I did make a small mistake in this video that a viewer caught. Talking about pyrethrum causing leukemia, I showed a clip from a research paper that tested permethrin. Permethrin is a synthetic analog of the natural pyrethrum/pyrethrins. Organic growers can use pyrethrum/pyrethrins, but not Permethrin. However, the claim I made about causing leukemia also applies to natural pyrethrum/pyrethrins. I just posted a clip from the wrong study. This is the right study: www.researchgate.net/publication/305809576_Use_of_Pyrethrin_Pyrethrum_and_its_Effect_on_Environment_and_Human_A_Review So my comment is correct - but the evidence I showed was the wrong paper.
I'm wondering if you know anything about the new produce line out there from Bill Gates called Apeel? Allegedly, they've created a substance that they spray on this fruit, which in return keeps it fresher longer. I've also heard it cannot be washed off and is highly toxic. Just curious if you had heard anything? ✌🏻
Alot of the time oganic is less toxic not obly that i k ow for sure the nitrogen is not the same 8n sythetic its much syronger an more toxic then organic ines if tou want the lightest for your vwgtables canna is i mean bio bizz is the healthyiest youll find canna i use to go to a gardwn place alot an looo at the books canna showed whole earth cycle bio bizz is better an the factorys look cheap
In 15 minutes, this pretty much busts the Myth of Organic wide open… And who does it (again)? Robert Pavlis. This is going in my Top Ten Magic Woo Killers
I think you missed some important points and may have caused some confusion. You seem to imply organic farming is no better than conventional or possibly worse. This is not correct. Conventional fields used for multiple years incorporating the standard method of plough, herbicide, synthetic fertilizer, pesticide, fungicide and biomass removal with extended yearly periods of bare soil have been shown to have significantly less fungi, less diversity and quantity of microbial life, consistently lowering carbon levels, suffer from much more severe soil erosion and nutrient leeching than their organic counterparts. In addition the assertion that 200% more arable land will be needed to feed the population when growing organically is debatable as food waste and programs paying farmers to reserve land from production confound calculations. I agree organic certification is not ideal and in fact small amounts of synthetic fertilizers and GMO's may be needed to achieve the production necessary, but to equate conventional agriculture to organic is misleading. I also believe you missed the biggest culprits in the documented decline of nutrient content of vegetables, hybridization and storage times. It is known nutritional content of vegetables declines the longer it is stored and one crucial goal of breeding is to increase shelf life. I do agree there is a romanticizing of organic farming and demonizing of conventional. But one is more damaging than the other as a whole and conventional farmers spend more and more money every season on those synthetic inputs while the trillion dollar chemical industries do everything to maintain that trajectory. Your biodiversity claims are dubious as well, I am not questioning your authenticity but the confidence in which you deliver your arguments belies the complexity of the matter.
Since I started growing some vegetables in my small garden I've been reading / watching a lot of (science based) things and I'm amazed how complex is the science of agriculture. BTW, I follow an gentleman in my country (Brazil) that moved from a city of State of Sao Paulo to State of Goias. He is running his farm and there are a huge number of fruit trees in his property. His guava e other fruits are zero fruit worms. People used to say that we now much more about outer space than deep ocean. So I bet we have just small understanding about the science of soil and nutrition of plants. Thanks Robert, as always.
I've been saying this for years. Thanks for sharing. A great video that some will choose to ignore because they want to believe that they know better, but the proof in in the documentation.
Of course we should research your claims. However, I've always been wary about the "organic" designation. Have heard rumblings for many years of the reality of what it means, have heard that small farms would love to slap that tag onto their produce. I think that the big guys and the little guys use the designation wantonly. Not using chemicals at all could mean a whole season crop failure for both small and large farmers. Another reason I question the idea called organic, is that as a chef of over 35 years, I have heard many times from my vendors that they are perfectly willing to conspire with you if you want to call an item organic regardless if it's been trucked from a farm in CA that sprays chemicals quite often.
