Our N addiction

[Cowabunga]

What a load of rubbish is being written by 'foreigners' about agriculture in areas half way around the world from their own.
Stuff like farmers being 'slaves to chemical and seed companies' for instance. Think about that for a minute and if you cannot see the absurdity of it, I despair for the farming community and the quality of people who work within the industry. For a start, improving seed for resistance to disease, drought, higher yields for less input per kilo of output has a cost. That cost has always, certainly for the last century and a half, been subject, quite properly, to royalty payments and restrictions on replication in order to reward the breeder.
Same goes for chemicals of whatever kind, the use of which, along with seed, is entirely optional to the individual farmer.

It seems to me that some commentators here, not all of which are dependent on farm income I suspect, have lost sight of what farming is overwhelmingly about, which is to feed the greater population in a way that even the poorest can afford, while making a living for their own families and a return for their businesses. If you don't agree with that, I suggest that you are not farmers but some lefty idealists who, in the grand historic Soviet tradition and current N. Korean model, would put their socialist idealistic [insane] principles ahead of the lives of millions.

 

[orchard]

I think you missed out Hitler, Attila, and the Devil from your emotive appeal to your battle against Bogey men.

I know you had a lot to fit in that passage, but you forgot to mention N, the research linked, and the fact that ecologists routinely toss babies up in the air to impale them on bayonets.

What a load of rubbish is being written by 'foreigners' about agriculture in areas half way around the world from their own.
Stuff like farmers being 'slaves to chemical and seed companies' for instance. Think about that for a minute and if you cannot see the absurdity of it, I despair for the farming community and the quality of people who work within the industry. For a start, improving seed for resistance to disease, drought, higher yields for less input per kilo of output has a cost. That cost has always, certainly for the last century and a half, been subject, quite properly, to royalty payments and restrictions on replication in order to reward the breeder.
Same goes for chemicals of whatever kind, the use of which, along with seed, is entirely optional to the individual farmer.

It seems to me that some commentators here, not all of which are dependent on farm income I suspect, have lost sight of what farming is overwhelmingly about, which is to feed the greater population in a way that even the poorest can afford, while making a living for their own families and a return for their businesses. If you don't agree with that, I suggest that you are not farmers but some lefty idealists who, in the grand historic Soviet tradition and current N. Korean model, would put their socialist idealistic [insane] principles ahead of the lives of millions.

 

[Farmer Roy]

It just amazes me that some farmers are just satisfied to stay on the high input treadmill, which, ultimately only results in higher profits for the chemical & fert companies.
In my experience it is farmers who lead the way in innovation & embracing new concepts, look outside the box, & leave the govt, university & research bodies floundering behind them trying to catch up. That's what surviving in a free unregulated market does to you.
As for a farmers main responsibility being to feed the world . . . you pommies have really drunk the cool-ade haven't you.
The PRIMARY focus of any business is to make a profit. Farmers, as land managers & custodians of the natural environment for future generations also have the added responsibility of LOOKING AFTER THE LAND. There are countless examples of the environmental disasters around the world caused by agriculture - if feeding the world cheaply is your priority then should I suggest
1 - it is imperative to preserve our productive land so it can still feed future generations
2 - that being on the treadmill of increasing synthetic inputs actually poses a risk to future production by placing farmers in increasingly risky financial positions & leaves them at the mercy of big multi national agri industrial companies
3 - that if " feeding the world cheaply" is SUCH a high priority to U.K. Farmers as this & other threads suggest, it is a bit hypocritical to whinge about low prices of your product. Surely you should welcome that, as people are being fed cheaply?
4 - to provide cheap food isn't it then important to keep costs of production down?

