[Scpg] Chemical nitrogen vs nitrogen fixing plants

[Permacltur at aol.com]

OK

First, you can buy inoculant for commonly planted legumes.   Indeed, peas do 
not associate with the same bacterium species as clover.   There may be 
differences among clovers.   Peas, vetch, broad beans, lentils--they all are 
compatible with one species of inoculant.

For ordinary garden crops, you can usually buy for a few dollars a mixture of 
nitrogen fixing bacteria in ample quantities.   In California, you'd likely 
use Peaceful Valley Farm Supply for your inoculant.   Their catalog usually has 
a table showing the inoculant to use for a given species.   A more 
comprehensive table can be purchased from Agroforestry Research Trust in the UK.   I 
rely on it.

Usually, the garden mixture does not include soy inoculant.   You need to buy 
that separately.   Naturally, you would not find that inoculant in the wild 
unless you went to Japan (and probably China).   

Lupin inoculant is hard to find.   

To harvest inoculant in the wild, dig up the wild legume and see if the roots 
have nodules.   If so, cut them open and see if they are pinkish inside.   If 
so, you have an effective nitrogen fixing strain and you should take a batch 
of the roots home.   You don't need to dig up the field, a few handsful of 
inoculated roots will suffice.

Put them in a blender with some finished compost and plain water (not tap 
water if it is treated) and blend.   Swirl a bit of this in a shallow pan with 
your seed and it will all be inoculated. Plant immediately.   Keep the extra in 
the refrigerator (not the freezer) until you have no further need.   Sometimes 
you can buy a plant from a nursery.   For example if you wanted Caragana 
inoculant, you might buy a single Caragana plant in the smallest size from Forest 
Farm, one of the better permaculture-compatible nurseries on the West Coast.   
(We use them for a lot of our stuff, paying to have it shipped across the 
continent--the quality is excellent and the price is reasonable.)   Expose the 
roots and scrape off a few nodules.   Do the blender thing.   
 
Inoculant and plant your Caragana seed and also keep your purchased plant 
going.   I'd keep it in a pot for a few years until it was certain that you now 
had properly inoculated plants.

Lupin inoculant may be hard to find.   As I recall, it was one of the species 
that requires its own specialized bacterium species.   I'll hunt for our info 
if you can't find it but please try first.   I'm older and don't have a lot 
of spare time left to do someone else's chores.

The most cosmopolitan nitrogen fixing bacterium is called the cowpea 
inoculant.   Besides cowpeas, it works on lima beans, peanuts, yard long beans, etc.   
This is always supplied in the garden blend.

If you buy inoculant, you can keep it a few years by sealing the bag after 
use and refrigerating it.   I inoculate legumes whenever I plant, regardless of 
whether I've grown them in that space before.   It is not expensive and 
assures that you will get the most benefit from your crop.

Nobody commented on my remarks about using animals and rotating pig pens with 
gardens, etc.   There was a reason for going off on that 'tangent'.   This is 
a permaculture discussion group.   We are concerned with design, not with 
looking purely at individual processes.  We want to design soil building and/or 
maintaining systems that a) import mainly wasted products, b) export no more 
nutrient than imported, c) cycle nutrients in the design site so that the 
produces of one species are the resources of others, etc.  That includes us.   Urine 
is one of the easiest to use sources of nitrogen, everyone as access to it, 
and contains not only nitrogen but all minerals that our body no longer needs 
(except those lost in sweat, hair and nails, and, in women, menses.)   Systems 
to efficiently return this nutrient package to the soil with little or no 
leaching should be part of our design.   We have cycles at Barking Frogs 
Permaculture Center that efficiently move nutrients around between a tree crops area, 
for example, and our chinampa beds. This is especially important in our mineral 
deficient sands.   Knowledge about nitrogen fixation and other sources is 
important, but we need to be looking at the design to achieve optimum and 
stabilize there.   This is what is so beautiful about Fukuoka's system--it is 
integrated with a design, flowing season cycles and cropping cycles and nutrient 
cycles together.   We haven't even touched on the pacing of nutrient availability, 
the pulses of release and rest that are best for plants.   If you have a 
natural system to emulate, and you have a keen eye and subtle intuition, you can 
get by without all this knowledge and do very well, also.   But the more you 
understand, the more you design instead of just taking the path of least 
resistance.   (Nothing wrong with that path, but you might be able to design one with 
even less resistance!)

