Soil secrets

[glowplug]

November 30, 2012

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the book credited with launching the modern environmentalist movement. Carson famously warned man-made chemicals, particularly pesticides, were a significant threat to human health.

In a new study, Angela Logomasini, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, argues history has proven Rachel Carson wrong. Agrochemicals have not caused the “sinister” ills Carson predicted. In fact, it is her anti-chemical legacy that now poses a global risk both to food supply and the environment.

Logomasini reports:

- The incidence of pesticide-related health problems is low. When the Centers for Disease Control investigated the health effects of widespread spraying to control mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus during 1999-2002, they found only two cases of definite health impacts and 25 probable cases.

- Agrochemicals help defend against the spread of disease. DDT, which many governments banned after the publication of Silent Spring, had been used to control the spread of malaria, which now kills more than 1 million people annually. In Burkina Faso, applications of pesticides to livestock now help prevent transmission of trypanosomiasis—a potentially fatal disease spread by tsetse flies.

- Agrochemicals enable farmers to grow more crops per acre for longer periods, increasing global food supply. Russian farmers have increased marketable yields on apple orchards by as much as 90 percent after beginning pesticide applications. In Zimbabwe, farmers were able to grow tomatoes during rainy seasons by using fungicides.

- The use of pesticides actually has had environmental benefits. Because pesticides allow farmers to grow more per acre, less land is needed by the agricultural industry to supply the global market. The rate of deforestation is now declining, and reforestation has begun in several countries.

Despite the benefits of agrochemicals and the dearth of evidence to support their health claims, environmental activists continue Rachel Carson’s legacy of anti-chemical misinformation. “As a result,” Logomasini wrote, “regulatory trends around the world have supplanted wise management with heavy regulations and product bans.”

The world population continues to grow. For a variety of reasons, including bad weather and changing trade policies, the rate of food production has declined. Now is the time to employ all the tools of modern farming to ensure a growing food supply. Unfortunately, Logomasini said, policy trends are moving the opposite way.

“The cost and risks associated with bureaucratic regulations alone dampens the market for innovative new products, diminishes the supply of pest control options for farmers, and reduces their efficiency. The result is lower food production, higher food prices and fewer environmental benefits.”

► Angela Logomasini’s full study can be read by clicking the following title: “Rachel Was Wrong: Agrochemicals’ Benefit to Human Health and the Environment”

===========================I have mixed feelings. Some of our chemicals have lengthy carry overs, so they're in the soil and hmmmm, dunno what is happening until they've degraded. Are they harming something other than the targets we use them on? I dunno.

[Tom In Ont]

does the sulfur have to be applied in row at a specific stage for optimum value or can I lazy as I am add it into my broadcast mixture ppi?
I've done zinc apts. before, you have to soil test to make sure your structure isn't holding too much zinc built up over time as it is used sparingly and wisely by the plant. Too much zinc in the soil can have an adverse effect on the plant so I was told by my agronomist.
On a foliar apt what do you guyz use on corn?
I use a manganese pass over on my beans at about the 3rd- 4th trifoliate, sure does spruce them up/green, and super charges them pre flowering stage.I use to incorporate with glyphosate but that chit ties up the manganese for about 10-12 days so its advantageous to do a double pass over and eat the expense. My on farm averages have been vastly improving in the past 6 years since doing this. Its absolutely imperative in drought situations to apply that manganese during drought conditions, I can't stress that enough. Having the plant shutting down into defensive posture pre flower will kill your bottom line.I've brought my on farm ave. up from 40bu 6 years ago to 60 today. I also do add Hi stick innoculant to the seed, liquid drizzle outside the gravity box and does a nice job mixing as it traverses up the loading auger. Don't get it too thick, it'll clog your auger up, just get a nice shiny glean to your seed. Any possible jump start to your bean seed is cheap insurance.Hope this helps your yields.