I am not saying all synthetic inputs are bad, or any one should stop using them immediately, but just maybe, as other innovative farmers around the world have done, just have a critical look at their operation from "outside the box" & see maybe there are other ways of doing things.
While the high input system may have worked in the past, may work now, I honestly believe the disparity between the prices of inputs & the amount received by growers is only going to widen. Increased costs, increased environmental pressures from consumers or govts, are all going to pressure the farmer.
But, at the end of the day, it's your farm, your livelihood, your legacy, your family . . .
In my nearly 35 yrs since leaving school & being full time involved in farming, I've had the very great fortune to have worked for & been involved with some very forward thinking progressive farmers who ran great businesses. That is what excites me about farming & keeps me interested - not just doing "more of the same"


https://www.facebook.com/savory.global/posts/1882590718434368

 

[Farmer Roy]

If you don't agree with that, I suggest that you are not farmers but some lefty idealists who, in the grand historic Soviet tradition and current N. Korean model, would put their socialist idealistic [insane] principles ahead of the lives of millions.

Hahaha - the irony of being called a socialist lefty by someone who benefits from state subsidisation of their industry, who relies on state payments to stay profitable, while drinking the cool-ade that they are owed a living because they "feed the poor" & as such expect them to be thankful for it - nearly had me wetting my pants with laughter

There is nothing lefty or socialist in our approach, it's the cold hard facts of survival without artificial support or state funds . . .

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Hahaha - the irony of being called a socialist lefty by someone who benefits from state subsidisation of their industry, who relies on state payments to stay profitable, while drinking the cool-ade that they are owed a living because they "feed the poor" & as such expect them to be thankful for it - nearly had me wetting my pants with laughter

There is nothing lefty or socialist in our approach, it's the cold hard facts of survival without artificial support or state funds . . .

On one of my earliest posts on TFF, I was told that, by not using fert and lime in over 15 years, I was (and I can quote as I have a great memory) "...simply mining the fertility that was put there because of the years of subsidy "

I fear that was the majority speaking.

 

[Farmer Roy]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/plant-soil-food-webs-create-solar-powered-nitrogen-factories-lucero

 

[The Ruminant]

I dont think any of you have read the article .it dont sound like it .its a problem with soil organic matter

I think you're right so here it is:

THE N2 DILEMMA: IS AMERICA FERTILIZING DISASTER?
New research: synthetic nitrogen destroys soil carbon, undermines soil health
By Tom Philpott on Feb 24, 2010
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Just precisely what does all of that nitrogen ferilizer do to the soil?

“Fertilizer is good for the father and bad for the sons.”
–Dutch saying

For all of its ecological baggage, synthetic nitrogen does one good deed for the environment: it helps build carbon in soil. At least, that’s what scientists have assumed for decades.

If that were true, it would count as a major environmental benefit of synthetic N use. At a time of climate chaos and ever-growing global greenhouse gas emissions, anything that helps vast swaths of farmland sponge up carbon would be a stabilizing force. Moreover, carbon-rich soils store nutrients and have the potential to remain fertile over time–a boon for future generations.

The case for synthetic N as a climate stabilizer goes like this. Dousing farm fields with synthetic nitrogen makes plants grow bigger and faster. As plants grow, they pull carbon dioxide from the air. Some of the plant is harvested as crop, but the rest–the residue–stays in the field and ultimately becomes soil. In this way, some of the carbon gobbled up by those N-enhanced plants stays in the ground and out of the atmosphere.

Well, that logic has come under fierce challenge from a team of University of Illinois researchers led by professors Richard Mulvaney, Saeed Khan, and Tim Ellsworth. In two recent papers (see hereand here) the trio argues that the net effect of synthetic nitrogen use is to reduce soil’s organic matter content. Why? Because, they posit, nitrogen fertilizer stimulates soil microbes, which feast on organic matter. Over time, the impact of this enhanced microbial appetite outweighs the benefits of more crop residues.

And their analysis gets more alarming. Synthetic nitrogen use, they argue, creates a kind of treadmill effect. As organic matter dissipates, soil’s ability to store organic nitrogen declines. A large amount of nitrogen then leaches away, fouling ground water in the form of nitrates, and entering the atmosphere as nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas with some 300 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide. In turn, with its ability to store organic nitrogen compromised, only one thing can help heavily fertilized farmland keep cranking out monster yields: more additions of synthetic N.

