Chemical Agriculture 203: Ecological Diseases

A number of ecoloogical diseases have lead to undesirable consequences in agriculture. This was a surprise to some as it was thought that monocultures would not negatively affect society.

The technical terms for these diseases are "diseases of the ecotope" and "diseases of the biocoenosis".

Chemical Agricuture 202: Monoculture - Limited Crop Rotation

A monoculture is the human agricultural practice of growing a single species crop over a wide area and for many consecutive years. The most common monoculture is field corn, where millions of acres per year are grown and sometimes in the same place for many years.

At face value this would seem very efficient as specialized corn planting and harvesting equipment can allow one farmer to grow thousands of acres per year. However the monoculture has a dark side which we will explore in this post.

Chemical Agriculture 200: Elucidation

When I was in high school I was the poster child for modern chemical agriculture. I grew up on a chemical agriculture farm and spent the first 25 years of my life being "educated" by a system that brought us the "green revolution" and I don't mean recycling. I was FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter president for three years and took 4 years of Ag training while in high school. I was an avid reader (still am) and read every book I could get my hands on how to grow corn, soybeans, oats, sorghum, alfalfa, and clover.

I also studied livestock husbandry. I wrote a 50 page thesis on bacterial diseases of livestock for my high school biology class. I was so interested in this that I borrowed all the books our local veterinary (a recent graduate of Iowa State University) had on bacteriology, biology, and livestock diseases. I read them cover to cover and then asked if I could use his micro scopes, centrifuge, stains and antibiotic sensitivity disks to identify various livestock bacteria. What newly minted PhD in veterinary science could turn down such a wannabe disciple. He and I had a great time my sophomore year in high school reviewing the basics of veterinary bacteriology. Looking back on it was probably a good review for him too. He was a very talented surgeon and was very good at diagnosing problems. By the time I was off to college I had inoculated and vaccinated thousands of head of livestock (on our farm) for various common and minor maladies.

I share this with the reader so you understand I'm not just an organic zealot (yes I am that), but I understand the other side of the coin pretty well.

Elucidation is a verb meaning to explain and make a subject that is hard to understand clear or easy to understand. The root of the word is from the Latin "lucid" to make clear. Let's look deeper...

A Passion for Farming

Our passion is farming and we love to grow great vegetables for our customers. You cannot be a leader in your field without a passion for that activity, its technologies, and the result. Passion causes us to move towards our goals and it creates leverage or a force multiplier to our efforts. It keep us going when the days are long.

We care deeply about what we grow, how we grow it and who we grow it for. For example:

Chemical Agriculture 101 - Chemical Fertilizers

So what is so bad about growing commodities with synthetic fertilizers and a little help from pesticides and herbicides?

In this blog I have spent a lot of time explaining how we grow vegetables organically. I believe in educating our customers on the whys and wherefores of the organic system.

Occasionally someone will ask the question about the pervasive system of chemical agriculture. For example, isn't nitrogen in whatever form still nitrogen, and isn't it all the same at the chemistry level. Well no not really