OK, now to your K and P question.   Of course, I can't speak for the people w
ho opined that they are harder to provide than N.   I'd guess that since air 
is more than 70% N, that they figured it was at hand, fixable as we have 
discussed, so easier to get than minerals that come in stone or bone, and require 
serious energy to transport.   That's just my guess.   While most manures and 
also urine contain P (phosphorous), the proportion (with exceptions) is low 
compared to the N (nitrogen) content.   However, with regular applications of 
manure, the P tends to build up as most soils hold it.   Then the problem is to 
release it.   In temperate climates, a green manure crop of buckwheat is very 
effective or a living mulch of white clover.   When I experimented with jump 
starting a Fukuoka grain system on depleted soil, I started with a summer crop of 
buckwheat (in Massachusetts where it is cool enough for buckwheat in the 
summer) and of course seeded my white clover simultaneously.   When we cut the 
buckwheat, the clover sprang up and covered the field.   We broadcast winter rye 
into that.   The following year, that rye made and excellent crop, indicating 
both adequate nitrogen and phosphorous (as seeds sequester phosphorous).   The 
two accumulators made available enough P for a grain crop IN LESS THAN A 
YEAR.   If the P is not present, of course, an accumulator has nothing to 
accumulate.   More commonly, P is 'tied up' in fairly insoluble chemicals which root 
exudates from buckwheat and white clover can dissolve.   Mycorhizzal fungi are 
particularly efficient at releasing and   harvesting phosphorous and can make 
the difference between a good crop and a near total failure.   Soil organic 
matter favors the fungi, and again there needs to be good matches between plant 
species and their root fungi species.   Some mycorhizzae are relatively 
cosmopolitan and some are highly specific.   Most plants require them for good 
health.

K (potassium) probably is available in most soils that have been glaciated.   
The glaciers transport and mix rocks and grind them and some, including for 
example granite, are sources of K.   If you have chickens and no strong need of 
a calcium supplement, you can supply suitably sized granite particles 
(instead of oyster shell) for grit.   The grit is eaten and goes to the gizzard where 
this powerful muscle grinds the stone particles against seeds to 'chew' them 
before they go to the stomach.   Since birds keep needing more grit, we may 
assume that stones grind away after a while RELEASING LOTS OF MINERALS SUBJECT 
TO BEING MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH DIGESTIVE ACIDS.   So this is one little design 
detail to bring K on site.   If you are near the ocean, seaweed is a good 
source of K (and N and ALL trace minerals and a gel that helps hold water in soil 
for release to plants).   Once or twice a season I have to spray BT and I 
always add seaweed extract to the spray as well as a bit of dishwashing 
detergent.   The potassium ions in combination with the detergent are an adequate 
control of aphids all by themselves and help increase the effectiveness of the BT 
by weakening larvae that are coated and also sticking the spray to the leaves 
better.   In the process, I am foliar feeding K to my plants.   This is what 
Mollison means by stacking functions.

Wood ash is probably the commonest source of natural potassium, though you 
may consider it also a chemical fertilizer since it is so highly soluble with no 
organic molecules. Typically, wood ash contains about 10 percent K, a lot of 
Ca, and has half the pH elevating power of ground limestone.   Its alkaline 
reaction is very rapid, so it should be used with discretion and many small 
applications are best.   Wood ash is also an insecticide for soft bodied stages, a 
repellent of some insects and mollusks, and a quick way to get calcium to 
plants.   We have been playing with container gardening here at BFPC.   Once in a 
while we get a bit of blossom end rot on one of the tomatoes, typically 
growing in 35 gal. pots.   This is a calcium deficiency that can be induced by 
drought.   I put about a cup of wood ash in a 5 gal pot and fill with water.   I 
put in as much as possible, up to the rim of the pot, and repeat until all the 
ash sludge has rinsed from the pail, sometimes needing to add water.   This 
can take two or three days.   The result is termination of blossom end rot, 
period, due to both the water supply (the wood ash acts as a surfactant, too, so 
the water penetrates all the soil in the pot), and so we get a darker green in 
the leaves, even the older ones, which I take to reflect the uptake of 
potassium.   

In arid areas, pH of soil is likely to be high, and you probably don't want 
to use much wood ash.   But arid soils are lightly leached and have a lot of 
mineral, possibly not needing any K anyway.   And you probably shouldn't burn 
many trees in a region where they are scarce.

