I can't get enough organic material for my garden.

[Dillbert]

it seems you asked and answered the question RBG -

>> Their crops replaced the natural grasses in the area, which had root systems more capable of sustaining life under the difficult conditions

till or no-till does not affect the above - foreign crops supplanted natural vegetation. other than leaving the natural vegetation alone, what are the options?
drain the aquifer?
leave the prairie to itself?
re-route a couple rivers?
none of the solutions are working out without significant "side effects" - wanted, unwanted, intended, unintended, political or a-political.

>>"The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent erosion.

>>without crop rotation...
okay, non-rotation exhausts the soil of key nutrients for the "desired" crop, leads to poor production, scrawny plants, but scrawny plants don't make for dust. the native species are a tad on a scrawny side....

>>fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent erosion.

- per my earlier, are we "smarter" now?
- will being smarter prevent the droughts?

I think not. droughts will continue / are continuing to occur in many places. human ignorance/stupidity can indeed make the results worse, but that ignorance/stupidity did not / does not cause - nor remedy - the drought.

so iffin' you're gonna' go farming in drought prone areas, you need to plant / harvest only the naturally adapted vegetation.
ah nuts, not much market for tumble weed . . . . the world population has not acquired a taste for dried tumbleweed.

iffin' one chooses to remove from cultivation all drought prone areas, well, that could pose a couple other problems. something akin' to my prior "half the world starves to death"

there are no simple 128 character max length "fits in Twitter" answers. as Kermit once said "It ain't easy being green." each and every miracle solution presents (predicted or unforeseen) negative issues.

[rainbowgardener]

it seems you asked and answered the question RBG -my comments in red

>> Their crops replaced the natural grasses in the area, which had root systems more capable of sustaining life under the difficult conditions

till or no-till does not affect the above -Yes in fact it does. No-till, where you just lay a bunch of stuff down and plant into it, would hold the soil a lot better. foreign crops supplanted natural vegetation. other than leaving the natural vegetation alone, what are the options? As above. Also they were plowing their fields and then leaving them bare all winter. Don't plow in the fall! Plant cover crops!
drain the aquifer?
leave the prairie to itself?
re-route a couple rivers?
none of the solutions are working out without significant "side effects" - wanted, unwanted, intended, unintended, political or a-political. Yes, the simple solutions of no-till, compost, mulch, "one-straw revolution" gardening do work out without dramatic interventions such as you suggest. I know the people back then weren't aware of this.

>>"The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent erosion.

>>without crop rotation...
okay, non-rotation exhausts the soil of key nutrients for the "desired" crop, leads to poor production, scrawny plants, but scrawny plants don't make for dust. the native species are a tad on a scrawny side....

>>fallow fields, cover crops or other techniques to prevent erosion.

- per my earlier, are we "smarter" now? YES!! We know a lot more about this stuff, whether we choose to use it or not.
- will being smarter prevent the droughts? If we use what we know, YES

I think not. droughts will continue / are continuing to occur in many places. human ignorance/stupidity can indeed make the results worse, but that ignorance/stupidity did not / does not cause - nor remedy - the drought. Did you read the part about the Amazon rain forest? We are right this minute CREATING droughts and turning the rain forest in to desert, in the attempt to ranch beef cattle in an area where they do not belong. We do not have to do this and we could remedy it. One simple solution: don't eat meat. I've been a vegetarian for about 40 years now.

so iffin' you're gonna' go farming in drought prone areas, you need to plant / harvest only the naturally adapted vegetation.
ah nuts, not much market for tumble weed . . . . the world population has not acquired a taste for dried tumbleweed. 1) you can grow other crops if you do it smartly and 2) native vegetation even in Oklahoma includes way more than tumbleweed

iffin' one chooses to remove from cultivation all drought prone areas, well, that could pose a couple other problems. something akin' to my prior "half the world starves to death" I never suggested removing it from cultivation; no-till, compost, humanure/night soil, MULCH, wise use of small amounts of irrigation water. I stayed on Hopi reservation at Third Mesa, AZ. They have grown corn in the desert for centuries and they do not waste their soil.

there are no simple 128 character max length "fits in Twitter" answers. as Kermit once said "It ain't easy being green." each and every miracle solution presents (predicted or unforeseen) negative issues.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Dillbert, you are looking at the links I'm posting right?

You see where Alan Savory is from? Zimbabwe. The man regreened desert there while running cattle. He is working in Arizona now. You are assuming desert was always desert and always will be. The Sahara used to be farmland and have water, but not any more, right? Why? ... why are most of the places humans have farmed or cultivated the longest spent? It ain't just climate change...

