Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Health Management
This chapter presents a very exciting and important concept — health management.
Rather than treating disease, we remove it from the picture by creating health. It must be
noted that the garden is a dynamic environment, so even healthy plants are probably always
fluctuating in and out of a state of optimal health based on any number of factors.
Even in a fairly healthy soil, we could get a month of dry days in the summer, an early
freeze, a loss of soil energy in the fall, or any number of conditions that impact the health
of a plant to the point where some predators can come and dine for awhile. But if we can
accomplish the goals laid out in this topic, healthy and predator-free plants will be the main
outcome.
Arden Andersen writes “an organism will survive and thrive only if the proper condi-
tions have been established for it to do so.” Everything we've looked at in previous
chapters contributes to controlling pests because all of these practices contribute to healthy
soil and healthy plants. The most important concept to remember is that weeds proliferate
in imbalanced soils, and insects and diseases feed on unhealthy plants. A garden or field
full of pests has come to be considered normal, but it's not normal and must be considered
a signal of a lack of health.
Once you know that, it's all about implementing the steps in this topic. When we provide
sufficient water, increase humus and improve the soil food web, balance soil nutrients and
ensure there is proper energy in the system, pests go away. Most pest situations can be im-
proved by balancing the calcium to magnesium ratio and the phosphate to potash ratio,
which can only be done long-term if all of these steps are taken care of.
Instead of shooting the messenger, the pest, we should actually thank them for telling us
something is wrong.