OK, we have a database with about 369 entries giving analyses for things like 
coffee grounds, maple leaves, cotton wastes, manures, etc.   Things that have 
no significant value except to return to the soil.   We've offered it for 
decades as a standard design but no one has ever bought it!   You can find all 
the NPK sources you can handle there.   It is also one of the standard designs 
we include on the CD that goes with our online course (but is available 
separately.) I don't even remember what we charge for it, but if someone is 
interested, I'll look it up.   I have been pulling this together for 30+ years, mainly 
for my own use, and I personally use it a lot.   You can do the same, of 
course, and save your money. :-)

Generally, in the United States we have so much waste that can be salvaged 
and used to build soil, that there should be no problem, certainly not in urban 
or suburban areas.   I've always had an easy time gardening when I lived in 
one of these areas as there is so much wasted organic material of great value to 
the soil.   Grass clippings (from untreated lawns) are a fantastic source of 
NPK and maybe trace minerals, depending on the soil and lawn management. 
Leaves are bagged in the fall in deciduous ecosystems and generally throughout the 
growing season(s) everywhere.   With a chipper/shredder, small branches (i.e., 
from shearing a hedge) become ideal mulch.   Harvesting this bounty gives you 
an opportunity to spread the word.   People will ask why you are taking their 
'trash.'   You explain that it is too valuable to pass up, and that because 
you can get it free, you don't have to buy anything to fertilize your soil.   
Maybe you see an area that would be better managed with mulch without offending 
the landscape aesthetic of the home owner.   (I don't believe in laying our 
trip on others.)   You can mention this as you go right on piling the bags of 
good stuff in your trunk, pickup, or utility trailer.   (Utility trailers are 
fantastic for having the benefits of a truck without the need for truck size 
and gas consumption.)   When you lay down the mulch, various weeds and trees, 
etc., may germinate.   I've gotten black walnut, butternut and pecan trees that 
way, for example, as well as apple rootstock from ornamental crabapple fruit 
in the rakings.)   Out in the country, this sort of wealth is not available.  
We don't want people going into the woods and raking up leaves that are 
essential to that ecosystem to use for mulch!   But most of us make trips to the city 
from time to time and we can learn when yard wastes are 'put out' and 
schedule accordingly. I do.  I also hit every Starbucks I go by.   Old coffee grounds 
analyses about equal to a slightly weak batch of cow manure, but doesn't 
stink. (I love the aroma of coffee!)   Cow manure isn't that bad either, but tell 
that to most people.   In the past, we have picked up surplus bread and 
kitchen waste from the local soup kitchen to feed to our animals.   Whatever you 
scrounge for your critters ends up, in part, as manure for your soil.   (Compost 
it first if you like work.   For some people, this is a religious imperative.) 
  If you bother to find out what the analysis of the material you scrounge 
might be, then your have the tools for balancing your soil.   Some things, like 
deciduous leaves fallen from trees or wood chips are tricky as the analysis 
isn't the full story. But that's a place to start.

OK, I think I've shot my wad on this topic, which is probably more time on it 
than I devote to my paying students. :-)   (They have a lot of topics to 
cover and so we move right along.)   

Think systems, cycles, and ultimately design.   The knowledge about 
particulars helps you shape the design.   With good design, Fukuoka would never have 
experienced eventual lodging of his grain crop (after 15 or 20 years of 
accumulating N).  We would have taken it off as a cash crop or cycled it to another 
part of the site that had need of N, for example, maybe his Mandarin oranges 
which are heavy feeders.   How would we do that?   Maybe feeding poultry in the 
orange grove with grain grown in the paddies that were getting nitrogen top 
heavy.

We haven't even touched the issue of balance between nitrogen, phosphorous, 
and potassium levels, the relationship between phosphorous levels and legume 
growth, etc.   If this doesn't mean anything to you, you have some very 
interesting studying to do.   Don't ask me where, though, as I picked it up as I went 
along, from all sorts of sources and of course observation.   

Have fun!

For Mother Earth


Dan Hemenway
===========================================

In a message dated 6/13/08 3:52:48 PM, Mark.Fitzsimmons at pwr.utc.com writes:


> Thanks Dan for the more detailed report on nitrogen fixing. You answered
> my questions about specificity of n-fixing symbiotes, confirming what I
> suspected and wrote about possibly needing to inoculate soil with the
> proper organisms from naturally occurring know nitrogen fixers. I am
> still left wondering:
> 
> are the nitrogen fixing symbiotes that associate with many common
> legumes so prevalent that they are probably already in my garden soil,
> or should I try to find cultures in nature somewhere, and where would I
> find associates for things like peas? I have natural clover but find
> peas don't do well in my garden. I always assumed it's because it's too
> hot here in so. CA and plant them mostly as winter crops, but now not so
> sure.
> 
> When I plant lupines or ceanothus, I will surely find some in the local
> mountains and dig up a handful of soil by the roots to inoculate my
> plants.
> 
> 
> 
> I am curious to know why Paul and Patrick a couple days ago said K and P
> are more challenging.
> Can you illuminate what your concerns are regarding these elements?
> 
> Mark
> 





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