Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Why Use Compost?
If you are looking at this topic, you're probably already sold
on the idea of composting. If you aren't already sold, then I
am going to convince you.
Whether you garden using chemical fertilizers, pesticides and
fungicides, or using organic methods, there is abundant and
compelling scientific proof that compost will improve the
fertility of your soil so that less fertilizer is needed. It will
also reduce the incidence and severity of diseases that reduce
your crop yield. The math is straightforward: using compost
means your garden will be more cost-effective because you
will have to spend less money on fertilizers, insecticides, and
fungicides for a given harvest of any crop. That means
money. A lot of money.
Compost induces resistance to a wide array of bacterial and
fungal diseases.
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Induced resistance (as opposed to acquired
immunity) is a form of epigenetics. That is, how a plant or
animal expresses its genes is not controlled simply by the
genes themselves, but also how various environmental factors
affect that expression. Plants were not intended to be grown
in sterile soil. Rather, they were intended to be grown in
living soil. Compost creates and sustains a living soil, so
when grown in the proper environment as nature intended, the
gene expression of plants is optimized for their health.
This concept also applies to humans. Humans were never
intended to be sedentary bumps on a log. Studies show that
proper exercise literally turns certain genes on or off and
thereby affects our vulnerability to a host of diseases to a
substantial degree.
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So the fact that environmental factors
