JADAM also proclaims that crop rotation is not observed in nature and is not necessary as long as you are returning crop residues back into the beds. I believe your assessment is accurate. If you are operating a no-til system with intact mycorrhizal networks and diverse microbes - crop rotation is less an issue.
Richard, good to hear from you, you seem well rested and organized in your thoughts. I look forward to the upcoming season of RUclips vlogs that capture your undertakings on the farm. Should be fun.
Thanks for a good update and good information regarding crop rotation, looking forward to seeing the new chickens arrive for this year. Hopefully moving to Malawi to start my little farm this year
We've had a similar experience with respect to crop rotation in our no-dig experiments. We grew brassicas four years in a row with no disease or pest problems beyond that experienced in the tilled (rotational) system.
Thank you for discussing low value crop, they are often demonized in today's intensive market gardens. In the rural context they are almost necessary as you stated.
An awesome low value crop you could try would be potatoes, they taste so good when you grow it organically in premium soil. You could also try using the same bed in consecutive years, to test the disease prevention traditions, by sewing before winter right after harvest and see if the potatoes sprout in the spring and you can just top dress with a mulchy compost. Cold climate summers are great for potatoes
Thanks for all the content you've put out Richard, I've now caught up watching all your videos in full and gained a lot of insight into your methods. I'm not even a farmer but interested to learn and hope to start growing food in some context in my back garden, maybe an allotment one day. I discovered your channel because I ferment food and it was related.
Nice to see you got the energy back. Regarding the rotation, I have seen the video's of Charles his experiments. Very interesting experiments and good for the home growers but small scale and difficult to base a whole enterprise on this. However, J.M. is experimenting in "la ferme des quatre temps". It might be interesting to ask him if he experiments on crop rotation or if he would experiment on this in the future. If the crop rotation proves to be of lesser impotence if taken care of the soil, this might significantly change the whole crop planning process for "no dig, biointensive farming". Thanks for the video (Does Matt has a youtube channel or something? I'm curious how he is doing.)
I’m a super admirer of what you do. I’m from a northern climate and it’s beyond cool to learn from your RUclips videos. I want to farm. All in due time. My question though is, how was your go at growing rice? I just got home from a trip to Asia and it struck me that sooo many people grow rice when no one I’ve seen does in the US (rice is the best). Thanks for what you do!!
I've just finished a class on soil fertility at uni and my professor was very determined on saying that tillage and cutting the mycelium threads doesn't not harm the fungi but that they can recover quickly, same being the case for rhizobium. He said that it works as an evolutionary process, pressuring the biota to be more resilient. I would really appreaciate to read some articles on this subject.
Hogwash, I'm calling that out. Tillage based farming is NOT improving mycelium in soils, it's destroying soils at a faster rate than ever before in human history. Nature does not do bare soil, unless there is flood, drought, earthquake, person with chainsaw, etc, except in PATCHY INTERMITTENT DISTURBANCES. That's nature's evolutionary approach right there; wild boar come through and trash a small area, move on and allow the forest to restart a small succession, thus ensuring the survival and benefit of all species. Same with a large grazing herd. Patchy, intermittent disturbances followed by rest. Tilling fields and planting monocultures is definitely not driving any kind of evolution! Modern tillage ag only affects (de)volution by waking up weeds (aka soil repair mechanisms) and plant pathogens (by oxidising soils, adding nitrates and killing a whole plethora of soil life), hence the ....icide industry being as large as it is. I brought back our internship specifically because ag schools seem to still be churning out so much crap and there's nowhere for peop's to study ecosystem-based knowledge and integrated farming that builds soil, gives healthy profits and the optimal food to local customers.
@@regenerativeagriculture Thank you for the reply Richard! The professor in question is actually one of the pioneers of org ag in Europe and has done really extensive research through more than 30 years career, that's why I considered his opinion to be at least partially valid. What I see as biggest setbacks in comparing systems is the scale - almost all of the research is based exclusively on large scale agriculture and the models proposed will inevitably be different than for small scale farming (e.g. crop rotation). Another thing is that there is too much focus on chemical processes ( this professor's favourite word was mineralisation) and not enough on biological and the interconnection of the two, but that seems to be slowly changing. Do you have any problems with perennial weeds in you farm and if yes how do you deal with them? And how about heating the soil up in the spring? You find it to be sufficiently done with the compost?
