Category: Nature

Azospirillum Brasilense Bacteria (Azos) And Why Every Gardner Needs It.

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Once again this is an example of how one must feed the SOIL not the plant. Nature has already thought of everything you need and provided it somehow, all you have to do is learn to restore what has been lost. Many fungi and bacteria have been killed off by spraying and other pressures of modern Western life. So here is a knowledge bomb of one of the hardest working bacteria in your garden, and maybe on the planet,

Azospirillum Brasilense, commonly referred to as Azos or A.Brasilense, is one of the most well-studied plant growth promoting bacteria. It is considered a free-living soil bacterium that has the ability to affect the growth of numerous agricultural crops worldwide through the excretion of various hormones and the bacteria’s ability of nitrogen fixation.

Pull Nitrogen From Thin Air.

Even though you and I breath oxygen and plants breath carbon dioxide, the atmosphere is actually comprised of around 80% nitrogen which is in the form of N2 atmospheric nitrogen that is not conventionally available to plants. Nitrogen is a key component in growing anything. it drives chlorophyll production keeping the plants dark green and happy. It is a huge part of amino acids and other compounds that keep your plants strong and healthy. It is a part of every major protein molecule, and yet soil is often lacking enough N. Chemical fertilizer could provide this N, but they are expensive and can be dangerous.

Somewhere along the evolutionary development of the “Plant – Soil – Microbial Matrix”, certain bacteria began to specialize in tasks to enhance plant growth, which in return provided the microbes with a food source exchange opportunity. A select group of bacteria classified as “Diazotrophs” began to supply nitrogen to plants from a range of sources, including decomposed plant litter, dead micro-organisms, and sequestration of atmospheric nitrogen.

Azos is a particularly efficient agent originally isolated in the Amazon Basin where the lack of soil, the reapid breakdown of any vegetation by hungry microbes, and the environmental conditions which require growth to survive is a fundamental proposition of the ecosystem. Azos specialized in the highly-efficient conversion of the N2 form of nitrogen into plant-available NH3 ammoniacal nitrogen. Azos is so efficient that between 50-percent and 70-percent of all the nitrogen required by most crops can be supplied by this organism. Azos benefit to plants is not limited nitrogen-fixation alone. Azos also acts as a growth simulant, catalyzing the release of a natural growth hormone in plants. This naturally-released hormone increases root development and optimized the harvest potential of your garden. Together, Azos and mycorrhizae fungi work symbiotically to help ordinary plants become the fullest they can be (read about mycorrhizae in this post).

Azos can be used as a cloning solution, though I have not tried it personally.

So grab some for your spring transplants and improve your crop this summer.

Tags Azos, Azospirillum Brasilense, nitrogen deficiency, Nitrogen fixing, Nitrogen fixing Bacteria

Agriculture Beneficials in the garden Garden Tips and Ideas Nature Organic Gardening Sustainability The Science Of Growing Urban Gardening

Top 5 Reasons To Use Mycorrhizae, Friendly Fungi And Fabulous Friends For Gardeners

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Do you want way to naturally and organically produce more food from your garden or farm. Well, nature provides. Mycorrhizae is a fungi that will rock the roots of most plants and show a HUGE gain in size and yield. In combination with Azos bacteria, the two can nearly grow a plant in anything. So here is some info and The Top 5 Reasons To Use Mycorrhizae.

Top 5 Reasons To Use Mycorrhizae In Your Garden.

5. Can give your plants up to 10000% more root mass (yes 10000%!)

4. It makes a plant heartier and more resistant to drought, pests and disease.

3. Use less water to grow even better plants.

2. Use less compost and fertilizer, meaning less work, energy and waste go into your garden.

1. Plant yield and growth will explode!

Runner Up: They look really cool when you see them pop up on your seedlings.

Mycorrhizae (or Myco’s for short) form a mutually beneficial relationship with the roots of most plant species. Let me simplify the science. The fungus colonizes roots of plants and breaks down certain nutrients for the plant, in return for those nutrients the plant feeds the fungus the sugars it so craves, its just a fungus with a sweet tooth looking for its next fix, which it is willing to work for. The mechanisms of increased absorption are both physical and chemical. Mycorrhizal mycelia, tiny little hairs which you can see on the roots, are much smaller in diameter than the smallest root, and thus can explore a greater amount of soil, providing a larger root mass for absorption of water and nutrients. While only a small proportion of all species has been examined, 95% of those plant families are predominantly mycorrhizal. And here is the real kicker, it may be myco’s that allowed waterborne plants to move to the dry land many millions of years ago!

Mycorrhizae should be everywhere, but due to pollution, runoff, pesticides, herbicides and anti-fungal sprays, mycos are missing in many gardens and raised beds, not to mention all indoor potted plants that are started with sterile soil.

