Hi,
On a recent lengthy stay in Spain I witnessed the terrible damage done by commercial orange growers.
Because oranges require a lot of nitrogen, vast quantities of artificial fertilizer were used with subsequent pollution of rivers.
So the available nitrogen would be absorbed by the tree roots and not by “weeds” all undergrowth was killed off by chemical sprays. These chemicals also polluted the rivers. In addition, in times of heavy rain, there was soil erosion on a grand scale.
Does anyone have any knowledge of growing legumes in totally organic orange groves so as to solve all these problems?
These two sites discuss cover crops but suggest artificial as well. There is an additional concern about the cover “stealing” the available water.
https://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/crops/az1138/az1138_7.pdf
https://cetulare.ucdavis.edu/pubgrape/ng296.htm
Cyril.
Thanks for the response. The problem of course is that there just never seems to be anywhere near enough compost to go around. Have you noticed that??!!!
There were about thirty orange trees that I was working with on a vegan organic project in Andalucia. All the available compost, including humanure, was used for vegetable growing for the community.
It was the surrounding commercial groves that produced the pollution problems I described. Our trees desperately needed their nitrogen fixes and there just was not any available. Life sure can be hard for a committed organic grower can it not?
There were about thirty orange trees that I was working with on a vegan organic project in Andalucia. All the available compost, including humanure, was used for vegetable growing for the community.
It was the surrounding commercial groves that produced the pollution problems I described. Our trees desperately needed their nitrogen fixes and there just was not any available. Life sure can be hard for a committed organic grower can it not?