I have a rancher friend who raises cattle organically. He doesn’t even bother with the certification- it costs the producer money on their end, too. He sells direct to the consumer, by the half cow. I know he has clients who drive in from out of state. I feel very lucky to have access to that- and free organic manure, too!
It’s a myth that forests necessarily sequester more carbon than pastures. Maybe if your pasture is monoculture grass fertilized with nitrates. When you fertilize with nitrates, the microbes that would naturally be building nitrates out of nitrogen from the air have nothing to do (or rather they’re never stimulated to do so by plants demanding nitrates), their populations are stunted, and their carcasses aren’t available as a source of food for other organisms or organic matter in the soil. Same goes for the microbes that process and transport P and K. There are so many kinds of microbes at work in the soil that it’s practically impossible to calculate the biological consequences of cutting whole categories of them out of the ecosystem by replacing their natural function with synthetic amendments, but the consequence at the macro scale is plain to see: poor soil.
" their carcasses aren’t available as a source of food for other organisms " - that is certainly not true - every dead thing is available to microbes to decompose. poor soil is not due to adding nutrients in reasonable amounts. In fact populations go up after adding it.
A very timely video given inflation and resulting cost of our food. I personally never bought into the hype. Any products or service that gets so much airplay makes me immediately suspicious.
Thank you for making this video. I did similar research years ago when trying to learn about the organic food certification and growing requirements and what it all means. I have had too many arguments/disagreements with family, friends and fellow gardeners when discussing this topic.
Beware 'organic' food sold at farmer's markets. Some scammers simply go to the wholesale produce market, remove the stickers and market as 'organic' at 3-5x the price.
The thing is using synthetic fertilizer kills the environment of microbiology of the soil for bacteria and fungi because the relationship between the plant and the microbes will be destroyed as plants will be independent of them ... is that correct.?
Free-range is the term here for animals which actually get to go outside. Organic would relate more to the feed & pest controls. Pigs & chickens are two animals that may never see the outside world. At least here in the north of Ireland. The big problem with beef here, is that dairy cattle just aren't great at stacking on that beef. So instead of having herds for milk, or beef. We pump them full of crap to put that weight on cattle who aren't bred to do that. The whole mad cow thing a few decades back would be an example of that. Feeding cattle a high protine diet of other ground up cow carcasses was never going to end well.
An unrelated question for you, man. If you were asked repeatedly to give a talk at a local allotment site/urban garden/club. What topics would you pick to talk about, if you were also a member of that same group. Something that doesn't tread on too many toes. Gardeners all have their own way of doing thing, and can be pretty set in their ways. Been asked a few times now to give talks, and offered decent pay for doing so. But the idea of getting up in front of others, and feeling like I'm telling others what to do, doesn't sit well with me. Esp since I have to see those same people almost every day. I know you mentioned giving talks before for groups like that in your area. So figured I'd ask if you had any good topics, or ways of going about it. The last thing I want to do is be stood up there jabbering on. Whilst half the room is thinking screw this guy, who does he think he is?
I give lots of talks - 5 this week alone - although that is high. I tell it as it is. My information is science based so I am quite sure it is correct. Others may choose not to believe it - their choice. I also focus my talks on things I know about. I'll do zoom talks anywhere. Here are my talks. www.gardenmyths.com/public-speaking-topics-robert-pavlis/
Regarding GMO.... I got a question. Is there a risk that GMO modified plants escape into the natural environment? Could a GMO modified species have an advantage and become a problem?
the concept of organic started with good intentions, but then came big money and turned it into something almost meaningless... for example, in my country you cant use 60% potassium cloride (essentially ground up rocks from russia and canada) as fertilizer, but you can use lab grade made potassium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, copper sulfate etc. they have convinced the public that organic (whatever that means) is better, and certifying agencies are now charging a small fortune to give you their seal of approval, in other words, they fabricated the demand and producers will go where the money is. think about brown rice... it is advertised as healthier than white rice (which is not, as it contains a bunch of anti-nutrients in it that are removed when turning it into white rice) and because of that false perception brown rice is charged a higher price than white rice even though it costs less to produce than white rice, because white rice has to go through few extra processes (dehusking, polishing etc). we live in a clown world where follow-the-money rules everything.
