Thoughts on synthetic fertilizers?

[Bartato]

I know a lot of you guys are into gardening, homesteading, farming, permaculture, natural farming, etc.

I was wondering if people might be interested in sharing their thoughts on commercial "synthetic fertilizers".

Worldwide, there is currently a big shortage of these, and prices are way up. From a long term viewpoint, they aren't sustainable. Synthetic nitrogen production is largely dependent on natural gas, while phosphorus and potash are finite mined products.

There are also environment concerns related to these fertilizers, such as overuse, soil organic matter loss, soil acidification, groundwater leaching of nitrates, and eutrophication from phosphorus runoff.

The global "beast system" of governments, corporations, etc currently seems intent on reducing the production of synthetic fertilizers. I think this will greatly contribute to worldwide food shortages and societal instability. The world will not have enough food.

I think it is probably theoretically possible to feed the world using natural methods, but large scale monoculture agribusiness is not currently set up to do so. Our soils are too degraded. Our farmers are far too few. Our farming systems are too dumbed down. Transitioning from the current system would take many many years.

Back to my own garden

I'd say that my current approach (for my own production) leans towards natural or traditional crop production. I rotate my crops. I grow green manures and cover crops. I also integrate laying hens into my backyard "agroecosystem". I use a lot of mulch. I also make and use a lot of compost.

The primary feedstock for my compost comes from leaves scrounged from my suburban neighborhood. I'll typically scrounge 60-80 large trash bags of leaves each year. I could get more, but am normally satisfied with this quantity. This is a "free" input, but is still an external source. I am importing carbon and nutrients from off my property.

We are not currently recycling our own urine or feces. Long term sustainability will require this. Should synthetic fertilizer become unavailable, I would immediately use at least the urine.

In addition, I do use some synthetic nitrogen fertilizer including urea and ammonium sulfate (purchased in 50# bags from the local farm store). I"ll also use a little 16-16-16 or muriate of potash on the potatoes since they use a lot of potassium.

I hate to see sub optimal crop productivity, and the synthetic fertilizers are so easy, quick, and convenient to use. Moreover they are normally quite inexpensive relative to purchased organic fertilizer. Sometimes a quick boost of nitrogen can really make a difference.

I've read, studied, and worked in both large scale commercial agriculture and small scale natural farming.

From a health viewpoint, I am less concerned about synthetic fertilizer use than I am about herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.

Anyway, I guess all this says that I have mixed feelings about synthetic fertilizers.

Oh, in addition, I keep a pretty good stockpile of the fertilizers that I use as part of my emergency preparations.

 

[FollowingHim]

We are not currently recycling our own urine or feces. Long term sustainability will require this. Should synthetic fertilizer become unavailable, I would immediately use at least the urine.

Buy a copy of "The Humanure Handbook". The author is a rabid atheistic hippy who thinks Christianity is the cause of every problem in the world and feels a need to spend the first chapter preaching that, but after that he'll tell you everything you need to know about composting and using human manure. We've been following his methods for over a decade.

I think it is probably theoretically possible to feed the world using natural methods, but large scale monoculture agribusiness is not currently set up to do so. Our soils are too degraded. Our farmers are far too few. Our farming systems are too dumbed down. Transitioning from the current system would take many many years.

Absolutely.

Perennial crops - pastures and trees - are completely possible to transition essentially immediately to no fertiliser usage. They already have some decent biology in the soil, and usually have animals in the system already as a manure source. I am very interested in staple food production from tree crops - nuts and solid fruit like quince - undergrazed by sheep and cattle. That is a very easy way to produce a large quantity of food per acre reliably with minimal inputs, and is closer to the natural forest/scrub ecosystem that much farming land would revert to if left to its own devices. However, it takes a long time to establish.

Arable and crop production are more difficult and need time to design crop rotations and fertiliser / soil stimulant strategies, often involving many failures on the way to success. The transition from chemical fertilisers to biological production in an arable system is a gradual weaning process, because it is much harder to manage without them and requires large rethinking of the system. And they may always be a useful tool to have available to cope with unplanned problems, especially when used as a foliar feed.

