Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
J.I. Rodale worked with WmAlbrecht and Louis Bromfield at Bromfield's Malabar
Farm in Ohio during the late 1940s. Bromfield was working to restore worn-out
farmland by applyingAlbrecht's mineral balancing principals as well as the organic
ideas of the English agriculturist SirAlbert Howard. The story is that Rodale had a
falling out with the Malabar farm group over the use of some man-made fertilizers
that the others considered not to be harmful, probably ammonium sulfate. Rodale
was a purist and his version of organic had no room for input that wasn't 100%
natural. SirAlbert Howard taught that trees and other deep-rooted plants would
bring up any minerals needed, and didn't give it a lot of thought beyond that.
Rodale was convinced that leaves from deep-rooted trees, and rotting vegetable
matter in general, could supply all of the nutrients plants needed to thrive, even in
poor or worn out soil.
Rodale went on to found Organic Farming and Gardening magazine, today's
Organic Gardening magazine, and for the first ten years almost all he wrote about
was organic matter; mulch and compost were all anyone needed, he seemed to
think. Only later, starting in the 1960s, did he begin to acknowledge the role of
minerals and recommend them, particularly rock phosphate, greensand, and
dolomite lime; but ordinary garden lime, Calcium, was seen merely as a pH
adjuster, instead of being recognized as the single nutrient needed in most
quantity in the soil that it actually is. J.I. Rodale was a man with a mission, and all
of us who learned from him owe him great honor. He was almost single-handedly
responsible for inspiring the strong and vibrant organic agriculture movement in
the USAand around the world today.Anyone whose education in gardening was
in the Rodale school, however, is going to know that minerals are needed, but is
unlikely to know why or how much or where they come from.
Meanwhile,Albrecht's mineral balanced agriculture, as promoted by Walters in the
AcresUSAnewspaper and a number of topics, moved forward through the 1980s
and '90s, but only on good-sized farms, and few enough of them. Very few of the
farmers using the mineral approach knew much if anything about the organic
crowd. Balancing soil nutrients based on the soil's exchange capacity worked and
worked well, and when a farmer had had enough of chemicals and poisons, or
saw his neighbor growing better crops than he while working less and spending
less, many did apply ProfessorAlbrecht's principles and they continue to do so
today. I have heard of no one switching back to their earlier style of farming,
gardening, or ranching once they have experienced the results of a mineralized,
balanced soil.
Another important person in bringing the knowledge of mineral nutrition to
agriculture was the late Carey Reams, PhD, who did most of his life's work in
Florida, USA. TheAlbrecht and Reams schools have slightly different but easily
reconciled philosophies; they agree on the mineral balance, but often use different
explanations and terms. Students of Carey Reams and Wm.A.Albrecht, and the
students of