There's nothing 'wrong' with synthetic fertilizers other than dead soil (sarcasm) - very little fungi/bacteria/protazoa/nematodes in fields with synthetic fertilizers. Which means less carbon/organic matter, heavier soils, poor percolation, inability to hold mositure, greater soil compaction etc etc. Farmers have known it for decades - and as their soil continues to degrade, ever-more synthetic fettilizers/pesticides/herbicides are needed. As for Robert's comment farmers need manure to be organic is, excuse my french, total horseshit. People like Dr Ingham, Dr.Johnson and others show that improving microbial activity can vastly minimize the need for any additional fertilizer.
Using in a responsible way synthetic fertilizers increase the biomass of the soil. I see this every day as I farm. This idea that their use will degrade the soil is someones attempt to promote organic products. I am surprised Robert Pavlis can post the truth.
@@robertreznik9330 Synthetic fertilizer application begins the destruction of soil biodiversity by suppressing the role of nitrogen fixing bacteria and enhancing the role of everything that feeds on nitrogen. These feeders then amplify the decomposition of organic matter and humus. As organic matter decreases, the physical structure of soil changes.
" very little fungi/bacteria/protazoa/nematodes in fields with synthetic fertilizers" - there are many factors at play including cultivation, loss of organic matter, monocultures, open land for part of the year and over fertilizing. It is not due to proper fertilizing with synthetics.
@@Gardenfundamentals1 When I grow corn continuously, from one ac or 43,560 square feet I harvest 15,000 of grain and leave 17,000 lbs as roots and stalks. It takes a lot of fungi/... to turn this into SOM or"soil organic matter". 10% N is in SOM made from the plant residue that is just 60:1 N. more N has to come from some source to feed the microbes. Ammonia last year cost $1,200 per ton so farmers don't over fertilize. 5% OM in the top 9" of soil is 150,000 lbs that has 15,000 lbs N in that acre or one square mile has 10,000,000 lbs of N. 6,250,000 if SOM is 2.5% The free living nitrogen fixing bacteria are only a small amount needed to make a crop. Probably about the amount in snow or rain. Much less than 10% of N that is removed from the soil by a corn crop. Corn needs 1.15 lb of N for each bushel grown. The US produces 17 billion bushels, compost can not supply much.
Thanks, Robert! This is a good, educational video. My friend ran a so-called certified organic farm for 10yrs. and was never actually tested... All he had to do was show them his receipts, whatever that means.
It’s sad the amount of money wasted on “organic” is mind boggling ! They actually believe that no chemicals are used to produce what’s on their table ! They think that the bag of organic flour they use comes from some wild wheat that host is harvested by hand and crushed between two rocks. The truth that is in every process from prepping the ground to planting it growing it harvesting it shipping it grinding it packaging it all requires synthetics and is in that flour. That process include the making of the bag and the glue that seals that bag. My family has been in the farming business for way over a two centuries. The chemicals have put food on our tables ever since the beginning. We have always lived off of the land, raising our own meats and vegetables. Synthetics have and will continue to be used on what we eat. We have had no major health issues ever. Lord knows the chemicals we have bathed in, from fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides ! The truth would send a lot of people over the edge !
Plus, we are growing tomatoes only in season, and picking them at their peak of freshness. We are buying tomatoes that are grown potentially in another country, picked early, ripened in transit, etc, etc.
It's simple: When you pick your back yard tomatoes, they are ripe. When commercially grown tomatoes are harvested for the produce department, they are picked green and "ripened" using ethylene gas. They may red, but they don't contain all the sugars, acids and compounds they would have if they ripened fully.
It's especially weird that people pay extra for organic fruits that have a thick peel. As if trace amounts of pesticides on the outside of an orange is going to affect me.