Ultimately however, it should be entirely possible to feed everyone with no fertilisers indefinitely - provided we close the loop and return the nutrients we excrete back to the soil. The best example of a working system being the book "Farmers of Forty Centuries".

 

[steve]

One place to check for natural manure is where horses are boarded.
Often the straw and manure is available for the taking.
If you don’t compost it, just cover the garden well with it in the fall and till it in come spring, if you till.

 

[FollowingHim]

A great quote from "the humanure handbook", from memory:

"Now where would a large animal find a source of manure?"

 

[FollowingHim]

One place to check for natural manure is where horses are boarded.
Often the straw and manure is available for the taking.
If you don’t compost it, just cover the garden well with it in the fall and till it in come spring, if you till.

Using animal manure has a place and works up to a certain scale - a subset of the human population can concentrate the manure from the available livestock and get sufficient nutrients to produce their own food. However this only works because the nutrient supply is being diverted in such a way that a portion of the population receives more than their "fair share". To feed everyone in the world indefinitely you would have to actually close the loop and recycle human manure. Sorry for those who have the weird idea that eating veges grown in commercial compost made from pig crap is somehow less gross than eating veges grown in compost made from your own, you just have to get over it.

 

[steve]

We don’t have to feed the world.

 

[Bartato]

Buy a copy of "The Humanure Handbook".

Perennial crops

The best example of a working system being the book "Farmers of Forty Centuries".

I'm a huge fan of "Farmers of Forty Centuries" and frequently recommend it to people interested in natural farming. I also liked Masanabu Fukuoka's approach.

I'm a bit of a Japanophile, and many of my wife's relatives in Japan are farmers. I have been fortunate to visit several of their farms. I also worked for a Japanese organic farmer here in Washington many years ago. I like the intensive Asian growing methods.

"Humanure Handbook". I am familiar with this book having read through much of it years ago. I have a pdf copy of it, but really should buy or print a hard copy. It is an excellent resource.

Perennial crops - I agree that perennial crops need to form the foundation of our food production.

Animals grown using rotational grazing

Tree fruit, vines, berry bushes and brambles

Those are far less labor intensive and more sustainable than annual crops.

 

[Bartato]

Using animal manure has a place and works up to a certain scale - a subset of the human population can concentrate the manure from the available livestock and get sufficient nutrients to produce their own food. However this only works because the nutrient supply is being diverted in such a way that a portion of the population receives more than their "fair share". To feed everyone in the world indefinitely you would have to actually close the loop and recycle human manure. Sorry for those who have the weird idea that eating veges grown in commercial compost made from pig crap is somehow less gross than eating veges grown in compost made from your own, you just have to get over it.

We don’t have to feed the world.

Sorry, I did throw in and mix up two different issues.
1. Global food production systems
2. My own food production systems

The horse manure is similar to me scrounging neighborhood leaves. It is an excellent resource, that otherwise might go to waste. On the other hand, it doesn't resolve the larger societal issue.

The large scale agricultural systems are breaking down (also being intentionally sabotaged and dismantled).

 

[steve]

Why does everything have to be about the macro?
Even if you came up with the perfect solution, nobody would listen.

Relatively nobody.

 

[Edward]

We are not currently recycling our own urine or feces.

This just makes me think of these passages.
(2 Kings 18:27 KJV) But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
(Isaiah 36:12 KJV) But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?

The Back To Eden method is what we do and it works GREAT.

 

[steve]

This just makes me think of these passages.
(2 Kings 18:27 KJV) But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
(Isaiah 36:12 KJV) But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?

The Back To Eden method is what we do and it works GREAT.

That’s recycling a bit close to the source.

 

[Edward]

That’s recycling a bit close to the source.

I am assuming what you are referring to is what some off grid friends of ours do, so correct me if I am wrong. They have outhouses and they will take that bucket of slim juice and dig a little hole close to one of their fruit trees and dump it in there and burry it. Or are you referring to the above passages as literally eating their own dung and drinking their own piss, I am a little slow this evening.

