ignorance that we are trying to fight.
Oh, I get it. Personal experience and field observations are Not Allowed. How convenient. And personal expertise is now “ignorance”. OK… And I guess you missed this link in the earlier post:
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~christos/articles/cv_organic_farming.html
Let me help you with it. The “berkeley.edu” means it is from a University. In fact, a Big Name University. University of California at Berkeley. I graduated from the U.C. Berkeley Agricultural Extension (after it got renamed and expanded into more than just being an Ag School). They do Science at University…
If you had followed the link, you would have found it opens with the heading:
Can Organic Farming “Feed the World”?
Christos Vasilikiotis, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
ESPM-Division of Insect Biology
201 Wellman-3112
Berkeley, CA 94720-3112
Notice that it is written by a Ph.D. That’s a doctorate. Notice that his field is the “ESPM-Division of Insect Biology”. That is, the “Environmental Science and Policy Management – Division of Insect Biology”. Notice the title: Can Organic Farming “Feed the World”?
So we have an article, written by a Ph.D. specifically aimed at the question you raised, from a Very Name University, in the college directed at specifically those issues, with a specialty in insect biology.
Somehow I think this qualifies as a “contribution to science on this blog”. But I guess it was too much effort for you to read the link yourself.
Show me a valid reference that “An ‘organic’ farmer must know a great deal more about botany of all the different crops and weeds.”
It isn’t patently obvious? That it’s easier to just dump a load of roundup on a weed than it is to find a crop that out competes it or a strategy for controlling the persistent roots of dock or dandelion that are not destroyed by cultivation or burning the tops off? I have to explain that? Ok …
From the article:
Counter to the widely held belief that industrial agriculture is more efficient and productive, small farms produce far more per acre than large farms. Industrial agriculture relies heavily on monocultures, the planting of a single crop throughout the farm, because they simplify management and allow the use of heavy machinery. Larger farms in the third world also tend to grow export luxury crops instead of providing staple foods to their growing population. Small farmers, especially in the Third World have integrated farming systems where they plant a variety of crops maximizing the use of their land.
While it doesn’t specifically use the word “botany” I would hope you can make the “leap” from “simplify management” and “variety of crops” to see that it’s more complex and you must cover more intellectual turf when you have a large number of plants instead of just one.. If you can’t, I can’t help you. And if it isn’t patently obvious that adding animals to a farm increases the complexity geometrically, I suggest trying to raise a dozen animals and see what happens. Oh, also notice the “maximizing the use of their land”. The small guy optimizes for yield per acre, the large guy for dollars per year.
Show me an estimate of how the present world population could be sustanied with “organic farming” and I’ll show you how belief in “alternative” science can kill millions of people.
I have no idea what “alternative science” is. I do know that folks at Ag Colleges with degrees in the subject have published plenty on how to get the same or larger yields from organic farms as from conventional. All based on “normal” science. Another quote from the same article (there are plenty of other articles available, and the existence proof of organic farms, if you care to look…):
They are also more likely to have livestock on their farm, which provides a variety of animal products to the local economy and manure for improving soil fertility. In such farms, though the yield per acre of a single crop might be lower than a large farm, total production per acre of all the crops and various animal products is much higher than large conventional farms (Rosset, 1999). Figure 1 shows the relationship between total production per unit area to farm size in 15 countries. In all cases, the smaller farms are much more productive per unit area— 200 to 1000 percent higher — than larger ones (Rosset, 1999).
Even in the United States, the smallest farms, those 27 acres or less, have more than ten times greater dollar output per acre than larger farms (US Agricultural Census, 1992). Conversion to small organic farms therefore, would lead to sizeable increases of food production worldwide. Only organic methods can help small family farms survive, increase farm productivity, repair decades of environmental damage and knit communities into smaller, more sustainable distribution networks — all leading to improved food security around the world.
I added the bold so you could find the relevant parts. The bottom line is that there is no shortage of food, and we have an agricultural system aimed at making the most money, not the most food. Land is in surplus, so we don’t optimize for it, we optimize for simpler management and lower labor.
From:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
(which is my article) we have:
From: The C.I.A. Factbook, We have for “world”
arable land: 10.57%
permanent crops: 1.04%
other: 88.38% (2005)
Arable land is the present use, not a limit on what can be used. So we have roughly 11.61% of the land used for crops. There is a lot still available… There are several agronomy systems for upgrading marginal land into productive arable land.