The loss of organic matter has other ill effects, the researchers say. Injured soil becomes prone to compaction, which makes it vulnerable to runoff and erosion and limits the growth of stabilizing plant roots. Worse yet, soil has a harder time holding water, making it ever more reliant on irrigation. As water becomes scarcer, this consequence of widespread synthetic N use will become more and more challenging.

In short, “the soil is bleeding,” Mulvaney told me in an interview.

If the Illinois team is correct, synthetic nitrogen’s effect on carbon sequestration swings from being an important ecological advantage to perhaps its gravest liability. Not only would nitrogen fertilizer be contributing to climate change in a way not previously taken into account, but it would also be undermining the long-term productivity of the soil.

Getting their hands dirty: Saeed Khan, Richard Mulvaney, and Tim Ellsworth (l.-r.), in front of the Morrow Plots, University of Illinois.

An Old Idea Germinates Anew
While their research bucks decades of received wisdom, the Illinois researchers know they aren’t breaking new ground here. “The fact is, the message we’re delivering in our papers really is a rediscovery of a message that appeared in the ’20s and ’30s,” Mulvaney says. In their latest paper, “Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers Deplete Soil Nitrogen: A Global Dilemma for Sustainable Cereal Production,” which appeared last year in the Journal of Environmental Quality, the researchers point to two pre-war academic papers that, according to Mulvaney, “state clearly and simply that synthetic nitrogen fertilizers were promoting the loss of soil carbon and organic nitrogen.”

That idea also appears prominently in The Soil and Health (1947), a founding text of modern organic agriculture. In that book, the British agronomist Sir Albert Howard stated the case clearly:

The use of artificial manure, particularly [synthetic nitrogen] … does untold harm. The presence of additional combined nitrogen in an easily assimilable form stimulates the growth of fungi and other organisms which, in the search for organic matter needed for energy and for building up microbial tissue, use up first the reserve of soil humus and then the more resistant organic matter which cements soil particles.

In other words, synthetic nitrogen degrades soil.

That conclusion has been current in organic-farming circles since Sir Albert’s time. In an essay in the important 2002 anthology Fatal Harvest Reader, the California organic farmer Jason McKenney puts it like this:

Fertilizer application begins the destruction of soil biodiversity by diminishing the role of nitrogen-fixing bacteria and amplifying the role of everything that feeds on nitrogen. These feeders then speed up the decomposition of organic matter and humus. As organic matter decreases, the physical structure of soil changes. With less pore space and less of their sponge-like qualities, soils are less efficient at storing water and air. More irrigation is needed. Water leeches through soils, draining away nutrients that no longer have an effective substrate on which to cling. With less available oxygen the growth of soil microbiology slows, and the intricate ecosystem of biological exchanges breaks down.

Although those ideas flourished in organic-ag circles, they withered to dust among soil scientists at the big research universities. Mulvaney told me that in his academic training — he holds a PhD in soil fertility and chemistry from the University of Illinois, where he is now a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences — he was never exposed to the idea that synthetic nitrogen degrades soil. “It was completely overlooked,” he says. “I had never heard of it, personally, until we dug into the literature.”

What sets the Illinois scientists apart from other critics of synthetic nitrogen is their provenance. Sir Albert’s denouncement sits in a dusty old tome that’s pretty obscure even within the organic-agriculture world; Jason McKenney is an organic farmer who operates near Berkeley–considered la-la land by mainstream soil scientists. Both can be — and, indeed have been — ignored by policymakers and large-scale farmers. By contrast, Mulvaney and his colleagues are living, credentialed scientists working at the premier research university in one of the nation’s most prodigious corn-producing–and nitrogen-consuming –states.

Abandon all hope, all fertilizer execs who enter here. The Dirt on Nitrogen, Soil, and Carbon

To come to their conclusions, the researchers studied data from the Morrow plots on the University of Illinois’ Urbana-Champaign campus, which comprise the “the world’s oldest experimental site under continuous corn” cultivation. The Morrow plots were first planted in 1876.