[jabber1]

does the sulfur have to be applied in row at a specific stage for optimum value or can I lazy as I am add it into my broadcast mixture ppi?
I've done zinc apts. before, you have to soil test to make sure your structure isn't holding too much zinc built up over time as it is used sparingly and wisely by the plant. Too much zinc in the soil can have an adverse effect on the plant so I was told by my agronomist.
On a foliar apt what do you guyz use on corn?
I use a manganese pass over on my beans at about the 3rd- 4th trifoliate, sure does spruce them up/green, and super charges them pre flowering stage.I use to incorporate with glyphosate but that chit ties up the manganese for about 10-12 days so its advantageous to do a double pass over and eat the expense. My on farm averages have been vastly improving in the past 6 years since doing this. Its absolutely imperative in drought situations to apply that manganese during drought conditions, I can't stress that enough. Having the plant shutting down into defensive posture pre flower will kill your bottom line.I've brought my on farm ave. up from 40bu 6 years ago to 60 today. I also do add Hi stick innoculant to the seed, liquid drizzle outside the gravity box and does a nice job mixing as it traverses up the loading auger. Don't get it too thick, it'll clog your auger up, just get a nice shiny glean to your seed. Any possible jump start to your bean seed is cheap insurance.Hope this helps your yields.

Tom, how are you metering the liquid inoculant into the auger? I have a liquid injector with a metering orfice. Can't seem to keep the thing set due to the varying viscosity of the liquid inoculate.

[jabber1]

November 30, 2012

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the book credited with launching the modern environmentalist movement. Carson famously warned man-made chemicals, particularly pesticides, were a significant threat to human health.

In a new study, Angela Logomasini, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, argues history has proven Rachel Carson wrong. Agrochemicals have not caused the “sinister” ills Carson predicted. In fact, it is her anti-chemical legacy that now poses a global risk both to food supply and the environment.

Logomasini reports:

- The incidence of pesticide-related health problems is low. When the Centers for Disease Control investigated the health effects of widespread spraying to control mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus during 1999-2002, they found only two cases of definite health impacts and 25 probable cases.

- Agrochemicals help defend against the spread of disease. DDT, which many governments banned after the publication of Silent Spring, had been used to control the spread of malaria, which now kills more than 1 million people annually. In Burkina Faso, applications of pesticides to livestock now help prevent transmission of trypanosomiasis—a potentially fatal disease spread by tsetse flies.

- Agrochemicals enable farmers to grow more crops per acre for longer periods, increasing global food supply. Russian farmers have increased marketable yields on apple orchards by as much as 90 percent after beginning pesticide applications. In Zimbabwe, farmers were able to grow tomatoes during rainy seasons by using fungicides.

- The use of pesticides actually has had environmental benefits. Because pesticides allow farmers to grow more per acre, less land is needed by the agricultural industry to supply the global market. The rate of deforestation is now declining, and reforestation has begun in several countries.

Despite the benefits of agrochemicals and the dearth of evidence to support their health claims, environmental activists continue Rachel Carson’s legacy of anti-chemical misinformation. “As a result,” Logomasini wrote, “regulatory trends around the world have supplanted wise management with heavy regulations and product bans.”

The world population continues to grow. For a variety of reasons, including bad weather and changing trade policies, the rate of food production has declined. Now is the time to employ all the tools of modern farming to ensure a growing food supply. Unfortunately, Logomasini said, policy trends are moving the opposite way.

“The cost and risks associated with bureaucratic regulations alone dampens the market for innovative new products, diminishes the supply of pest control options for farmers, and reduces their efficiency. The result is lower food production, higher food prices and fewer environmental benefits.”

► Angela Logomasini’s full study can be read by clicking the following title: “Rachel Was Wrong: Agrochemicals’ Benefit to Human Health and the Environment”

===========================I have mixed feelings. Some of our chemicals have lengthy carry overs, so they're in the soil and hmmmm, dunno what is happening until they've degraded. Are they harming something other than the targets we use them on? I dunno.

Glowplug, I share your mixed emotions stated in your last paragraph.

Some chemicals are not worth the risks associated with those chemicals. Using sound science to consider all risks and all potential rewards is the solution.

[Tom In Ont]

trail and error, I'm supposed the get 40-50 units /bladder of inoculant and just about have it down to science through trial and error, you would think they would simplify that with a basic meter with a numbered system attached to the orifice, but, they want to sell quantity mind you so you have to perfect it yourself. A steady line drizzle usually does it for me with the tractor running a notch above idle for mixing with auger on my drill.Keep your inoculant around 60 degrees, that seems to give me the right viscosity, and remember we have to shake that puppy vigorously to get things activated. We have a less than two week window to get it on once its mixed or it will lose its effectiveness. Don't think that really poses a problem with most. I as a rule never leave any of that mixture laying around for any duration of time, just a matter of preference.