Here's some stuff supporting my general theory [url=https://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/54450000/Newsletter/Jul2007.pdf]from USDA[/url]. It talks about the gains from plowing, and how they are short term with long term repercussions... carbon loss in soil at 30% to 50% throughout the Corn Belt. That's not sustainable... What happens when you lose the carbon (humus)? You lose biology. What happens when you lose bacteria? No more nitrogen. What happens when you lose fungi? No more glomalin. What happens when you lose glomalin? You get dust. Dustbowl. Desert.

Here's [url=https://www.agry.purdue.edu/CCA/2007/2007/Proceedings/James%20Hoorman-CCA%20proceedings_KLS.pdf]a paper from Perdue[/url] that details what I have been talking about in relation to tillage... I quote...

Tilling the soil is not a natural system and wastes soil nutrients due to decreases in SOM (the storage vessels for nutrients), no active roots, and lower microbial populations. In natural ecological systems, plants and microbes are actively growing and soaking up soil nutrients and recycling those nutrients and plants keep the soil covered to prevent soil erosion.

You insist that no-till isn't feasible, can't match returns, doesn't change water retention, etc., etc... (We've yet to see scientific baccking to those claims). [url=https://www.ky.nrcs.usda.gov/news/NoTillClark.html]Jack Clark[/url] thinks you're wrong... I'm not a fan of all Jack's practices, but his soil management is good with me...

If professionals are willing to change their minds, why not us?

HG

[rainbowgardener]

" Jack Clark thinks you're wrong... I'm not a fan of all Jack's practices, but his soil management is good with me... "

no, he lost me at the round-up and other herbicides and pesticides. ...


but I did think it was interesting what they said, soil that has been continuously managed as no-till for years and has improved a lot in fertility, tilth, etc. can lose most of those gains if tilled even once! Wow! I didn't know that.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Combine no-till with a practice like [url=https://ag.arizona.edu/oals/ALN/aln48/hanzi.html]polyculture[/url] (think [url=https://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.MtPleasant.kb.html]three sisters[/url]), and we can [url=https://ucanr.org/repository/CAO/landingpage.cfm?article=ca.v045n02p20&fulltext=yes]increase yields per acre BEYOND anything that conventional agriculture can match[/url]...

The tomato-zucchini polyculture offered a considerable yield advantage. It required 1.02 acres of tomato monoculture and 0.64 acres of zucchini monoculture to produce the same quantities of tomato and squash harvested from only a 1-acre polyculture. The land equivalent ratio (LER) for tomato and zucchini was 1.66, which indicates that the total yield of the polyculture per unit area was 66% greater than for the monoculture.

Not less food organically; MORE... just need to learn some new/old tricks...

HG

[Dillbert]

yes indeed. it's all quite fascinating.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Yeah, RBG, the wierd thing is a lot of the RU-RTU crowd has gone no till. Who ever thought I'd find an upside to that garbage? Needless to say I think we can do both, but not a lot of folks trying that yet as it means some other paradigm shifts that are difficult for a lot of folks...

Dillbert, I hope I'm wearing you down some here; I'm not entirely discrediting what you've said about soil mechanics. S'all true, isn't it? But I just don't think a concentration on mechanical properties is focused in the right place. I hope I've at least got you considering that the biological aspects of soil override all other considerations as they touch on every other aspect, and the other parts don't work without it. It's kind of the centerpiece of how I think we should be farming and gardening, and as you see, I have supporting evidence...

HG

[applestar]

Tomatoes and zucchini huh? Interesting....

[Dillbert]

>>wearing down
sorry. not even close; not even in this galaxy.

the difference between old fxrt organic gardeners and new fxrt organic gardeners is the old geezers have learned the constraints of the technology.

gimme a ring in 30 or 40 years and let me know how it turns out.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Technology?

The "tech" I am talking about is billions of years of biology...

If there's any constraints on that, it's us...

IMO, you are the one making an argument for a broken technology, my friend...

Check out how Sepp Holzer farms. Polycultured terracing sort of like New Guinea... but it's [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw7mQZHfFVE]all Sepp[/url]

Bet Sepp has been farming as long as you have, Dillbert...

Not new technology, just different...

HG

[Sage Hermit]

Arguing with a grandmaster?



...I'm going to china soon... and I have been studying martial arts and forgein language my whole life so I am just talking jibber jabber.

I'm not going to lie I'm still a novice.

[The Helpful Gardener]

C'mon Sage, cut it out with all the master stuff. Sepp, maybe...

[DoubleDogFarm]

Thank You Gentlemen, well done and interesting.