Mulvaney and his collaborators analyzed annual soil-test data in test plots that were planted with three crop rotations: continuous corn, corn-soy, and corn-oats-hay. Some of the plots received moderate amounts of fertilizer application; some received high amounts; and some received no fertilizer at all. The crops in question, particularly corn, generate tremendous amounts of residue. Picture a Midwestern field in high summer, packed with towering corn plants. Only the cobs are harvested; the rest of the plant is left in the field. If synthetic nitrogen use really does promote carbon sequestration, you’d expect these fields to show clear gains in soil organic carbon over time.

Instead, the researchers found, all three systems showed a “net decline occurred in soil [carbon] despite increasingly massive residue [carbon] incorporation.” (They published their findings, “The Myth of Nitrogen Fertilization for Soil Carbon Sequestration,” in the Journal of Environmental Quality in 2007.) In other words, synthetic nitrogen broke down organic matter faster than plant residue could create it.

A particularly stark set of graphs traces soil organic carbon (SOC) in the surface layer of soil in the Morrow plots from 1904 to 2005. SOC rises steadily over the first several decades, when the fields were fertilized with livestock manure. After 1967, when synthetic nitrogen became the fertilizer of choice, SOC steadily drops.

In their other major paper, “Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers Deplete Soil Nitrogen: A Global Dilemma for Sustainable Cereal Production” (2009), the authors looked at nitrogen retention in the soil. Given that the test plots received annual lashings of synthetic nitrogen, conventional ag science would predict a buildup of nitrogen. Sure, some nitrogen would be removed with the harvesting of crops, and some would be lost to runoff. But healthy, fertile soil should be capable of storing nitrogen.

In fact, the researchers found just the opposite. “Instead of accumulating,” they wrote, “soil nitrogen declined significantly in every subplot sampled.” The only explanation, they conclude, is that the loss of organic matter depleted the soil’s ability to store nitrogen. The practice of year-after-year fertilization had pushed the Morrow plots onto the chemical treadmill: unable to efficiently store nitrogen, they became reliant on the next fix.

The researchers found similar data from other test plots. “Such evidence is common in the scientific literature but has seldom been acknowledged, perhaps because N fertilizer practices have been predicated largely on short-term economic gain rather than long-term sustainability,” they write, citing some two dozen other studies which mirrored the patterns of the Morrow plots.

The most recent bit of evidence for the Mulvaney team’s nitrogen thesis comes from a team of researchers at Iowa State University and the USDA. In a 2009 paper(PDF), this group looked at data from two long-term experimental sites in Iowa. And they, too, found that soil carbon had declined after decades of synthetic nitrogen applications. They write: “Increases in decay rates with N fertilization apparently offset gains in carbon inputs to the soil in such a way that soil C sequestration was virtually nil in 78% of the systems studied, despite up to 48 years of N additions.”

Fertile ground for research: the Morrow Plots at the University of Illinois.Photo:brianholsclaw

Slinging Dirt
Mulvaney and Khan laughed when I asked them what sort of response their work was getting in the soil-science world. “You can bet the fertilizer industry is aware of our work, and they aren’t too pleased,” Mulvaney said. “It’s all about sales, and our conclusions aren’t real good for sales.”

As for the soil-science community, Mulvaney said with a chuckle, “the response is still building.” There has been negative word-of-mouth reaction, he added, but so far, only two responses have been published: a remarkable fact, given that the first paper came out in 2007.

Both published responses fall into the those-data-don’t-say-what-you-say-they category. The first, published as a letter to the editor (PDF) in the Journal of Environmental Quality, came from D. Keith Reid, a soil fertility specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Reid writes that the Mulvaney team’s conclusion about synthetic nitrogen and soil carbon is “sensational” and “would be incredibly important if it was true.”