Plant SAP analysis has shown that organic grown plants are more nutrient dense than conventionally grown. For instance many microbial metabolites such as antioxidants, terpenes, flavonoids, esters, phytohormones, polyphenols, and phytonutrients exist in much higher concentrations in organic grown plants. Cannabis is a prime example in showing the differences between synthetic salt based nutrition vs organic microbe based nutrition in a plant. In rhizophagy microbes cultivated at the root tips via root exudates are mostly reabsorbed by the plant and hit with a super oxide, turning these reabsorbed microbes into electrolytes the plant can use as nutrition. The larger more complex organic molecules that come from these microbes cannot be supplemented through salt based nutrition. Check out Matt Powers and his work in regenerative soil and soil microscopy!
It’s important to differentiate between certified organic and actual regenerative organic practices though and I agree many store bought organic ingredients don’t necessarily have higher concentrations of nutrients, and in many cases it’s due to a lack of soil nutrition and a lack of soil biology. Wide scale organic practices still utilize pesticides and don’t necessarily follow permaculture practices. I think there is a lack of research in the areas around this topic, and therefore Matt powers R-Soil database will certainly be helpful in bringing about more data on these topics, by utilizing a wider array of testing that takes more variables into account in each test to give a more complete picture for what’s going on in the soil and in the plants.
You make a quite big mistake in your video claiming that producing all organic needs a lot more land. The issue is in fact that first all animal based products ARE NOT FOODS and makes you sick to the bone. There’s a mountain of evidence for that. But this is not even the point, the new technology will disrupt the traditional agriculture where 80 to 90 % less land will be needed. Welcome precision fermentation. The scary dairy and meat industry will be wiped of the planet for economical reasons and will change into precision fermentation and cell based cultivation. This is inevitable, just for economical reasons. The old fashion agriculture is as inefficient as the ICE vehicle compared to EV. Disruption is on the way and it’s a good thing! But remember, every bite of an animal product is a missed opportunity to get a healthy life, it kills you of prematurely and that’s a scientific fact!
This is silly. Of course you can grow your own organic - it just isn't registered. Nutrition and taste will depend on the soil - not whether it's organic or not. This, sorry, is a silly video
Did you actually watch it? He says twice in the meat of the video and reiterates at the end that not only can you grow organic food in your garden but that it is a good thing to do. his point is that; that is not what is on the shelves at markets and grocers. The reality is , 'organic food' (certified) is no better in any way than non organic - not health wise, nutritionally or environmentally, that is the point of the video and if you asked many of the people who buy Organic they have no clue what it actually means.
I've found Robert to be one of the very few sources of solid information outside of agricultural university presentations/papers. If you wish to make fun of an idiot, I recommend the MI Gardener channel.
GMO seeds are patented, most people I know don't like GMO's because huge corporation are patenting the food supply. They cross pollinate then you can get in trouble if you save your seeds to plant year after year as they may now contain patented genetics which you didn't purchase from Monsanto etc.
Conventionally bred plant varieties can still be protected in more or less the same way as a parent (ie exclusive commercial right) through the plant variety protection act. Canada has a similar legal structure here too.
There are a few patented ones that cost a ton of private equity to research and develop, but also many produced by universities and governments that are freely, such as the blight resistant papaya that saved Hawaii's papayas before they banned GMOs. Uganda also developed a blight resistant maize-before western anti-GMO influence caused them to ban GMOs and institute prison sentences for farmers. They couldn't grow the maize their own university developed to save them from the massive blight problem in one of their primary staple crops. 😭
I did make a small mistake in this video that a viewer caught.
Talking about pyrethrum causing leukemia, I showed a clip from a research paper that tested permethrin. Permethrin is a synthetic analog of the natural pyrethrum/pyrethrins. Organic growers can use pyrethrum/pyrethrins, but not Permethrin.
However, the claim I made about causing leukemia also applies to natural pyrethrum/pyrethrins. I just posted a clip from the wrong study. This is the right study: www.researchgate.net/publication/305809576_Use_of_Pyrethrin_Pyrethrum_and_its_Effect_on_Environment_and_Human_A_Review
So my comment is correct - but the evidence I showed was the wrong paper.