Two Types, Two Jobs, Too Easy

There are two types of mycos, endo and ecto. Rather than bore you with my poorly explained science, I will simply tell you that endomycorrizae are for most vegetable and fruit species in your garden (spinach and lettuce type plants do not colonize with it, though it will not hurt them either), and ecto are for a lot of trees and some flowers such as roses and orchids. I just generally get a mix of ecto and endo so that it can both colonize the plant I am planting and rebuild the soil by possibly colonizing other areas and plants.

Technically there is a third type, but it is for bogs and not commonly sold or needed.

You can spray on myco, you can use it as a root inoculate when you transplant or plant, or you can “drill’ a small hole in the soil and spray or sprinkle some in the hole for existing plants. The key is to get it in contact with the roots.

So have heavier yields with less fertilizers and compost for less than $20 an acre. And I will give you a little tip that the guy at the garden center may not. You can use a small amount of myco and culture it in your potting soil, use it in house plants and then put that medium in the garden when done recycling the myco or you can even grow your own with certain grasses etc, but I just find it easier to buy a box or two a year (about a pound) for our whole farm to use.

Here is a good video if you want more info, the more you know, the more you can grow.

Research shows that the lack of mycorrhizal fungi can create problems with many plants, shrubs and trees when they are growing in our gardens, so make sure you get some before this spring.

Nature

Bittersweet Bites

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Because I am very new to the beginning-to-end process of growing food, I don’t have a specific–or heck, even a general–mental timetable yet. I don’t have memorized, from experience, what is supposed to come first, what crops come and go different during seasons, and what is an average date for the summer crops to be absolutely finished.

I do know, however, that finding these surprises, just a few days ago in November, is not a common experience. I know this just by reading books. By browsing seed catalogs and looking at a zone chart. By listening to seasoned gardeners and food growers around me. November 3 is not a ‘normal’ day to find 3 cucumbers (albeit very odd looking ones), enough green beans for a meal, and a dozen bright cherry tomatoes that should be hard and taste terrible, but instead have a sweet, summer ripened flavor.

I would not have found these goodies at all if I’d cut all the plants down 2 weeks ago like I had intended. I had figured their time was up, and they were starting to look terrible, anyway, but I never found the time to go out and clear everything out. I couldn’t have imagined that any more seeds or fruits would have burst from them like a last hurrah. I didn’t know that warm days and sunshine would hang on…and on.

After my initial surprise and enthusiasm, worry settled deep. Alongside the sweet tomato flavor left on my tongue, there was a sour aftertaste. “This is part of it. This is another small hint that things are changing,” a voice said in my head.

I realize that global warming is hotly debated (pun only sort of intended), but when my instincts and observations inch toward evidence that something is amiss, even in subtle ways, I’m hard pressed to just ignore it. If we only had longer summers, perhaps that would be a good thing, and everyone, in every growing zone, could easily grow food year-round with the help of simple hoop houses and cold frames. I mean really, if I’m completely honest with myself, the thought of never having to shovel snow from the driveway again makes me sad for only a moment, because I’d pine for drifts to jump in and snowmen to build. Mostly, I don’t love winter. The older I get, the more winter makes my bones ache and my heart dread the extra work and energy used to keep warm and from being buried in. However, cold, harsh, and long winters are a part of the midwest cycle I’m used to. Several months of ice and snow are part of the cycle that my surrounding ecosystem has been going through for countless lifetimes.

If it were only mild winters and longer growing seasons, then perhaps there would be reason to celebrate. I only have to think harder on this for a few moments to realize that no, it is not that simple at all. Mild winters themselves can have negative effects–pests that would normally die back during the freeze are suddenly a huge problem in spring when their numbers are much larger than usual. If the planet really is warming up, we won’t just conveniently gain mild winters and long summers. We may be facing unpredictable weather, just like we did this past spring, when an unexpected killing freeze in April affected apple orchards across the midwest and the east coast. The trees had blossomed with the early warm spring, then the freeze killed many of the tender new blossoms, irreparably harming the crop for the year. Along with strange up-and-down temperatures, we might experience more damaging storms, droughts, floods, with no rhyme or reason. We may have horribly frigid winters mixed in with other years of mild winters. As human beings we’ve always had to deal with nature’s patterns, and have had lots of surprises thrown in, but at what point do we start to realize the changes are more than just flukes? It seems possible that some very fundamental pieces of our weather patterns are shifting right before our eyes.The idea that weather may begin to seriously lose its predictability, on top of the fact that it can throw some very damaging tantrums at us regularly, has me bothered and concerned.

