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YOUR GARDEN IS NOT ORGANIC...

NUG-JUG

Member
In fact I was speaking of any type of nutes the plant may need, organic or otherwise. I can understand the desire to make a living system within the soil and why we should strive to do so. But (for example) if the plant needs a bit extra P, and you spray some phosphite on the leaf, what's the problem?

I don't have much of a problem if someone feels they have to resort to that. Although isn't anything you spray on the leaves going to end up in the soil? When I spray water collects at the base of the plant. That goes in the soil. I wouldn't want that phosphite interfering with the Crobe's life.
 

DARC MIND

Member
Veteran
I had a good weekend full of organic goodness...Found a local source for the best organic products,harvested,and met up with some cool cats and puffed some organic smoke,gifted and received gifts of some swell product. Yeah.....organic gardening can take you places you didn't expect.
tell me about it, i was recenlty gifted some rare old school genetics and i cant stop smiling. dont know of any other reason why i got them beans but from just being a fan of old school genes and meeting other organic growers who respect and are on the same quest. make new friends and ends! :dance013:
you all grow kind
darc
 

mad librettist

Active member
Veteran
If you feed p through the leaves it won't need it through the roots, which means no point making exudates to trade. Which means reduced population or altered population in the rhizosphere, not to mention possible fucking up of the phylosphere.

Just leave it alone! You can't fuck around without fucking something up. That's a law of nature.
 

grapeman

Active member
Veteran
If you feed p through the leaves it won't need it through the roots, which means no point making exudates to trade. Which means reduced population or altered population in the rhizosphere, not to mention possible fucking up of the phylosphere.

Just leave it alone! You can't fuck around without fucking something up. That's a law of nature.

LOL. Not altogether true.
 

Stoned Crow

Member
Maybe we should make an organic strain called "Stoned Melon", then it could be found in a seed catalog! :dance013:

With the following restrictions...
1. Can only be grown in Pro-Mix;
2. Has to be Ph'd above 7;
3. Has to be flushed the last 2 weeks of flower;
4. At least one inch of pea-gravel in the bottom of each pot;
5. No cure allowed;
6. Must provide alot of N during flower;
7. Can't be grown in recycled soil;
8. Must be grown in a square pot;
9. Can only use commercial liquid nutes; and
10. Must be 15 year-old bag seed to begin with....
..............:dueling:.......................SC
 

guest2012y

Living with the soil
Veteran
With the following restrictions...
1. Can only be grown in Pro-Mix;
2. Has to be Ph'd above 7;
3. Has to be flushed the last 2 weeks of flower;
4. At least one inch of pea-gravel in the bottom of each pot;
5. No cure allowed;
6. Must provide alot of N during flower;
7. Can't be grown in recycled soil;
8. Must be grown in a square pot;
9. Can only use commercial liquid nutes; and
10. Must be 15 year-old bag seed to begin with....
..............:dueling:.......................SC
Actually.....I can cross pollenate a bunch of stuff I have and just name it "Stoned Melon".

Throw some pollen around something like this:
G13 x Haze X PPP
cross those f1 seeds with Blueberry
cross those f1 seeds with Pure Kush
cross those f1 seeds with Blackberry

And presto......."Stoned Melon"

A highly sought after strain of mystery origin. Thought to have lineage from the first Buddhist temples in S.E. Asia and then crossed to the original G13. A truly delightful and mind expanding hybrid that will leave you gasping for air and enlightened.
Sweet melon flavor,and a stoney acid-like high will definitely give you with a
Stoned Melon :ying:
EDIT:
These buds are huge! Massive flowers dripping with resin and large triches that seem to reflect the light like a thousand tiny diamonds.
 
T

treefrog

Actually.....I can cross pollenate a bunch of stuff I have and just name it "Stoned Melon".

Throw some pollen around something like this:
G13 x Haze X PPP
cross those f1 seeds with Blueberry
cross those f1 seeds with Pure Kush
cross those f1 seeds with Blackberry

And presto......."Stoned Melon"

A highly sought after strain of mystery origin. Thought to have lineage from the first Buddhist temples in S.E. Asia and then crossed to the original G13. A truly delightful and mind expanding hybrid that will leave you gasping for air and enlightened.
Sweet melon flavor,and a stoney acid-like high will definitely give you with a
Stoned Melon :ying:
EDIT:
These buds are huge! Massive flowers dripping with resin and large triches that seem to reflect the light like a thousand tiny diamonds.