I'm wondering if you know anything about the new produce line out there from Bill Gates called Apeel? Allegedly, they've created a substance that they spray on this fruit, which in return keeps it fresher longer. I've also heard it cannot be washed off and is highly toxic. Just curious if you had heard anything? ✌🏻
Alot of the time oganic is less toxic not obly that i k ow for sure the nitrogen is not the same 8n sythetic its much syronger an more toxic then organic ines if tou want the lightest for your vwgtables canna is i mean bio bizz is the healthyiest youll find canna i use to go to a gardwn place alot an looo at the books canna showed whole earth cycle bio bizz is better an the factorys look cheap
In 15 minutes, this pretty much busts the Myth of Organic wide open…
And who does it (again)? Robert Pavlis.
This is going in my Top Ten Magic Woo Killers
I am a farmer since getting a degree in Soil Science in the 1960's. You are right on my way of analyzing the real world!
Grow your own. It's the only way you know for sure.
I think you missed some important points and may have caused some confusion. You seem to imply organic farming is no better than conventional or possibly worse. This is not correct. Conventional fields used for multiple years incorporating the standard method of plough, herbicide, synthetic fertilizer, pesticide, fungicide and biomass removal with extended yearly periods of bare soil have been shown to have significantly less fungi, less diversity and quantity of microbial life, consistently lowering carbon levels, suffer from much more severe soil erosion and nutrient leeching than their organic counterparts. In addition the assertion that 200% more arable land will be needed to feed the population when growing organically is debatable as food waste and programs paying farmers to reserve land from production confound calculations. I agree organic certification is not ideal and in fact small amounts of synthetic fertilizers and GMO's may be needed to achieve the production necessary, but to equate conventional agriculture to organic is misleading. I also believe you missed the biggest culprits in the documented decline of nutrient content of vegetables, hybridization and storage times. It is known nutritional content of vegetables declines the longer it is stored and one crucial goal of breeding is to increase shelf life. I do agree there is a romanticizing of organic farming and demonizing of conventional. But one is more damaging than the other as a whole and conventional farmers spend more and more money every season on those synthetic inputs while the trillion dollar chemical industries do everything to maintain that trajectory. Your biodiversity claims are dubious as well, I am not questioning your authenticity but the confidence in which you deliver your arguments belies the complexity of the matter.
Since I started growing some vegetables in my small garden I've been reading / watching a lot of (science based) things and I'm amazed how complex is the science of agriculture. BTW, I follow an gentleman in my country (Brazil) that moved from a city of State of Sao Paulo to State of Goias. He is running his farm and there are a huge number of fruit trees in his property. His guava e other fruits are zero fruit worms. People used to say that we now much more about outer space than deep ocean. So I bet we have just small understanding about the science of soil and nutrition of plants. Thanks Robert, as always.
I've been saying this for years. Thanks for sharing. A great video that some will choose to ignore because they want to believe that they know better, but the proof in in the documentation.
Superb as always, much appreciated.
Of course we should research your claims. However, I've always been wary about the "organic" designation. Have heard rumblings for many years of the reality of what it means, have heard that small farms would love to slap that tag onto their produce. I think that the big guys and the little guys use the designation wantonly. Not using chemicals at all could mean a whole season crop failure for both small and large farmers. Another reason I question the idea called organic, is that as a chef of over 35 years, I have heard many times from my vendors that they are perfectly willing to conspire with you if you want to call an item organic regardless if it's been trucked from a farm in CA that sprays chemicals quite often.
I have a rancher friend who raises cattle organically. He doesn’t even bother with the certification- it costs the producer money on their end, too. He sells direct to the consumer, by the half cow. I know he has clients who drive in from out of state. I feel very lucky to have access to that- and free organic manure, too!
It’s a myth that forests necessarily sequester more carbon than pastures. Maybe if your pasture is monoculture grass fertilized with nitrates. When you fertilize with nitrates, the microbes that would naturally be building nitrates out of nitrogen from the air have nothing to do (or rather they’re never stimulated to do so by plants demanding nitrates), their populations are stunted, and their carcasses aren’t available as a source of food for other organisms or organic matter in the soil. Same goes for the microbes that process and transport P and K. There are so many kinds of microbes at work in the soil that it’s practically impossible to calculate the biological consequences of cutting whole categories of them out of the ecosystem by replacing their natural function with synthetic amendments, but the consequence at the macro scale is plain to see: poor soil.