@@regenerativeagriculture This is the type of articles that we are exposed to www.researchgate.net/publication/267778654_Possibilities_and_limits_of_reduced_primary_tillage_in_organic_farming
@@55karly Too many variables in no till systems (ie, planting density) to know if this is valuable information when compared to traditional plowing snd cultivating systems, AND it didn't compare yields in relation input (the plowing system requires much greater time and fossil fuel inputs). It's a slanted incomplete study.
One of the things I think is hard to quantify is the value in low value crops (LVC's) in the case of customers buying more high value crops because of the LVCs.
Conor at Neversink said something similar about crop rotation in a recent video, but perhaps a bit more driven by economics than an observation on soil health. As he put it it was something like (I hope I don't miss-state here) if crop rotation gives x% improvement by itself, it may result in a y% degradation due to new operations. Even if x is greater than y, there may be some other improvement that delivers x-y improvement without changing production operations. This is especially true when he is growing in the greenhouse where the operational disruption is quite large. So he drives himself to look for those in-situ improvements first.
Thanks Richard. Great to have a spreadsheet geek out. Are you using excel or google sheets for your calendar? I'll probably be sharing a site with another grower this year so I'm wondering if google sheets is powerful enough for that. Or maybe a standard online calendar or shared calendar if we both use macs. What do other people use?
Rotation of crops adds diversity in time. Since Richard has diversity in his space he needs less in time. The main disadvantage I see to not rotating is the absolute requirement to rotate to be certified organic in the US. (The organic bureaucrats act like they know better than us how to grow.)
3 year old comment. We have new regulations in EU as certified organic farm. We have to do grow into ground and many more. So really no dig method isn’t even possible (it is but lot more expensive and labor intensive), but also new regulation - they say - do more no dig and do this and do that - but in the end - where I live , nearly impossible, so yeah crop rotation is must. Now doing my education hours for certification - so learning and trying to finds best options.
Richard, where can you get the Myco Grow here in Europe, have been trying to get hold of some here in Spain but am struggling to find anywhere outside of the US to buy it from.
On the web jonnhys seed have a spreadshet and you work on it planning succession Check on web Korean Natural Farming M. Cho for homemade for liquid fertilizer (Chris Trump explan the recipes) The Indian take mushroom in forest put it in a tea bag and put in a big tub with hot water and let it there for few days (mushroom tea)
He found out that they do not contain fungicides. They have a small amount of acetone, but he does not consider that a problem. He made a video about that.
I so wish I had the funds to camp w you and learn from Anders Lerberg Kopstad too. Do your apprentices get to volunteer & attend those Holistic Mgmnt trainings too? Wish me luck, I'll buy a lucky lottery ticket in a few minutes. :-)
Completely off topic, I watch your vids all the time, I am a proponent of your philosophy but here is the big question, you purchase organic grains for your chicks, the farmers who grow your grains are doing so on a large scale, so how do you reconcile your philosophy of no dig when the grains you buy are agro farmer, just tryin to put all the pieces of the puzzle together
JADAM also proclaims that crop rotation is not observed in nature and is not necessary as long as you are returning crop residues back into the beds. I believe your assessment is accurate. If you are operating a no-til system with intact mycorrhizal networks and diverse microbes - crop rotation is less an issue.
Glad I’m not the only one using spreadsheets to plan my garden!
Thank you,Richard! I sincerely hope that you'll continue posting videos throughout spring/summer/fall.Very inspiring!🙌
Richard, good to hear from you, you seem well rested and organized in your thoughts. I look forward to the upcoming season of RUclips vlogs that capture your undertakings on the farm. Should be fun.
Thanks for a good update and good information regarding crop rotation, looking forward to seeing the new chickens arrive for this year. Hopefully moving to Malawi to start my little farm this year
We've had a similar experience with respect to crop rotation in our no-dig experiments. We grew brassicas four years in a row with no disease or pest problems beyond that experienced in the tilled (rotational) system.
It seems to be an issue w nutrient deficiency when it comes to rotation.if you feed the soil and not the plant.the fungi will help out alot.
