A Dairyman’s Recipe for Making Stable, Quality Compost By Hugh Lovel Hugh on dairy farm consultation Tasmania The initial mix of materials should be about 30 to 1 carbon to nitrogen, so manures and fresh, green materials will need a fair bit of other material that is low in nitrogen. Mixing in wood…
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Homemade Fertilizers
Home Made Fertiliser: Part Two Author: Hugh Lovel Category: Biodynamics, Farming, Soil Humified Compost and Compost Extract Misunderstandings about compost abound. Many imagine that composts are simply broken down organic matter that is ready to be taken up by plants. All too often composters seek to simply digest a mix of wood wastes, plant matter, manures and…
Growing and Breeding Superior Corn and Maize
Corn Breeding: Another Perspective Hugh Lovel Originally published in BIODYNAMICS 233, January/February, 2001 I found Walter Goldstein’s article on corn breeding (in BIODYNAMICS 232) at Michael Fields Institute to be a model of vision, dedication and precision. This is a field of endeavor that for much too long has gone in the direction of removing seed saving from farmers’ hands,…
Dynamic Processes
Dynamic Processes by Hugh Lovel In the uptake of nutrients from the soil foodweb, sulphur is the catalyst for nutrient release. Ever at work at the surfaces of things, sulphur, as sulphate, infiltrates the interstices between the soil’s colloidal particles and exposes their surfaces. In short, sulphur is the ‘open sesame’ to the soil’s…
The Biochemical Sequence
The Biochemical Sequence™ By Hugh Lovel Beyond sulphur, the minerals plants need from soils have a certain hierarchy of importance. One thing must work before anything that depends on it can. The earlier deficiencies occur in this sequence the more everything else is affected. For example, silicon provides the capillary action that allows plants…
High Brix in Vegetables
High Brix in Veggies Getting brix high in veggies is usually a challenge due to low silicon and high nitrates. This can be where biodynamics comes to the rescue with oak bark and equisetum. Add these to EM and you reverse nitrification in the soil and improve photosynthesis. We tend to think we have to feed…
True Excellence in Growing Food
True Excellence in Growing Food By Hugh Lovel Obtaining true excellence relates to the way nitrogen works within each farm. This can be complex and sophisticated or crude and rude. Nitrogen is the essence of protein chemistry, which is what gives us the character and flavour of what we grow. Each farm has its…
The Importance of Winter
The Importance of Winter © By Hugh Lovel Most of us have covered up a patch of sod in late autumn, only to find it ready to take off growing again in spring. However, in summer if we cover the same patch of sod up, it is dead and decaying in less than a…
Drought and the Importance of Soil Cover
Drought and the Importance of Soil Cover Hugh Lovel It’s dire days when so many Australian farmers along the Murray/Darling have burned up the carbon in their soils and turned their paddocks into salt flats resembling some of the dry salt pans of Arizona. It is puzzling, having viewed Channel 9’s special (28/5/2006)…
Boron, Overgrazing and Soil Building
Boron, Overgrazing and Soil Building Hugh Lovel All too often I find paddocks which once yielded excellent growth now have declined to the point the grasses, clovers and other plants look like bonsai miniatures. I just did a soil test for someone who had enough of every other nutrient except boron, which…
Quantum Agriculture 