" their carcasses aren’t available as a source of food for other organisms " - that is certainly not true - every dead thing is available to microbes to decompose.
poor soil is not due to adding nutrients in reasonable amounts. In fact populations go up after adding it.
A very timely video given inflation and resulting cost of our food. I personally never bought into the hype. Any products or service that gets so much airplay makes me immediately suspicious.
Thank you for making this video. I did similar research years ago when trying to learn about the organic food certification and growing requirements and what it all means. I have had too many arguments/disagreements with family, friends and fellow gardeners when discussing this topic.
It's hard to get people to reconsider things they think they know.. I can definitely relate to that..
So your saying round up ready corn &beans are safe even if loaded with round up 😅😅😅
This fundamental gardener is fundamentally wrong about organic food in EVERY POINT HE IS MAKING.
For USDA Organic stuff, is it 95% of the named ingredients are organic, or by weight 95% of the ingredient are organic?
Beware 'organic' food sold at farmer's markets. Some scammers simply go to the wholesale produce market, remove the stickers and market as 'organic' at 3-5x the price.
The thing is using synthetic fertilizer kills the environment of microbiology of the soil for bacteria and fungi because the relationship between the plant and the microbes will be destroyed as plants will be independent of them ... is that correct.?
Eye opening, thank you. ❄️💚🙃
Some.not thougj bone meal is r3al bad for pets an people dont use that
Certified Organic = "Trust me bro..."
You depend too much on science as if it's not commercially driven.
Love your logic and no nonsense approach.
Free-range is the term here for animals which actually get to go outside. Organic would relate more to the feed & pest controls. Pigs & chickens are two animals that may never see the outside world. At least here in the north of Ireland.
The big problem with beef here, is that dairy cattle just aren't great at stacking on that beef. So instead of having herds for milk, or beef. We pump them full of crap to put that weight on cattle who aren't bred to do that. The whole mad cow thing a few decades back would be an example of that. Feeding cattle a high protine diet of other ground up cow carcasses was never going to end well.
Excellent. I wish more people knew these things.
An unrelated question for you, man.
If you were asked repeatedly to give a talk at a local allotment site/urban garden/club. What topics would you pick to talk about, if you were also a member of that same group. Something that doesn't tread on too many toes. Gardeners all have their own way of doing thing, and can be pretty set in their ways.
Been asked a few times now to give talks, and offered decent pay for doing so. But the idea of getting up in front of others, and feeling like I'm telling others what to do, doesn't sit well with me. Esp since I have to see those same people almost every day.
I know you mentioned giving talks before for groups like that in your area. So figured I'd ask if you had any good topics, or ways of going about it. The last thing I want to do is be stood up there jabbering on. Whilst half the room is thinking screw this guy, who does he think he is?
I give lots of talks - 5 this week alone - although that is high. I tell it as it is. My information is science based so I am quite sure it is correct. Others may choose not to believe it - their choice.
I also focus my talks on things I know about.
I'll do zoom talks anywhere.
Here are my talks. www.gardenmyths.com/public-speaking-topics-robert-pavlis/
i can barely hear the audio
Thank you!!!
That was really great!
Regarding GMO.... I got a question. Is there a risk that GMO modified plants escape into the natural environment? Could a GMO modified species have an advantage and become a problem?
👍👍👍 Food for thought. Thank you.
the concept of organic started with good intentions, but then came big money
and turned it into something almost meaningless... for example, in my country
you cant use 60% potassium cloride (essentially ground up rocks from russia and canada)
as fertilizer, but you can use lab grade made potassium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, copper sulfate etc.
they have convinced the public that organic (whatever that means) is better, and certifying agencies
are now charging a small fortune to give you their seal of approval, in other words, they fabricated the demand
and producers will go where the money is. think about brown rice... it is advertised as healthier than white rice
(which is not, as it contains a bunch of anti-nutrients in it that are removed when turning it into white rice) and
because of that false perception brown rice is charged a higher price than white rice even though it costs
less to produce than white rice, because white rice has to go through few extra processes (dehusking, polishing etc).
we live in a clown world where follow-the-money rules everything.
