Fwd: soil book and corn question plus

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

Hi everyone
        Just receive this from a close friend who is staying in Mexico .
hoping
collectively we can help . Her name is Carolyn Vadala and her email is
<cvadala at earthlink.net>  plus a recommendation on a soil book
                        Thanks Wes


>
> Delivered-To: lakinroe at silcom.com 
> From: "C R Vadala" 
> To: "Michaela farm" , 
> Subject: soil book and corn question 
> Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:14:00 -0400 
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 
>
> Dearest AG friends, charles, wes, mike....:
>  
> Resurrection greetings for a marvelous spring and happy 1st of MAY!
>  
> I am in Mexico and entranced by the flowers and trees etc., and the BLACK
> soil. What an exciting place.
>  
> I have a question and then some info to give you on soil.
>  
> Do you know what the organic solution is to pests that eat corn roots?
>  
> I apologize for my lack of specifics, but i could not communicate in
spanish.
> yet!  These are the details i know:
> His valley soil is the blackest, and now the dryest, i have ever seen.  10
> years ago it was under a lake (the dam broke).  He uses manure for
fertilizer
> (horse/sheep/maybe goats - says 1 application lasts 5 years) 
>  
> I asked if it was the corn borer and he said no - that the plague was eating
> the roots.  and that the use of the ddt produces many small roots instead of
> the few thick roots that corn usually has.  he said he only applies the
> chemical as needed where the plague shows up.
>  
> He is a mexican sustainable / sustanence farmer in a guanajuato valley - He
> told me he asks at conferences, but no one can give him a 'non-chemical
(ddt)
> answer to his corn root problem.    I thought id tap into those who may
know.
>  
> If you have any ideas i could pass on:   thanks for the brain trust.
>  
> regards and much love to all,
> xoxoxox
> carolyn v
> ---------------------------------
> ALSO -  INFO about soil - fyi
>
> << Highly recommended!
>
> Keith Addison wrote:
>
> > FYI, Steve Solomon has just uploaded this great book to the Soil and
> > Health Library. It's public domain, so you can download it.
> >
> > Krasil'nikov, N.A. "Soil Microorganisms and Higher Plants". Academy
> > of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow 1958. Translated in Israel by Dr. Y.
> > Halperin.
> >
> > This, the ultimate study of the microbial process in soil, is one of
> > the most important books in the library. It has been little known
> > since its publication. Rendering it into html took hundreds of
> > tedious and rewarding hours. The book contains 100 photographic
> > illustrations and heaps of tables, so downloading the chapters can be
> > a bit time consuming. Here's my "take" on this book. In the Soviet
> > Union of the 30s, 40s and 50s, industrial production was scanty. Had
> > Soviet agronomic research focused on chemicals spread voluminously,
> > the remedies could not have been implemented. So Krasil'nikov focused
> > on the biological process, and he found ways to improve plant growth
> > by crop rotation and the production of special composts and microbial
> > ferments of the sort that could be produced by the farmer in an old
> > barrel. All these solutions are based on a very high-level
> > understanding of the microbial process in soil and the interactions
> > between soil microbes with each other, of how crop species interact
> > with each other via long-lasting soil residues (root exudates), and
> > how plants and microbes interact with each other. Soil Microorganisms
> > and Higher Plants is public domain material. Anyone wishing to
> > publish the book in print on paper is invited to contact this
> > library. They will receive all possible assistance. Apologies in
> > advance for the many errors that must be in the html text.
> >
> >
>
> <http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010112Krasil/010112krasil.toc.ht
> ml>http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010112Krasil/010112krasil.toc.
> html
> >
> >


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