Why grow organic?

OK Dim i will lol
Canna aqua vega or flora is the first that springs to mind. Im sure there are cheaper options out there, but i think the results speak for themselves. There is no way on this earth i can name chemical fertalisers and you can name an organic one that is identical in its fertaliser NPK ratio..you would have to be some sort of fertiliser psycic for that or a scientist lol

 

Zimbabwe is a very good example, white farmers using modern growing methods were producing the goods.
Put it back in the hands of the natives and its total chaos, land just goes to waste and famine takes over.
Agreed its political, and thats the point, it is political and not anything to do with growing organically.
With out modern growing methods we all starve.

As for hydroponics, am I right in thinking tomatoes have been grown by this method for years now.
And we all know how tasteless supermarket toms are.
Grow them outside in the soil and they taste much better, organic or inorganic.
Hydroponics has to be the ultimate un natural way of growing anything.

To say organically grown, hydroponically, has got to be the biggest load of old pony I have heard in years.

 

90% of all tomatoes grown in the UK are grown hydroponically ...and I very much doubt if you know the difference (taste wise) of a hyroponically grown tomato vs a soil grown tomato from the supermarket and I doubt if you know that the tomatoes that you buy are grown in soil of water

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8513111/Just-20pc-of-tomatoes-eaten-in-UK-are-British.html

people who grow hyroponically need to know how things grow, what nutrients are needed and when to supply them .... I think it's a lot harder to grow this way, but there are people who have mastered the art

I will stick to growing in soil and using the high brix method (for the time being)

 

Canna aqua vega is used in hydroponics and spefically targeted for cannabis growers .... you perhaps misunderstood what I was trying to say .... what I meant was that for most synthetic fertilizers (such as miracle grow etc), there is an organic fertilizer that will have a very similar compostion, and do the same thing (if not better) ....

and you don't need to be a chemist or compost psychic to find those .... the chemists have already made it easy as all NPK values and compositions are made public ... all you need to know is how to search on google
:WINK1:

 

The modern trend towards bio fuel as the planets salvation is also driving one of the biggest land grabs that Africa has ever seen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/food-water-africa-land-grab

 

the same happened in South Africa when the old government ceased to exist

the Russians muscled in .... paid the new government peanuts, then came in with ships as big as factories and wiped out all the fish off the coasts .... they used dredge nets and had processing factories on those ships .... in a short time, they messed up the whole eco system offshore

was sad to see as I lived right on the beach and used to fish daily ... locals were up in arms but it was kept hush hush out of newspapers and local tv

 

You said if i named a fertiliser you would name a organic equivalent that does the same job for the same price or cheaper. I did name one and you said i misunderstood your question
I also sometimes get a bit concerned when people think you can answer all off the worlds questions with a google search

 

OH ... thats easy then .... Advanced nutrients Super tea .... guys growing (medicinal) cannabis have compared the 2 and most prefer advanced nutrients

advanced nutrients have issued a challenge to other manufactures for a huge amount of cash .... the winner takes all in a grow challenge .... there have been no takers

but that is still not what I meant .... I was refering to comparing synthetic fertilizers made from petrolium by products (such as miracle grow) to organic fertilizers/nutrients



and its on Google

 

OK if it is on google (the internet) you must be right.

And as for cannabis if i ever came accross a cannabis plant in this country the only thing i would water it with, would be weed killer as it is illegal.

 

Don't get too excited Guys, Mellow thoughts

 

Thats silly expensive and no good for tomatoes The npk ratio`s and price (£12/Litre!) suggest its marketed for a certain illicit plant species.
Organic Super Tea Grow, N:P:K 1.50 - 0.75 - 1.50
Organic Super Tea Bloom, N:P:K 0.50 - 1.50 - 2.0

1L of canna aqua vega would cost about 50p to make

 

Thats a dangerously sweeping statement. "Profits" yes, "don't give a damn" and "greed" - yeah, seems like it, but unlikely that they are actual motives - that would be cutting off the hand that feeds you.

They brought us Glyphosate - compared to everything I used as a lad that went before it its both effective and a night-and-day by comparison on Toxicity.

Monsanto got rich from that, now they want to breed plants that are immune to Glyphosate (I think that's opening the genie's bottle, hopefully I will be wrong on that), and that has got them into other GM areas. They could breed crops that increase yield and/or require less chemicals to grow. A good thing in principle, but again its the Genie's bottle. If they bred a high yielding, drought resistant, crop for sub-Saharan Africa they would get good PR I expect ... I don't think that's on their agenda, hence the "greed" label that they get for PR instead ...

Documentaries I have watched suggest that those countries would like to breed their own GM crops - so they are not dependant on a company like Monsanto - that's fair enough, and maybe that's the reason Monsanto aren't interested in that line of research, rather than the perceived Greed? (I dunno the answer ...)

Yes, I built some polytunnels for Tomatoes (etc.) using "Nutrient Film Technique" which was successful back in the '70s (except that when the project fell behind schedule the NFT acronym was unkindly said to mean "No F Tomatoes" !!