 

[steve]

I am assuming what you are referring to is what some off grid friends of ours do, so correct me if I am wrong. They have outhouses and they will take that bucket of slim juice and dig a little hole close to one of their fruit trees and dump it in there and burry it. Or are you referring to the above passages as literally eating their own dung and drinking their own piss, I am a little slow this evening.

The passages that you quoted.

 

[FollowingHim]

We don’t have to feed the world.

"We" don't. But the world has to feed the world. And each country has to feed that country.

Our direct responsibility is to find solutions for our individual families. I agree that those solutions can be ones that would not scale to the entire world, but work for us. Go use that horse dung and make a garden! Or get used commercial cooking oil and process it into biodiesel.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the larger questions don't remain. There is not enough horse dung to fertilise enough gardens to feed everyone in the USA, just as there is not enough used commercial cooking oil to fill every truck in the USA. There are solutions that work for an individual, and other solutions that will work for a society as a whole.

We mustn't conflate the macro with the micro, or ignore micro-level solutions just because they aren't macro-level solutions. Everything has a place. But the macro-level questions do remain, and will ultimately need to be addressed by society as a whole.

 

[Keith Martin]

The Back To Eden method is what we do and it works GREAT.

Just watched the whole video. This is similar to what I do, but I also learned some really important additional things about growing techniques and the development of soil. I'm going to implement a combination of lasagna gardening and wood chips for my next section of transforming my back yard from lawn to gardening.

Thanks, @Edward!

 

[JimC]

I have a ten acre hay field, a 4 acre field I raise a few sheep and steers on, a 1200 sqft greenhouse and grow hemp flower in a grow room. I paid $2k to have the hay field and other field fertilized this year(double what it would have been two years ago) with a commercial nitrogen product. I use an organic product plus blood meal in the greenhouse and garden and use a fish poop product in my hemp grow. fish poop runs me about $300 per grow for about 12 hemp plants. I am beginning to compost the plant and dung materials I collect in the barns. We are always chasing down the local tree guys for wood chips to top dress the orchard. I also used to have a very large aquaponic system that is the way to go. Will rebuild the system as I can. Check out GreensandFishesAquaponics on facebook for pics of our system. We produced lettuce, many different peppers, cucumbers, okra, tomatoes, cabbage and many other things. I am available to help with aquaponic system design that can be run off grid if anyone wants to go that way. you can produce a great deal of produce in a small footprint and have a fish protein source as well.

 

[Maddog]

Armchair farmer here so I have more answers than questions like the typical plebe: if we pay attention to the diet of the fertilizer PRODUCER rather than the fertilizer, wouldnt we be smarter? Case in point regarding eating animals- in my repeated repeated reading of the scriptures it seams we ought NOT to eat any critter that is generally carnivore and by rearward extension any of its by-product. I.E. pig, dog, vulture, shark, etc poop.

 

[Bartato]

This just makes me think of these passages.
(2 Kings 18:27 KJV) But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
(Isaiah 36:12 KJV) But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?

The Back To Eden method is what we do and it works GREAT.

The Back to Eden method is great and works well. Again, it does involve bringing in a lot of outside resources, and doesn't solve a lot of the issues involved in large scale farming.

Still, it really is a wonderful approach.

 

[Bartato]

Just watched the whole video. This is similar to what I do, but I also learned some really important additional things about growing techniques and the development of soil. I'm going to implement a combination of lasagna gardening and wood chips for my next section of transforming my back yard from lawn to gardening.

Thanks, @Edward!

Are you familiar with Ruth Stout's method of gardening? It is very similar. She is long dead, but you would probably really like her. She was a character.

 

[steve]

Armchair farmer here so I have more answers than questions like the typical plebe: if we pay attention to the diet of the fertilizer PRODUCER rather than the fertilizer, wouldnt we be smarter? Case in point regarding eating animals- in my repeated repeated reading of the scriptures it seams we ought NOT to eat any critter that is generally carnivore and by rearward extension any of its by-product. I.E. pig, dog, vulture, shark, etc poop.

At present, I don’t draw the line that short.
I’m still eating eggs from chickens that eat bugs.