Today I went to finally get some cleanup done in the garden, and after having hard frosts the past couple of nights, it’s clear that there will be no more last minute bittersweet snacks. Everything from the summer is definitely dead. I am excited to get to work on some fall crops and build my hoop house. But as I cleared away the dead and rotting (and smelly) summer garden plants, I kept thinking of the surprise harvest from just a few days ago, and realized that deep down I am very wary of, and a bit alarmed about, the changes I feel around me. I can only hope that the changes are not so fast and harsh that we’ll be helpless to adjust to them.

Agriculture Environmentalism Nature

FutureFarming.Org is Home!

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FutureFarming.Org has just purchased its new home base. It’s a small 1500 square ft cabin style home on 10 acres which will serve as home to the director Ken Keplinger and his co-director wife Erin Severs. This building will also serve as corporate headquarters and offices.

Now comes the next step. We are beginning fundraising in the next couple of weeks in order to purchase the other 96 Acres adjoining to our property and preserve it from factory farming and other dangers. Details will be coming.

But once it starts we are going to have to go full speed to save this beautiful acreage.

(In the intrest of full disclosure, NO donations were used in the purchasing of this home, it is a privatley owned and funded property)

Activism Agriculture Animal Rights Nature pestecide

A New Purdue University Study Reconfirms: Pesticides Kill Bees!

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A new USDA funded study performed by Purdue University verifies what many environmentalists have long alleged and several groups of scientists have proven. The massive beehive die-offs known as Colony Collapse Disorder are linked to factory farms and pesticides. In particular, researchers are pointing to a category of pesticides sold by the German company Bayer.

The Perfect Specicide System For Bees (brought to you by Bayer©)

According to this study , the bee deaths are connected to neonicotinoid class of pesticides, which use a synthetic derivative of nicotine. These chemicals are applied as a glaze to corn and soybean seeds prior to planting. They are then absorbed by the plant’s vascular system and the appear in pollen and nectar. Factory farms have planted MILLIONS of acres of farmland with neonicotinoid treated seeds since 2003, and this is not the first time danger has been shown. On July 23, 2010, Dutch toxicologist, Dr Henk Tennekes had a scientific paper published in the journal, Toxicology (online) titled, “Druckrey-Küpfmüller Equation For Risk Assessment” He then authored and published a book in regards to his research called “A Disaster in the Making”. The book explores the impact of neonicotinoids on the immune system of bees.

The newer Purdue study shows that Bayer’s products are far more poisonous to bees than the company wants the Government and people to think. The researchers found that “maize pollen was frequently collected by foraging honey bees while it was available: maize pollen comprised over 50% of the pollen collected by bees, by volume, in 10 of 20 samples.”
Bayer denies its pesticide has contributed to bee die-offs. (Bayer also continued to sell contaminated blood plasma causing thousands of hemophiliac patients to be infected with AIDS, as reported in the NY Times 22 May 2003, but thats another story of this evil and old company). The company says that bees do not seek corn and therefore only trace amounts of neonicotinoid containing pollen will return to hives. And to date, the EPA has propped up Bayer’s claims.

There are also some unanticipated means by which bees are exposed to the pesticides, largely caused by hefty sized commercial “factory farmers”. The highly automated world of automatic monoculture uses giant mechanical seed planters. The seeders need a powder applied to prevent the polymers used to bond the chemicals to the seeds from clogging up seed coating machine and the seed planters. This powder, along with small amount of pesticides collect in and on the seed bins. As the tractor does its rounds these bins shed a powdery waste of pure poison. This waste is dangerous to bees. The powder can contain up to 700,000 times the bee’s lethal dosage of neonicotinoid, and so of course any bees that come into make contact with it are killed. These initial population losses begin to weaken the hives.

As the pesticide cloud comes to rest on plants in close proximity to the fields and into the soil and water, there is lasting danger to bees as the pesticides are persistent in the foodchain. An dif these chemicals hurt bees, you can be sure humans, plants and other animals in the area are at risk. Any flowers or even your own home garden near treated crop fields can harbor the poison. Bees gather nectar and pollen from the flowers and other plants and will bring the neonicotinoids back to the hive. Although these small levels of the pesticide do not kill the bees, their immune systems become compromised, leaving hives vulnerable to other pressures. Also, newly developing larvae are affected by exposure to pesticides through the stored pollen, bees only source of protein. The cascading effects of these small but continuous doses can potentially devastate an entire hive. Scientists found neonicotinoid pesticides in every sample of dead and dying bees as well as in pollen the bees collected and brought back to the hives, not only in this study, but in several studies now.

The Human Hive Mind

US regulatory agencies follow a policy of relying on manufacturer funded and provided data to conclude the safety of pesticides and herbicides. Although a leaked document in 2010 revealed that EPA scientists found Bayer’s research on its neonic pesticides to be suspect, the agency has not acted to stop the sale or use of these products.