I would add here that the “organic” compost and manure method is one of the best ways to turn bare sand into soil in a hurry. I have a bit of “hard pan clay” I’ve turned into a very nice square foot garden that way. It’s all about the tilth…
The “problem” is not a shortage of farm land, it’s a shortage of labor and money. We have hit the point where, in a competitive economy, you “waste” some land on lower production to get lower costs. Folks starving has a whole lot more to do with stupid political decisions, wars, and religion than any limit on productivity (but that’s a topic for another thread).
I also gave you a link to the SRI page:
http://ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/
I’ll help you with that one too. Notice the “cornell.edu”. That’s a big name college. Cornell. Here is the link to the articles supporting it (that you could get from the top page by clicking on “articles”…):
http://ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/sripapers.html
In it, you will find things like:
http://ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/countries/nepal/nepalrptuprety04.pdf
System of Rice Intensification in the context of Nepalese rice production
Mr. Rajendra Uprety, Agriculture Extension Officer
District Agriculture Development Office, Biratnagar, Morang, Nepal.
One would hope that an “Agricultural Extension Officer” can make personal observations that you will consider “valid”, even if not Ph.D. peer reviewed… his style is a bit “rambling” though, so maybe not…
In the lead in, you will note that he disparages the traditional methods still in use in Nepal with low application of chemicals. The guy is not an “organic shill”… I’ve added bold to some bits.
Nepal is an agricultural country. Still more than 65% of its population is engaged in agriculture for their livelihood. Agriculture contributes 39% of GDP. Among agricultural crops, rice is main crop, cultivated on nearly 1.54 Million hectares of land. Total production of rice in 2002/2003 was 4.13 million tons, with average productivity of 2675 kg/ha. These data show that
the productivity of rice in Nepal is not high (the world average is about 4000 kg/ha), and there is lot of possibility for making increments in productivity and total production.
OK, that’s a local production of 2.6 tons / ha and a global rate of 4 tons / ha as our benchmark. We need to beat that with a more intensive approach but without added chemicals (since they don’t have the money to buy them; a common problem with 3rd world agriculture…) So something like a 3 ton / ha rate for Nepal or (dream of dreams) a 4.5 ton / ha rate would be a stunning increase.
Behind the low production of rice there are various factors such as older-generation seeds (most farmers have used their own seed for decades), low doses of chemical fertilizer, little use of improved cultivation practices, less care for plant protection, etc. Still, most rice growers are depending on compost and FYM as fertilizer use is still very low.
[NTU: but this may not be all bad; SRI experience indicates that compost and FYM are better sources of nutrients than is chemical fertilizer — why reinforce the stereotype that using compost and FYM is ‘backward’ while ‘fertilizer use’ is progressive? I think this is a wrong perception] Generally farmers use more then 60 kg of seeds/ha, transplant very old seedlings (30-45 days old), and plant many seedlings, 8-10/hill. These all factors are responsible for low productivity of rice in Nepal.
I read an article of Dr. Norman Uphoff on SRI published by LEISA, a Dutch NGO. In this I found many things which might be useful in Nepalese context. So I contacted Norman for more information about SRI.
Notice that is Dr. Norman Uphoff. I’m sure you can find a bio on him. This is not some anti-science hippy thing. It is hard core crop science.
After collecting some good information, last year I started SRI in Morang district of Eastern Nepal. Last year there were two small plots less then 100 square meters with some practice of SRI (young seedlings, spaced planting, less water, and some weeding but no compost). We got more then 7 metric tons/ha yield with healthy plants (less diseases and pests).
Can you way “WOW!”… I knew you could… So these folks more than doubled their productivity and got a 50% increase over global averages. Without added chemicals. And with less diseases and pests.
Are you starting to see how this works now? Better understanding of the botany and needs of the rice plant, leading to changed and more active management of the crop, leading to higher crop yields.
That result encouraged us and we disseminated knowledge to farmers about SRI through training, a monthly newsletter, and personal and group contact.
This information created a sensation among the farmers, and we found many farmers wanted to try this technology. But still farmers didn’t fully believe in this technology. Most farmers wanted to visualize these results on another’s field to gain confidence. But some innovative farmers tried the methods on their early rice. Three farmers planted early rice using SRI methodology. Two among them got nearly 6 metric tons/ha productivity with some practice. One farmer, Mr. Udaya Narayan Nepal, planted 3 plots, with three different ages of seedling (8 days, 9 days, and 18 days). His land is upland with no irrigation facility, very low content of organic matter, and without compost. Despite these conditions, vegetative growth of his crop was very good. Tiller number reach up to 130/hill. All his neighbor who were teasing him initially become astonished to see his crop.