Reid acknowledges the drop in soil organic carbon, but argues that it was caused not by synthetic nitrogen itself, but rather by the difference in composition between manure and synthetic nitrogen. Manure is a mix of slow-release organic nitrogen and organic matter; synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is pure, readily available nitrogen. “It is much more likely that the decline in SOC is due to the change in the form of fertilizer than to the rate of fertilizer applied,” Reid writes.

Then he makes a startling concession:

From the evidence presented in this paper, it would be fair to conclude that modern annual crop management systems are associated with declines in SOC concentrations and that increased residue inputs from high nitrogen applications do not mitigate this decline as much as we might hope.

In other words, modern farming — i.e., the kind practiced on nearly all farmland in the United States — destroys soil carbon. (The Mulvaney team’s response to Reid’s critique can be found in the above-linked document.)

The second second critique (PDF) came from a team led by D.S. Powlson at the Department of Soil Science and Centre for Soils and Ecosystem Function at the Rothamsted Research Station in the United Kingdom. Powlson and colleagues attack the Mulvaney team’s contention that synthetic nitrogen depletes the soil’s ability to store nitrogen.

“We propose that the conclusion drawn by Mulvaney et al. (2009), that inorganic N fertilizer causes a decline in soil organic N concentration, is false and not supported by the data from the Morrow Plots or from numerous studies worldwide,” they write.

Then they, too, make a major concession: “the observation of significant soil C and N declines in subsoil layers is interesting and deserves further consideration.” That is, they don’t challenge Mulvaney team’s contention that synthetic nitrogen destroys organic carbon in the subsoil.

In their response (PDF), Mulvaney and his colleagues mount a vigorous defense of their methodology. And then they conclude:

In the modern era of intensified agriculture, soils are generally managed as a commodity to maximize short-term economic gain. Unfortunately, this concept entirely ignores the consequences for a vast array of biotic and abiotic soil processes that aff ect air and water quality and most important, the soil itself.

So who’s right? For now, we know that the Illinois team has presented a robust cache of evidence that turns 50 years of conventional soil science on its head–and an analysis that conventional soil scientists acknowledge is “sensational” and “incredibly important” if true. We also know that their analysis is consistent with the founding principles of organic agriculture: that properly applied manure and nitrogen-fixing cover crops, not synthetic nitrogen, are key to long-term soil health and fertility.

The subject demands more study and fierce debate. But if Mulvaney and his team are correct, the future health of our farmland hinges on a dramatic shift away from reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.

 

[Treg]

The problem seems to be that most research is done by large chemical / fertiliser company's so the experiments are always going to be in their favour.

What company is going to fund research into Organics if they see no profit in it.

What is good about the research above is it was done over a long period & by the looks of it independent.

The problem for most intensive farmers is going Organic is a jump into the unknown & a different mind set.
It's not like missing a round of fertiliser, because that grass is use to having it (I want to put addicted! ) shallow root system because it's food comes from above! (That's my simple view).

And I would like to say that I think Tff would be a lot less intresting without it's "foreigners" posts & gives us an insight into how farmers are thinking globally , usually surprisingly similar!

 

[Farmer Roy]

err, heres a "foreigners" global post . . .

https://www.vicnotill.com.au/2017/03/keeping-soil-alive/

 

[FonterraFarmer]

err, heres a "foreigners" global post . . .

https://www.vicnotill.com.au/2017/03/keeping-soil-alive/

"Foreigners" thats a bit rich from those funny islands on the other side of the world A touch ironic when they comment on farming over here, yet they fail to appreciate it when we reciprocate the gesture.

 

[Farmer Roy]

" we expect answers to come from government or universities, but so often that's not where change happens, the change happens from the bottom up "

 

[Farmer Roy]

a very interesting article about a high input arable farmer changing his methods due to the ever increasing costs of his inputs

http://www.soilsforlife.org.au/cs-inveraray-downs

 

[Farmer Roy]

"Foreigners" thats a bit rich from those funny islands on the other side of the world A touch ironic when they comment on farming over here, yet they fail to appreciate it when we reciprocate the gesture.

err, some of these foreigners are even full time farmers & agricultural contractors who have spent their entire lives involved in agriculture, their family farms, working for other farmers, running their own farm, surviving near complete wipeouts with floods, drought, corrupted volatile world markets & insolvent creditors, while doing contracting work for other farmers, thus gaining insight into many different methods of achieving the same outcome & realising there are many options in the tool box, not just one . . .

