Organic Farming Principles

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Living soil

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the best Russian scientists practically rediscovered the theoretical foundations and real possibilities of purely biological agriculture for their contemporaries. In theory and in practice, it has been proven that only truly living soil is able to feed a person to their fill, and the level of its fertility is determined, first of all, by the number of living organisms living in it, ranging from the simplest bacteria to all kinds of bugs and worms.

The question cannot but arise: what does bacteria have to do with when plants need nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium for growth, and even more so for fruiting?

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A century ago, in theory and practice, it was proved that nitrogen that enters the soil with dew, rain, air into the soil is sufficient to obtain the highest yield, it is only necessary that the mechanical structure allows sediments to penetrate deep into the soil. The rest of the macro- and micro-nutrients, even in the poorest, uncultivated soils, are contained in quantities that sometimes exceed the needs of plants by tens of times, and deciduous litter constantly replenishes these reserves.

However, all these substances are in a bound state and can be converted into a form assimilated by plants only under the influence of acids, and with a rather weak concentration. In soils, such are formed due to the vital activity of living organisms. Some acids are produced directly by bacteria (lactic, acetic, etc.), others (carbonic acid) are formed due to carbon dioxide released during the breathing of living organisms. It is clear that the same soil living creatures are involuntarily engaged in structuring the soil, making numerous grooves in it, through which moisture and air necessary for themselves and the roots of plants penetrate.

Another important source of plant nutrition is the protein mass left by living creatures after dying off in the soil. It is known that bacteria divide on average every 20 minutes, forming two daughter cells. Then the lion's share of them dies, thereby feeding the plants. The biomass of bacteria on one hundred square meters of chernozem reaches tens of kilograms. The number of soil inhabitants depends on the living conditions, i.e. soil structure, its looseness, availability of nutrition. And the beauty of this is that the underground inhabitants themselves create the necessary conditions for themselves. They lay numerous highways for the penetration of air and moisture, and the plants grown by their own efforts become the main food for them after death.

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Nothing is lost in nature, just as it does not live in vain. And in the process of life, and dying, each of its creatures feeds some other. Plants serve as food for animals and vice versa. There are just enough living creatures in the soil to completely eat the plant food available in it. However, both plants and living creatures form their nutritional mass not only due to each other, but also due to the absorption of solar energy, nutrients from the air, rain, dew, etc. And this, in theory, should lead to a constant an increase in plant mass and an increase in the number of soil inhabitants.

It would be so if it were not for all kinds of unfavorable factors affecting both plants and living beings. One of them is a person who takes a part of plant food for himself. If its effect is compensated by favorable external factors, then the level of fertility is maintained. When he takes more, he must return to the earthly inhabitants other food necessary to preserve their number and unnecessary food to himself. It is even more important not to interfere with your natural breadwinners, not to poison them and not to destroy the life-giving soil structure that has been created for decades with a shovel or plow. These are the main principles of intelligent, maximally productive farming.

Its effectiveness was proved by scientists who consistently collected at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries in the middle lane on experimental plots of grain at 200-250 centners / ha. In fact, the country was brought to a line beyond which, logically, general satiety and prosperity could follow. But at first, the so-called "classical" school of agriculture, no less stubborn and vain than now and also at the helm, did not allow to take the decisive step, and then historical events followed, consigning for many decades, at best, oblivion, and at worst - destruction, most of what was created in Russia is reasonable and eternal. Many scientists who tried to revive the agrotechnical ideas of the beginning of the century during the Stalin era were severely repressed.