Right on!

I got many more.. The knock-offs will be called "Puddin' Head"
and ML will roll her eyes at us all while calling it a variety, not a strain.. :D
 
T

treefrog

It has been a bit slow lately....
Hard not to be outside in all the organic goodness.
 

skinandclones

New member
If you use products like LIQUID KARMA or other bottled nutrients that are not certified so please stop saying your end product is so...

thanks y"all and i hope everyone is having an awesome day!!! :dance013::dance013::dance013::dance013::dance013::dance013::dance013::dance013::dance013:

I think this is a correct statement. I do some organic and some not. We will c the differences.
 
The whole organic movement has really soured on me. From the whole certification crap to the marketing as a healthier product. I hate being a consumer and it seems to me that business views organic as just a niche that they can exploit to make more $$. I just wish the world would pay a little closer attention to the source and the quality of the things that consider essential for life itself. I'll get off my soapbox now.
 
C

CT Guy

The whole organic movement has really soured on me. From the whole certification crap to the marketing as a healthier product. I hate being a consumer and it seems to me that business views organic as just a niche that they can exploit to make more $$. I just wish the world would pay a little closer attention to the source and the quality of the things that consider essential for life itself. I'll get off my soapbox now.

I totally agree with you, but the way I look at it is that it's better than business are promoting sustainable and organic methods, even if it's just to make a profit, rather than marketing chemicals or other potentially harmful substances.

Now if only we can get people to stop buying Scott's and Monsanto products.....
 

dev0n

Member
Now if only we can get people to stop buying Scott's and Monsanto products.....

OOHOHOHOHOHOHO You did NOT just go there :jump:

Okay fine there is a lot of weirdness to the secrecy and pervasiveness surrounding GMOs these days, but I'd be TOTALLY on board with a number of Monsanto's efforts over the last decade. I mean come on we all saw the whole thing with the Colorado Potato Beetle, and Penn Gillette said Norman Borlaug is the greatest human ever so he MUST BE dammit ...

But yeah Scotts is mediocre, but ultimately shit -- everything that gets wide enough distribution to be so ubiquitous has to end up being pretty much shit. When Cuban cigars ramped up production to meet the demands of global distribution their quality suffered immensely, and the Vuelta Abajo area has some of the most amazing soil I've ever seen ...
 

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
Hey I have a question:

If organics are cheaper to produce, or requires less labor to grow it, why is organic food and produce more expensive? If it was more efficient to grow organically, or outyielded hydroponic systems, or required less pesticide, fertilizer, or water, wouldn't organic produce be cheaper than "commercial" crops?
 

mad librettist

Active member
Veteran
Hey I have a question:

If organics are cheaper to produce, or requires less labor to grow it, why is organic food and produce more expensive? If it was more efficient to grow organically, or outyielded hydroponic systems, or required less pesticide, fertilizer, or water, wouldn't organic produce be cheaper than "commercial" crops?


Organic takes more labor, but properly managed organic polyculture has higher yields per unit of land than mechanized monoculture. It is inherently less costly in terms of resources, but more costly in terms of labor (aka jobs).

What offsets the additional cost of resources in conventional growing is a government subsidy scheme for petrochemicals and monoculture. But make no mistake, just because the cost is shifted to your tax bill when the time comes to clean up, and to your health and quality of life, as well as a general burden on the economy, does not mean conventional farming is actually less costly. Maybe at the register, but not in reality.


the basic comparison is fuel production by extraction v. fermentation. Fermentation requires a different kind of skill, and the profit comes largely from continued creative work and advancing technology. The more is produced in fermentation, the more resources are created - the exact opposite of extractive processes in general. The natural course of fermentative production is greater supply and thus lower cost. When it comes to extraction, the profit comes from occupying the territory. Yes, the extraction process still takes skill and treasure, but ultimately the right to profit is connected to territory, not work. In that case the process by definition creates scarcity, as the resource itself was "owned" in common before it is handing over. You had more, you sold it for a couple of beads, and now you have less. And you have to pay to get some back, as well as the costs of extraction.