Great timing. I have 6 different seed catalogues in front of me now.
Sound like a wonderful year ahead , cant wait . Thanks Richard for sharing
Super excited for this season.
Thank you for discussing low value crop, they are often demonized in today's intensive market gardens. In the rural context they are almost necessary as you stated.
An awesome low value crop you could try would be potatoes, they taste so good when you grow it organically in premium soil. You could also try using the same bed in consecutive years, to test the disease prevention traditions, by sewing before winter right after harvest and see if the potatoes sprout in the spring and you can just top dress with a mulchy compost.
Cold climate summers are great for potatoes
Excited you collaborate with Charles dowding, love his channel.
Looking forward to the gardens, hope to see you rock out!
Thanks for all the content you've put out Richard, I've now caught up watching all your videos in full and gained a lot of insight into your methods. I'm not even a farmer but interested to learn and hope to start growing food in some context in my back garden, maybe an allotment one day. I discovered your channel because I ferment food and it was related.
Look at using MS Project Professional for your scheduling. A very clever tool that is used for planning and execution of work, jobs etc. Cheers Jerry
Lots of info. Sounds like an exciting year...
Great video w great info.if you understand the basics its very easy to follow.
Thanks for the video! Intrested to see how the Paperpot goes.. I done mycorrhizal fungi in all my seedlings last year, I think it really helped.
Nice to see you got the energy back.
Regarding the rotation, I have seen the video's of Charles his experiments. Very interesting experiments and good for the home growers but small scale and difficult to base a whole enterprise on this. However, J.M. is experimenting in "la ferme des quatre temps". It might be interesting to ask him if he experiments on crop rotation or if he would experiment on this in the future. If the crop rotation proves to be of lesser impotence if taken care of the soil, this might significantly change the whole crop planning process for "no dig, biointensive farming".
Thanks for the video (Does Matt has a youtube channel or something? I'm curious how he is doing.)
Great video. Love the reference to Charles Dowding. Interested to hear how it goes with the paper pot transplanter. I would like to get one as well.
I’m a super admirer of what you do. I’m from a northern climate and it’s beyond cool to learn from your RUclips videos. I want to farm. All in due time. My question though is, how was your go at growing rice? I just got home from a trip to Asia and it struck me that sooo many people grow rice when no one I’ve seen does in the US (rice is the best). Thanks for what you do!!
Rice is grown in the US, just not a good crop for profit
Great informative update, thanks Richard
I've just finished a class on soil fertility at uni and my professor was very determined on saying that tillage and cutting the mycelium threads doesn't not harm the fungi but that they can recover quickly, same being the case for rhizobium. He said that it works as an evolutionary process, pressuring the biota to be more resilient. I would really appreaciate to read some articles on this subject.
Hogwash, I'm calling that out. Tillage based farming is NOT improving mycelium in soils, it's destroying soils at a faster rate than ever before in human history. Nature does not do bare soil, unless there is flood, drought, earthquake, person with chainsaw, etc, except in PATCHY INTERMITTENT DISTURBANCES. That's nature's evolutionary approach right there; wild boar come through and trash a small area, move on and allow the forest to restart a small succession, thus ensuring the survival and benefit of all species. Same with a large grazing herd. Patchy, intermittent disturbances followed by rest. Tilling fields and planting monocultures is definitely not driving any kind of evolution! Modern tillage ag only affects (de)volution by waking up weeds (aka soil repair mechanisms) and plant pathogens (by oxidising soils, adding nitrates and killing a whole plethora of soil life), hence the ....icide industry being as large as it is. I brought back our internship specifically because ag schools seem to still be churning out so much crap and there's nowhere for peop's to study ecosystem-based knowledge and integrated farming that builds soil, gives healthy profits and the optimal food to local customers.
@@regenerativeagriculture Thank you for the reply Richard! The professor in question is actually one of the pioneers of org ag in Europe and has done really extensive research through more than 30 years career, that's why I considered his opinion to be at least partially valid. What I see as biggest setbacks in comparing systems is the scale - almost all of the research is based exclusively on large scale agriculture and the models proposed will inevitably be different than for small scale farming (e.g. crop rotation). Another thing is that there is too much focus on chemical processes ( this professor's favourite word was mineralisation) and not enough on biological and the interconnection of the two, but that seems to be slowly changing. Do you have any problems with perennial weeds in you farm and if yes how do you deal with them? And how about heating the soil up in the spring? You find it to be sufficiently done with the compost?
