Organic Zero-Till - Anyone in the UK

not if your any good at marketing it's not !

if you tell the right story its a premium to organic - few famous american farmers proving that !

Organic farming is all marketing anyway in truth, its hardly even premium these days as milk / eggs are almost as cheap conventional or organic

I meant conservation ag is conventional in the sense that either something is organic or not.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I meant conservation ag is conventional in the sense that either something is organic or not.

like consumers give a dam - its all about the marketing, orgainic is bullshite, CA is slightly watered dowen bullshite, different kind of bullshirte that can be made to sound a better idea than organic even to consumers .............. if the story is good there is a premium to be had
 
it is against most thinking (including my own !) which state greater diversity is the route to soil health

her view is you balance fungi/bacteria ratio and then lift this levels as high as you can via compost and compost teas, you create a soil where the crop (wheat for example) has abundant fungi and bacteria species that it needs for that crop and by mono culture you increase them year on year creating a soil where the conditions are most favourable for that crop and not weeds etc that would in a more conventional unbalanced and diversely cropped soil compete with the cash crop
im trying to set up a (small !) field to try Dr Ingham's organic zero-till. if I can get the right compost to make it happen plan is to balance biology to her instruction and then grow continuous zero-till wheat, ideally with no chemicals but might have to concede glyphosate (balanced with humic acid when applied)

at ORFC she said 10t/ha was possible..............................

So is she saying you need to alter the make up of the compost delivered in? As in further processing?

I must admit I have started buying organic products from local shops not supermarkets as I'm not happy feeding two young children with a lot of the things on the shelves today. I'm not religious about it and happy to let them have the usual things kids enjoy when we are out and about, but when at home the food is cooked without any shite in it.
 
Who chooses between the two restaurants based on that? Basically no one - definitely not "mainstream"!

Fairly silly argument anyway isn't it? :)

Its the little things though isnt it? McDonald's do little things well ( sell salad that no one buys, toys to kids, british beef, free range eggs) to soften the other bits ( its full of salt and sugar but tastes nice)
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
So is she saying you need to alter the make up of the compost delivered in? As in further processing?

I must admit I have started buying organic products from local shops not supermarkets as I'm not happy feeding two young children with a lot of the things on the shelves today. I'm not religious about it and happy to let them have the usual things kids enjoy when we are out and about, but when at home the food is cooked without any shite in it.

she's (you won't like this probably) says that green waste compost in the uk is not really compost - she says its just waste disposal cooked to make sure there is no bugs in it, PAS 100 being the very worst of this

She says a proper compost should be made up in correct proportion of various c:n ratio components and not allowed to get too hot so we increase bacteria and fungi growth not kill it - when applied to sopil the theory is that it has big biological to the soil not just a source of carbon
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
I think people may be quite shocked at the build up of perennial weeds if you don't plough, or use Roundup, on fields for a decade or more....;)
 

York

Member
Location
D-Berlin
not if your any good at marketing it's not !

if you tell the right story its a premium to organic - few famous american farmers proving that !
Organic farming is all marketing anyway in truth, its hardly even premium these days as milk / eggs are almost as cheap conventional or organic
Clive,
it's not just a few!
Even over here I have now 2 farmers, which in their local markets, are proving same principles here. Only selling off farm, both being organic certified, but not selling it as organics, getting better prices than selling via markets or whole sale = people paying more per unit than when they would by "this type" of produce in an organic market or on a farmers market.
Both speak hardly English and developed similar strategies like Salatin & Co.
So is she saying you need to alter the make up of the compost delivered in? As in further processing?

I must admit I have started buying organic products from local shops not supermarkets as I'm not happy feeding two young children with a lot of the things on the shelves today. I'm not religious about it and happy to let them have the usual things kids enjoy when we are out and about, but when at home the food is cooked without any shite in it.
Lee,
welcome in the club. Good to hear that you have already 2 young once & are concerned about what to feed them with. Good start. ;-)
So they already know the Big M sign & how to react? Our oldest was so clever, 3rd stop light from home, going to grand parents, had a Big M at it's side. From there on the "I'm hungry" started and kept going the next 3 hours drive. :)
York-Th.
 
Last edited:
So is she saying you need to alter the make up of the compost delivered in? As in further processing?

I must admit I have started buying organic products from local shops not supermarkets as I'm not happy feeding two young children with a lot of the things on the shelves today. I'm not religious about it and happy to let them have the usual things kids enjoy when we are out and about, but when at home the food is cooked without any shite in it.

What kind of products do you buy as organic and what kind not so fussy about? What type of stuff are you unhappy about?
 
