Ploughing, compost, mulch, 'preparations',etc.

[Guest guest]

Dear Radha Krishna Prabhu, and others of the conference.

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

I have a few questions regarding the above subjects.

 

In the 'Lost Science of Organic Cultivation'. It is mentioned that

composting is a far superior method of soil fertilisation, than the

application of a green mulch which is ploughed into the soil. The argument

is given (I cant remember exactly) that the soil cannot obtain the full

amount of nitrogen from the mulch due (I think) to oxidisation (or some

other cause). Therefore it is reccomended to compost such mulch before

adding to the soil.

 

I can understand that this may be the case when you take soil which is not

already humus rich, and is somewhat depleted.

 

However Fukuoka and the permaculture method reccomends green mulching and

states that its positive attributes are that it preserves up to 75% of

moisture of the soil which would be lost to evaporation, and it also

controls the growth of weeds.

 

For a while I was a bit stumped by this, unitl I realised that there was a

factor I was missing out on. This is basicaly the idea of planting of a

leguminous crop such as clover, which is then cut and left on the soil

before it can seed.

 

In this case we are not simply adding a mulch on the surface, we are also

leaving the nitrogen rich roots in the soil, along with the nitrogen that

the living plant fixed there. If I am correct, we should also sow the seeds

of the crop we want to grow into the clover sometime before harvesting the

clover, to allow the crop to take advantage of the nitrogen fixed during the

clovers growth.

 

Is this correct? In other words was Howard basing his observation on green

mulching based only on his observations of a surface addition?

 

Further. Can anyone reccomend other leguminous crops such as clover, which

is easily available, and can be used as an effective mulching crop? I need

their names so I can order them, and also details of where to order them

from.

 

We are looking at a project of between five to ten acres, which would

require a lot of composting, so it makes more sense to me to green mulcj

with a legume than to make compost.

 

Another thing. I attended a seminar on the making of the Steiner

'Preparations' given by a New Zealand fellow, in Bangalore. It was a bit

funny because the audience was all Hindu, and he having had a few nasty

shocks with religious audiences in the past the man was not sure how to

present the material. So for the longest time everyone was all ears but when

he eventualy told us to use a cows horn, there was an imperceptable shudder

in the room. It seems though that I was the only really shocked one, the

others all being 'modern' hindus, took it in their stride.

 

Anyway he presented all sorts of proofs regarding the efficacy of the

'preparations'. it occured to me that in a traditional Indian farm, cows

horns would have been available, from animals that died of natural causes,

and that if such horns were available they could be used.

 

Do any of you know if such preparations are really as good as they appear to

be? The cows horn one was, from what I can remember the least objectionable,

and easier to make, wheras the others seemd to be even more gruesome and

somewhat difficult.

 

Finaly, do any of you have any information on Steiner's, astrological

planting tables, and how effective they are?

 

Thanks Prabhus.

 

YS Samba das