IMO the real disaster, the one that Penn and other right-wing zealots warn us about, comes about when the two concepts - organic growing and mechanized monoculture - are combined. Incorrectly applied organic inputs can damage the earth just as easily, and an unhealthy food web does not suddenly recover just because certain poisons are avoided.

give me 100 acres of nothing but three sisters and beneficial weeds, and a good labor pool. I would wager I could produce much more food that can be had from 100 acres of corn, even if one of the crops failed. Crop loss and input costs in general should go down over time if the land is well managed.
 

Clackamas Coot

Active member
Veteran
Hey I have a question:

If organics are cheaper to produce, or requires less labor to grow it, why is organic food and produce more expensive? If it was more efficient to grow organically, or outyielded hydroponic systems, or required less pesticide, fertilizer, or water, wouldn't organic produce be cheaper than "commercial" crops?
Lazyman

The main reason is that demand exceeds supply.
The U S sales of organic products have continued to grow during 2009 despite the distressed state of the economy, the Organic Trade Association (OTA) revealed in its findings from 2010 Organic Industry Survey.

In fact, organic product sales in 2009 grew by 5.3% overall, to reach $26.6 billion. Of that $24.8 billion represented organic food. The remaining $1.8 billion were sales of organic non-foods items. “While total U S food sales grew by only 1.6% in 2009, organic food sales grew by 5.1%. Meanwhile, organic non-food sales grew by 9.1%, as opposed to total non-food sales which had a 1% negative sales growth rate. These findings indicated that even in tough times, consumers understood the benefits that organic products offered,” said Christine Bushway, OTA’s executive director.

Organic fruits and vegetables, which represented 38% of total organic food sales of the US, reached nearly $9.5 billion in sales in 2009, up by 11.4% from 2008 sales.

Most notable, organic fruits and vegetables now represented 11.4% of all U S fruit and vegetable sales.
[cite]

The next factor up is the issue of logistics. Fresh produce falls into 3 categories for this limited discussion, i.e. conventional, transitional and organic. The terms are obvious as to their meanings.

California is the largest producer of fresh produce in the US followed up (depending on the specific commodity) by Florida. Unless there's a hurricane that year. Then factor in Mexico and their National Market.

Conventional produce grown in California's Salinas Valley ("The Salad Bowl of America") moves to the East Coast as full truck loads (known as FT or FTL) because you have to get the truck loaded quickly and effeciently and moving East to insure that the product will be received and accepted at destination.

Organic and transitional are generally shipped as less than truckload (LTL) which is a much higher rate. Loads which consist of more than a single pick-up point are called 'mixers' and the problem arises in that packing sheds are not the most well run operations. Waiting for 4 or 5 hours to get your 5 or 6 pallets is not out of the norm. Depending on the commodity you can either haul 22 or 24 pallets (again depending on the commodity) meaning that you can spend a couple of days getting the full load on before you're ready to roll. This means you now need a team to get the product into NYC.

Part of this is that organically grown produce is picked ripe unlike conventionally grown produce. Tomatoes are a good example. At the wholesale level, there are no tomatoes that are picked ripe. They're picked green and then gassed with ethylene gas both in transit and at destination in the gassing chambers where produce like bananas, avocados and especially tomatoes have gas applied to bring them up to color or to actually ripen them in the case of avocados.

All of this again depends on where you live. On the I-5 corridor that runs from Mexico up into Canada where the majority of produce is grown and especially organically grown produce, the prices are fairly comparable. Again depending on the commodity.

A head of organic romaine lettuce is going to be less expensive in Portland, Oregon than in Zanesville, Ohio regardless of the logistic costs involved.

RE: Hydroponics

If the dismal business of B.C. Hot House is representative of the greenhouse/hydroponic produce industry, then it's a doomed failure. B.C. Hot House has a huge operation in British Columbia - about 250 miles from Portland. The landed cost of their tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers is higher than organically grown produce out of Baja Mexico which is over 1,250 miles from Portland.

Hydroponically-grown produce hasn't and won't live up to the promises made in 1938 by the researchers. The set-up costs involved are astronomical and the ROI is dismal. Which probably explains why B.C. Hot House sources a good deal of their produce out of Mexico like everyone else.

BTW - B.C. Hot House is the largest greenhouse/hydroponic produce operation in North America. If they can't pull it off then how will Billy Bob Eddie Joe Bodine down in Hog Trough, Mississippi going to put this deal together and make a profit?

CC
 
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