@@regenerativeagriculture This is the type of articles that we are exposed to www.researchgate.net/publication/267778654_Possibilities_and_limits_of_reduced_primary_tillage_in_organic_farming
@@55karly Too many variables in no till systems (ie, planting density) to know if this is valuable information when compared to traditional plowing snd cultivating systems, AND it didn't compare yields in relation input (the plowing system requires much greater time and fossil fuel inputs). It's a slanted incomplete study.
One of the things I think is hard to quantify is the value in low value crops (LVC's) in the case of customers buying more high value crops because of the LVCs.
Hello Richard, where can I find your shop for buying all the tools?
Conor at Neversink said something similar about crop rotation in a recent video, but perhaps a bit more driven by economics than an observation on soil health. As he put it it was something like (I hope I don't miss-state here) if crop rotation gives x% improvement by itself, it may result in a y% degradation due to new operations. Even if x is greater than y, there may be some other improvement that delivers x-y improvement without changing production operations. This is especially true when he is growing in the greenhouse where the operational disruption is quite large. So he drives himself to look for those in-situ improvements first.
Amen to no need to rotate with no till!
Will your new book cover the paperpot?
Thanks Richard. Great to have a spreadsheet geek out. Are you using excel or google sheets for your calendar? I'll probably be sharing a site with another grower this year so I'm wondering if google sheets is powerful enough for that. Or maybe a standard online calendar or shared calendar if we both use macs. What do other people use?
Rotation of crops adds diversity in time. Since Richard has diversity in his
space he needs less in time. The main disadvantage I see to not rotating
is the absolute requirement to rotate to be certified organic in the US.
(The organic bureaucrats act like they know better than us how to grow.)
3 year old comment. We have new regulations in EU as certified organic farm. We have to do grow into ground and many more. So really no dig method isn’t even possible (it is but lot more expensive and labor intensive), but also new regulation - they say - do more no dig and do this and do that - but in the end - where I live , nearly impossible, so yeah crop rotation is must. Now doing my education hours for certification - so learning and trying to finds best options.
Thanks for the myco grow info. Where you sale all your crops does that exist in the US
Hello, what is the use of "1 tray in bed" column ? And what is your bed length used for paperpot transplants ? Thanks in advance
Richard, where can you get the Myco Grow here in Europe, have been trying to get hold of some here in Spain but am struggling to find anywhere outside of the US to buy it from.
2019 looking good! How do you make that calendar? Im struggeling with finding a way to export my crop-plan im making in excel into a calendar....
On the web jonnhys seed have a spreadshet and you work on it planning succession
Check on web Korean Natural Farming M. Cho for homemade for liquid fertilizer (Chris Trump explan the recipes)
The Indian take mushroom in forest put it in a tea bag and put in a big tub with hot water and let it there for few days (mushroom tea)
Can you run layers behind pigs?
hi, I thought you didn't like the paperpot for ecological reasons, what has changed?
He found out that they do not contain fungicides. They have a small amount of acetone, but he does not consider that a problem. He made a video about that.
I would love to be an intern. Pitty Argentina Is so far away 😖
Did you say you're growing mescaline?
Oh I see it's mesclun :/
I so wish I had the funds to camp w you and learn from Anders Lerberg Kopstad too. Do your apprentices get to volunteer & attend those Holistic Mgmnt trainings too? Wish me luck, I'll buy a lucky lottery ticket in a few minutes. :-)
Good luck!
Completely off topic, I watch your vids all the time, I am a proponent of your philosophy but here is the big question, you purchase organic grains for your chicks, the farmers who grow your grains are doing so on a large scale, so how do you reconcile your philosophy of no dig when the grains you buy are agro farmer, just tryin to put all the pieces of the puzzle together
Exactly!
I was sure you kept saying you were growing 'mescaline'. Are you mispronouncing mesclun?
He says mesclun.