Follow the money as far as stuff like "certified organic." Great video, thanks :)
True and scientific 🙏👍👌
There's nothing 'wrong' with synthetic fertilizers other than dead soil (sarcasm) - very little fungi/bacteria/protazoa/nematodes in fields with synthetic fertilizers. Which means less carbon/organic matter, heavier soils, poor percolation, inability to hold mositure, greater soil compaction etc etc. Farmers have known it for decades - and as their soil continues to degrade, ever-more synthetic fettilizers/pesticides/herbicides are needed.
As for Robert's comment farmers need manure to be organic is, excuse my french, total horseshit. People like Dr Ingham, Dr.Johnson and others show that improving microbial activity can vastly minimize the need for any additional fertilizer.
Using in a responsible way synthetic fertilizers increase the biomass of the soil. I see this every day as I farm. This idea that their use will degrade the soil is someones attempt to promote organic products. I am surprised Robert Pavlis can post the truth.
@@robertreznik9330 Synthetic fertilizer application begins the destruction of soil biodiversity by suppressing the role of nitrogen fixing bacteria and enhancing the role of everything that feeds on nitrogen. These feeders then amplify the decomposition of organic matter and humus. As organic matter decreases, the physical structure of soil changes.
@@ArthurDentZaphodBeeb How do you know this?
" very little fungi/bacteria/protazoa/nematodes in fields with synthetic fertilizers" - there are many factors at play including cultivation, loss of organic matter, monocultures, open land for part of the year and over fertilizing. It is not due to proper fertilizing with synthetics.
@@Gardenfundamentals1 When I grow corn continuously, from one ac or 43,560 square feet I harvest 15,000 of grain and leave 17,000 lbs as roots and stalks. It takes a lot of fungi/... to turn this into SOM or"soil organic matter". 10% N is in SOM made from the plant residue that is just 60:1 N. more N has to come from some source to feed the microbes. Ammonia last year cost $1,200 per ton so farmers don't over fertilize. 5% OM in the top 9" of soil is 150,000 lbs that has 15,000 lbs N in that acre or one square mile has 10,000,000 lbs of N. 6,250,000 if SOM is 2.5%
The free living nitrogen fixing bacteria are only a small amount needed to make a crop. Probably about the amount in snow or rain. Much less than 10% of N that is removed from the soil by a corn crop. Corn needs 1.15 lb of N for each bushel grown. The US produces 17 billion bushels, compost can not supply much.
Thanks, Robert!
This is a good, educational video.
My friend ran a so-called certified organic farm for 10yrs. and was never actually tested... All he had to do was show them his receipts, whatever that means.
It’s sad the amount of money wasted on “organic” is mind boggling ! They actually believe that no chemicals are used to produce what’s on their table ! They think that the bag of organic flour they use comes from some wild wheat that host is harvested by hand and crushed between two rocks. The truth that is in every process from prepping the ground to planting it growing it harvesting it shipping it grinding it packaging it all requires synthetics and is in that flour. That process include the making of the bag and the glue that seals that bag. My family has been in the farming business for way over a two centuries. The chemicals have put food on our tables ever since the beginning. We have always lived off of the land, raising our own meats and vegetables. Synthetics have and will continue to be used on what we eat. We have had no major health issues ever. Lord knows the chemicals we have bathed in, from fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides ! The truth would send a lot of people over the edge !
Good content.
Why are tomatoes grown in the backyard, much tastier than ones bought from the supermarket?
Supermarket tomatoes are specifically grown to handle shipping, and to look good. Commercial growers care about those things far more than taste.
Plus, we are growing tomatoes only in season, and picking them at their peak of freshness. We are buying tomatoes that are grown potentially in another country, picked early, ripened in transit, etc, etc.