I generally don’t like quoting this much stuff in an article. They end up painfully long. That is why I put the links in, and then only add my personal views. That does not mean my posting lacks any science, it means it is in the links. I’d wager few comments here would qualify as peer reviewed science… it’s all about the links.
I think it is a complete waste of time to copy it all here so that folks who are too lazy to follow links burden everyone else, including the moderators, with the added volume. So please, lose the invective and read the links. Then if you still think “organic” is “ignorance” that you need to fight, take it up with Cornell, U.C. Berkeley, and the Agricultural Extension Officers of the world…
There are literally thousands of articles like the ones I’ve excerpted here, written by professionals in agriculture and agronomy, that all have the same message. Organic works. If you chose to ignore that, is is bigotry, nothing more. Chemical based agriculture also works ( I have nothing against it, in fact, I love hydroponics, the ultimate in chemical farming 😉 but they are different.
And the difference is that chemical based farming is simpler and uses less labor but at the cost of lower yields than can be had with “intensification”. Organic produces more production per unit of land, but at the cost of a lot more complexity and a lot more labor. Done at large scale, organic ends up costing about the same as chemical, but most is done at small scale and sold in niche markets so the costs and prices are higher.
Better? Neither one is “better” IMHO. If you have excess land and a labor shortage, go for the chemicals. If you have limited land and lots of labor, go for the organic with intensification. My personal preference is to aim at organic / intensification and be ready to add some chemical fertilizer or spray some pesticides if you gain by it. Unfortunately, BOTH political sides throw rocks at me for doing that … 8-}
bill (10:32:03) :
E.M.Smith (05:01:34) : Good Grief, you almost convinced me to shun my warmist-ish ways with that!
Thanks!
One other point about the “veggie box” system is packaging.
Good point. I hate waste, of any kind, and when I get a 4 ounce peach in a plastic bag, in a paper bag, in a bigger bag… GAK. Or when they want to put my milk jug in a plastic bag to be put in my grocery sack. Sheesh, it has a handle on it fer crying out loud!
A recipie leaflet is usually included for oddities (what do you do with chicory?)
My neighbors frequently give me some odd vegetable from their box with a comment that they don’t know what to do with it. One of my favorites was “We don’t know what to do with celery root” while being handed a bag of fennel stems… Nice folks, but not a lot of time in farm country…
The real downside is turnips and swede in winter!
Oh Man: Lamb Stew! Lamb cubes, potato, carrot, celery, TURNIP all cut in slices or cubes, maybe a few whole pea pods. Salt Pepper and let it braise at 350 F for about 3 hours. To die for!
And oven roasted swede with butter all over it! Yum!
And “mixed mashed roots” is one of my favorites from the old tradition. You take whatever roots you have (typically about 1/2 of carrot, potato, or turnip) boil and mash together like mashed potatoes! (The carrot / turnip is one of my favorites, though carrot / potato is darned good too. Haven’t tried potato turnip, but had potato / turnip / carrot once and loved it – with too much butter 😉
E.M.Smith (13:08:32) :
Oh Man: Lamb Stew! Lamb cubes, potato, carrot, celery, TURNIP all cut in slices or cubes, maybe a few whole pea pods. Salt Pepper and let it braise at 350 F for about 3 hours. To die for!
Dang it! Left out the onions and garlic. how could I … A couple of caramelized onions and as much garlic as you like get added too…
“Without onions, there would be cooking but no cuisine.”
E.M.Smith (13:08:32) :
Thanks!!!
Have mashed swede and turnips but not with others. Stews are OK (but no meat in our families case!).
The box people have problems with early spring as most of the veg are getting tired and there is no new stuff available from the fields. But as you can see for the link I gave for riverford most is locally sourced.
Supermarkets here are cathing on to the waste problem. Plastic carrier bags either cost or you get “points” for reuse. Some products are being supplied in compostable plastic, Some trays are again made of card. But what I cannot understand is why it is cheaper to buy 6 carton of orange juice stuck togeter in a plasic wrapper than 6 singles. Slowly the uk is changing but, although you may disagree, has changed most since people became aware of GW!