 

[neilo]

"Foreigners" thats a bit rich from those funny islands on the other side of the world A touch ironic when they comment on farming over here, yet they fail to appreciate it when we reciprocate the gesture.

I think you'll find that's because we are right, and we know very well just how badly you lot do things. That's why we had a few crusades, and colonised lots of countries a few hundred years ago. It's a very British thing.

 

[Farmer Roy]

haha - hows that worked out for you then ?

 

[Farmer Roy]

https://theconversation.com/healthy-soil-is-the-real-key-to-feeding-the-world-75364

 

[unlacedgecko]

haha - hows that worked out for you then ?

They're all coming back and now we're being colonised...

 

[ollie989898]

Oh god, spare us.

You realise that several billion people are alive today only because of the Haber process and Dr Borlaug, right?

As the Duck eluded to, inputs have to have an economic advantage, or they will not be used. There is no conning involved. The results have been demonstrated worldwide. And if the stuff did not work, or provided no economic benefit to the farmer, none of it would be sold.

This heralding of the low input farmer, is nothing of the sort. The people involved in this process are largely doing it not for some kind of social altruism, or because they are eco-friendly (farming is NOT never has and never will be eco-friendly and I will argue tooth and nail against any claim that it is) but because they are forced down that route for other reasons. Reasons like:

-Lack of capital
-Lack of profitability per unit product produced
-Lack out actual output (due to geographical or regional limitations, IE rainfall)

Next you will be trying to tell me that the poorest people in the world involved in subsistence agriculture, some of whom are or were involved in slash and burn agriculture, do not use nitrogen fertiliser out of their concerns for the environment?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

What tosh- are you 'the duck's alter ego?

Can't speak for the others, but farm profit is my main driver.
I have no animal health issues (or expenditure) and 3x the output per acre of my large scale neighbour. Perhaps my lambs know I've got a mortgage?

Would really like to know how that can be "improved" by slapping on some urea- or reseeding with a nitrogen-hungry monoculture?

Care to tell us how soils really work, Ollie?
Or is the "living soil" concept just fiction to you?

I'd urge you to search YouTube for a bloke named Gabe Brown, who will answer your assumptions neatly. Will only take an hour of your time.

 

[Farmer Roy]

I wouldn't bother wasting your breath @Kiwi Pete . . .

The irony of these whinging pommie pansies blindly repeating the mantra of cheap food, feeding the world, food security - while at the same time complaining about low prices, apparently not caring about anything or anyone outside of their box ( the disdain felt for dog walkers, townies, non farmers & especially those scary brown skinned people ), the natural environment or the rest of the world, while surviving in their own supported economic bubble . . . does not escape me
They are so locked into the high input system they refuse to see anything else.
EVERY agricultural system in the past has failed. Followed by that civilisation / culture / empire. There is NO reason not to expect the current high input agri industrial will also fail at some point
No one is suggesting a return to slash & burn agriculture. I personally am not suggesting a complete halt on synthetic inputs. However, I would like to greatly reduce my reliance on external inputs & work more in harmony with nature / soil / environment, than against it
IPM ( integrated pest management ) in cotton is just one mainstream example. Rather than just killing everything in the field it actually encourages beneficial insects, spiders, parasitic wasps, birds etc that help to control the harmful grubs that severely impact cotton production. The cotton industry here is probably the most innovative & exciting area in Ag, & they are constantly looking at ways of reducing inputs & working with nature.
This is no sandal wearing hippy sh!t - it's REAL world agriculture in a very commercial sense
No one has probably bothered reading to the end, but fark you all anyway. Your world WILL collapse at some point.