It's simple: When you pick your back yard tomatoes, they are ripe. When commercially grown tomatoes are harvested for the produce department, they are picked green and "ripened" using ethylene gas. They may red, but they don't contain all the sugars, acids and compounds they would have if they ripened fully.
It's especially weird that people pay extra for organic fruits that have a thick peel. As if trace amounts of pesticides on the outside of an orange is going to affect me.
Plant SAP analysis has shown that organic grown plants are more nutrient dense than conventionally grown. For instance many microbial metabolites such as antioxidants, terpenes, flavonoids, esters, phytohormones, polyphenols, and phytonutrients exist in much higher concentrations in organic grown plants. Cannabis is a prime example in showing the differences between synthetic salt based nutrition vs organic microbe based nutrition in a plant. In rhizophagy microbes cultivated at the root tips via root exudates are mostly reabsorbed by the plant and hit with a super oxide, turning these reabsorbed microbes into electrolytes the plant can use as nutrition. The larger more complex organic molecules that come from these microbes cannot be supplemented through salt based nutrition. Check out Matt Powers and his work in regenerative soil and soil microscopy!
It’s important to differentiate between certified organic and actual regenerative organic practices though and I agree many store bought organic ingredients don’t necessarily have higher concentrations of nutrients, and in many cases it’s due to a lack of soil nutrition and a lack of soil biology. Wide scale organic practices still utilize pesticides and don’t necessarily follow permaculture practices. I think there is a lack of research in the areas around this topic, and therefore Matt powers R-Soil database will certainly be helpful in bringing about more data on these topics, by utilizing a wider array of testing that takes more variables into account in each test to give a more complete picture for what’s going on in the soil and in the plants.
You make a quite big mistake in your video claiming that producing all organic needs a lot more land. The issue is in fact that first all animal based products ARE NOT FOODS and makes you sick to the bone. There’s a mountain of evidence for that. But this is not even the point, the new technology will disrupt the traditional agriculture where 80 to 90 % less land will be needed. Welcome precision fermentation. The scary dairy and meat industry will be wiped of the planet for economical reasons and will change into precision fermentation and cell based cultivation. This is inevitable, just for economical reasons. The old fashion agriculture is as inefficient as the ICE vehicle compared to EV. Disruption is on the way and it’s a good thing! But remember, every bite of an animal product is a missed opportunity to get a healthy life, it kills you of prematurely and that’s a scientific fact!
This is silly. Of course you can grow your own organic - it just isn't registered.
Nutrition and taste will depend on the soil - not whether it's organic or not. This, sorry, is a silly video
Did you actually watch it? He says twice in the meat of the video and reiterates at the end that not only can you grow organic food in your garden but that it is a good thing to do. his point is that; that is not what is on the shelves at markets and grocers. The reality is , 'organic food' (certified) is no better in any way than non organic - not health wise, nutritionally or environmentally, that is the point of the video and if you asked many of the people who buy Organic they have no clue what it actually means.
I've found Robert to be one of the very few sources of solid information outside of agricultural university presentations/papers. If you wish to make fun of an idiot, I recommend the MI Gardener channel.
GMO seeds are patented, most people I know don't like GMO's because huge corporation are patenting the food supply. They cross pollinate then you can get in trouble if you save your seeds to plant year after year as they may now contain patented genetics which you didn't purchase from Monsanto etc.
Conventionally bred plant varieties can still be protected in more or less the same way as a parent (ie exclusive commercial right) through the plant variety protection act. Canada has a similar legal structure here too.
You have been misinformed about GMO. www.gardenmyths.com/gmo-myths-understand-the-truth-about-gmo-plants/
Excellent article Robert.
There are a few patented ones that cost a ton of private equity to research and develop, but also many produced by universities and governments that are freely, such as the blight resistant papaya that saved Hawaii's papayas before they banned GMOs. Uganda also developed a blight resistant maize-before western anti-GMO influence caused them to ban GMOs and institute prison sentences for farmers. They couldn't grow the maize their own university developed to save them from the massive blight problem in one of their primary staple crops. 😭