I don't think that has anything to do with Hydroponics. That's variety - choosen to crop all-together and/or not bruise in transit and/or have good shelf life. If you want a tasty Tom. you pretty much have to grow it yourself (not sure you can even get good ones from a reputable greengrocer, can you?)

As an aside I've used it on compost-grown plants overwintered under grow lights. Folk may remember from an earlier thread that I sowed some Canna seed in September (might have been October), they flowers in November and set seed in December ... they were fed with Canna vega [not the "aqua" bit, but I suspect the "mix" is the same]. Can't remember what it cost for the 1L bottle, but its lasted me 2 winter seasons under Grow Lights ...

 

I'm testing a lawn using biobizz fish mix as a fertilizer ....

it costs less than £10 for a 1 litre bottle, and I dilute it at 5ml per litre of water ... (so for £10 you get 200 litres of fertilizer when diluted) ... I watered the lawn first, then applied it as a foliar spray ... the lawn is small (approx 100 sq meters, and 10 litres of foliar spray was loads for that size)

it stinks for 20 minutes or so, but it's worth a try as it's cheap .... it has an NPK of 6-2-4 ... I should start seeing results in a few days time

I tested it on some small ferns, and diluted it at 3ml per litre .... (the bottle says to use 1-2ml per litre of water if using as a foliar spray)

the ferns love this stuff and have turned darker green that those which I never used it on ... it's made of fish and sugar beet extract

the best product that I have used so far is Iguana Juice grow (costs £20 per litre and is diluted at 4ml per litre of water)

 

breaking news:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Eati...iving_Pesticide_Factory_/19751/0/0/0/Y/M.html

snip:
A new generation of insect larvae is eating the roots of genetically engineered corn intended to be resistant to such pests. The failure of Monsanto's genetically modified Bt corn could be the most serious threat ever to a genetically modified crop in the U.S.

And the economic impact could be huge. Billions of dollars are at stake, as Bt corn accounts for 65 percent of all corn grown in the US.

The strain of corn, engineered to kill the larvae of beetles, such as the corn rootworm, contains a gene copied from an insect-killing bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt.

But even though a scientific advisory panel warned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the threat of insects developing resistance was high, Monsanto argued that the steps necessary to prevent such an occurrence -- which would have entailed less of the corn being planted -- were an unnecessary precaution, and the EPA naively agreed.

According to a recent NPR report:

"The scientists who called for caution now are saying 'I told you so,' because there are signs that a new strain of resistant rootworms is emerging...[A] committee of experts at the EPA is now recommending that biotech companies put into action, for the first time, a 'remedial action plan' aimed at stopping the spread of such resistant insects ...

The EPA's experts also are suggesting that the agency reconsider its approval of a new kind of rootworm-killing corn, which Monsanto calls SmartStax. This new version of Bt corn includes two different Bt genes that are supposed to kill the rootworm in different ways. This should help prevent resistance from emerging, and the EPA is allowing farmers to plant it on up to 95 percent of their corn acres. But if one of those genes is already compromised… such a high percentage of Bt corn could rapidly produce insects that are resistant to the second one, too."

There can be little doubt that genetically engineered crops are the most dangerous aspect of modern agriculture. Not only are we seeing rapid emergence of super-weeds resistant to glyphosate, courtesy of Roundup Ready crops, we now also have evidence of emerging Bt-resistant insects. Add to that the emergence of a brand new organism capable of producing disease and infertility in both plants and animals, and a wide variety of evidence showing harm to human health, and the only reasonable expectation one can glean is that humanity as a whole is being seriously threatened by this foolhardy technology.

Bt Corn—a Most Dangerous Failure

Monsanto's genetically modified "Bt corn" has been equipped with a gene from soil bacteria called Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which produces the Bt-toxin. It's a pesticide that breaks open the stomach of certain insects and kills them.

This pesticide-producing corn entered the food supply in the late 1990's, and over the past decade, the horror stories have started piling up. And the problem with Bt crops go far beyond the creation of Bt-resistant insects.

Monsanto and the EPA swore that the genetically engineered corn would only harm insects. The Bt-toxin produced inside the plant would be completely destroyed in the human digestive system and would not have any impact at all on consumers, they claimed. Alas, they've been proven wrong on that account as well, because not only is Bt corn producing resistant "super-pests," researchers have also found that the Bt-toxin can indeed wreak havoc on human health.

Bt-Toxin Now Found in Many People's Blood!

 

Its a Rant Site: no citations or peer review, and I attach no credance to it whatsoever. Lots of links within the article back to other articles on the same Dr's own site of rants ...

It has some links to research (on .GOV sites) that indicate some compounds detected in people / mice ... but not whether there is any issue associated with that (its no doubt something that should be researched - as I said "Gennie out of bottle"). The presence of some compounds means nothing until they are found to be harmful.

All too easy to take these things out of context and get over agitated about them. Anyone can stand up and shout a lot ... but unlike rants some reasoned, carefully conducted, peer reviewed, cited, science carries actual clout.