With my usual tact I will state that organic farming is a load of crap. Fully and totally an over indulged middle class load of squit.
I will also say that I have a lot of time for the basic principles behind a lot of organic farming practice's but like politics and religion its when you add the human element it all goes tits up.
To be organic you have to abide by such a stupid rigid set of rules that it numbs your mind and I speak from experience.
I cannot abide the self righteous manner of the most vocal organic proponents such as Melchet who seem to blame all the worlds ills on fields drenched in toxic chemicals.
I really think that the current organic system, is at present, a parasite on the back of agriculture. It cannot feed the world, it cannot run without oil and if we were all organic then the plagues of old would return with a relish. Not everything was rosy in the garden before chemicals think potato famine think the wet harvests that forced the peasants to eat ergot infested bread for a year. Ask any hungry people how important organic provenance is for them.
For goodness sake there must be a balance as the present system cannot go on for much longer nor can organic provide the answers. A 'modern' agriculture with the best elements of both organic and conventional must be the way forward. Don't forget that no matter what system you espouse you can't get owt for nowt and something must be put back into the soil.
 
What kind of products do you buy as organic and what kind not so fussy about? What type of stuff are you unhappy about?

@SilliamWhale sorry missed this question. As said I am not anal about it and when we are out and about I don't give it a second thought so things like mcdonalds/pizza's/pub grub/restaurants etc then the kids order whatever they like. However at home then I'm careful what I buy.

For example - technically not organic but an example - I no longer buy any fruit drinks like 'fruit shoots or robinsons cordial' because you struggle to find a childs drink that does not have aspartame in it which I think is bad news. So what I do is buy the fruit such as oranges and then juice it up which is the concentrate, then I add filtered water to that to create the drinks. It takes a few mins a week to juice up oranges, apples (farm orchard), pears (farm orchard) etc so is not a chore and not that expensive. 4 bags or large oranges is about a tenner which makes 2 weeks worth of concentrate. You can freeze it so it doesn't go off.

Meats I tend to buy locally off farms where I know its history as in I know the farmers. Some are organic farms some arnt. Vegetables are a bit harder but using a local fruit a veg guy (known him for 20 years or so) and ask for organic stuff or local farm stuff.

Whatever I make its from fresh ingredients so another example Lasagne made in house rather than buying a pre made one up. All the ingredients, where possible, are local or off the organic shelf.

Clearly organic stamped food in any shop may not be organic and I understand that but I'm more about trying to fully understand what I am feeding them rather than turning a blind eye to it.

I don't think I am to far away from a veg/fruit patch and some animals in the orchard though if I am being totally honest ...............
 

New Puritan

Member
Location
East Sussex
she's (you won't like this probably) says that green waste compost in the uk is not really compost - she says its just waste disposal cooked to make sure there is no bugs in it, PAS 100 being the very worst of this

She says a proper compost should be made up in correct proportion of various c:n ratio components and not allowed to get too hot so we increase bacteria and fungi growth not kill it - when applied to sopil the theory is that it has big biological to the soil not just a source of carbon

@Clive - do you mean that it's the heat used in commercial composting she doesn't like? I can understand that the heat may kill off beneficial microbes etc., but on the other hand it's part of the process to kill off the harmful ones. It's going to depend on what the original material was that went into it - I wouldn't want a load of compost delivered that broke out in weeds the moment it got spread.

I'm curious about Dr Ingham - how did you hear of her? Has anyone tried her techniques in the UK? And how do the things like making compost teas scale up?
 
Location
Cambridge
@Clive - do you mean that it's the heat used in commercial composting she doesn't like? I can understand that the heat may kill off beneficial microbes etc., but on the other hand it's part of the process to kill off the harmful ones. It's going to depend on what the original material was that went into it - I wouldn't want a load of compost delivered that broke out in weeds the moment it got spread.

I'm curious about Dr Ingham - how did you hear of her? Has anyone tried her techniques in the UK? And how do the things like making compost teas scale up?
Heat is needed to make compost, by definition. Hr point was that you needed to keep it below (IIRC) 70C, at which point you've killed the seeds but left the good microbes intact.

I don't know why people get obsessed with the ease and machinery involved with making compost teas. It's just soaking compost in water - the real trick must be making the compost in the first place.
 

New Puritan

Member
Location
East Sussex
I don't know why people get obsessed with the ease and machinery involved with making compost teas. It's just soaking compost in water - the real trick must be making the compost in the first place.

Thanks. I wouldn't call it an obsession tbh! I was assuming it was something more involved in that though, like making comfrey tea or whatnot, and having to strain it to stop it clogging the machine up. What's the advantage then of applying the liquid rather than incorporating the compost - just the availability of the nutrients?
 
Location
Cambridge
Thanks. I wouldn't call it an obsession tbh! I was assuming it was something more involved in that though, like making comfrey tea or whatnot, and having to strain it to stop it clogging the machine up. What's the advantage then of applying the liquid rather than incorporating the compost - just the availability of the nutrients?
Sorry, I shouldn't have implied you were obsessed, I just hear a lot of the time "how can we make enough compost tea", and very rarely "how can we make good compost"!

The advantage would be being able to apply much easier and faster through a sprayer. Possible foliar applications too, and being able to make an amount of compost go further.
 
The definition of compost (rightly or wrongly) is 'Decayed organic material used as a fertilizer for growing plants:
cover with a layer of fine compost'

You can't get decay without heat build up so it's impossible to make compost without heat, unless of course the definition of compost is wrong.

As for compost tea then sounds like we should bottle it and sell to China! It's a waste product here.
 

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