Bayer has profited over one billion dollars from its two neonic products imidacloprid and clothianidin. Given Bayer’s immense wealth and power, it seems unlikely the EPA will take action, particularly in a presidential election year. This means Colony Collapse Disorder is likely to continue to devastate bee populations, leaving reverberating effects on the environment for generations to come. Honeybees are responsible for 80 per cent of all pollination as they collect nectar for the hive, t The mortality rate is the highest in living memory

This type of insecticide was banned in France, Slovenia and Germany after this step the bee populations began to rise again.

Tell the EPA and the US President to take action BAN neonic products like imidacloprid and clothianidin.

Sources:

http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/01/purdue-study-implicates-bayer-insecticide-bee-die-offs

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2012/120111KrupkeBees.html

http://www.panna.org/blog/banner-week-bee-science-zombie-flies-poisonous-planter-exhaust

Tags activism, bayer, bee, bees, environment, environmental activism, Environmentalism, Food saftey, Green, nature, pestecide, pollen, purdue, study, Sustainability, USDA

Activism Environmentalism Fracking Green Energy Nature Solar Sustainability Wind

Is Obama Set To Be The Worst Environmental President Ever?

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As pressure mounts with the upcoming election season is President Obama on track to be the worst environmental President ever? And why are more people not talking about it?

President Obama made many promises that captured the imagination of young and old liberal Americans, now some years later we see he is just a politician like all the others. He will make “pie in the sky” promises to get elected, but when its time deliver you get only excuses about how hard it is, or how his former position is somehow no longer valid. It is ok to change one’s position on an issue as new information becomes available, this is rational I will agree. But how can continuing, escalating and adding to Americas wars in any way be good? He promised to close Guantanamo Bay, immigration reform, create green jobs, take action on climate change, reform healthcare etc, etc. You could argue he has done what he can, but I do not believe that. So here are some of the bigger fails of the Obama environmental policy.

Tar Sands and Pipelines.

Recently tarsandsaction.org held a two week sit in, the White House’s response to this peaceful protest? The Park Police/ D.C SWAT team arrested 1,252 people, even a few famous ones. The Keystone XL pipeline is a danger to eco-systems from Alberta, Canada to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and even as far east as Patoka, Illinois. The Keystone XL has been and is being built in phases. Phase one is from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Kansas then on to Patoka, Illinois, with a stop off in Wood River Il, this was 1853 miles of pipe completed in June of 2010. Phase 2 was from Steele City to Cushing Ok, another 300 miles of pipe that was completed in Feb. 2011. Proposed by 2013 is a 435 mile extension from Cushing to Port Arthur and Houston Texas, AND another 1,179 miles in a second pipeline from Hardisty to Steele City. The second pipeline is to cross the Bakken formation, to tap domestic oil in pristine lands in Montana and North Dakota, yet another amazing violation of nature for only about a one year supply of oil in the Bakken formation, and oil in the tar sands that takes 10 calories of energy to produce one calorie of oil, that’s a major energy loss.

Air Pollution

Recently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, author and scientist named Joe Romm said that allowing Presidents Bush’s proposed smog regulations to be realized would have been better than President Obama’s recent decision to eliminate regulations all together. He did so after asking the environmental organizations to drop pending lawsuits, then he did the opposite of what was promised.

Joe Romm on Countdown

Oil Drilling

Under President Obama we had the worlds largest environmental disaster in world history. Of course the Gulf of Mexico/ Deepwater Horizon oil spill was not Obama’s fault, but how he and his team handled it IS his fault. And immediately following the final plugging of this well, the President almost immediately allowed drilling permits again, even with no revision of safety and drilling procedures, AND without Haliburton going out of business for their millionth deadly mistake. And while he was at it, the President recently added exploration in Alaska, even more than President Bush had proposed.

Coal

As Appalachian communities suffer from disease, environmental devastation, excessive flooding and water contamination caused by mountaintop coal removal, the President still has not reduced coal usage, or even tried. . The President has had ample time and backing from the Environmental Protection Agency, Army corps of Engineers and the Dept. of Interior, and yet he supported scams like cap and trade and “clean coal”. First of all I think most of us know the pitfalls of cap and trade, but something that I want Americans to know is that there is no such thing as clean coal. From harvest to burn its dirty EVERY step of the way.

Nuclear Power

Nuclear power is often said to be the “clean” alternative, and though it may “burn” more cleanly than coal or oil, it produces waste that cannot be disposed of. On top of this the tsunami in Japan recently pointed out how easy it is to have an accidental meltdown as we do somewhere in the world every decade or so.

C.A.F.O. Closed Animal Feeding Operations and Factory Farms

Though seldom discussed, a lot of pollution, greenhouse gasses and water waste are in the agricultural field. I have never hear the words “factory farm” or CAFO from any Presidents mouth, let alone the “environmental President” which Obama had been labeled when he was elected.

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