[Gandalf_the_White]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('greenworm', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou must not garden or grow your own food. Nitrogen requirments aren't the same for all plants.

[ColossalContrarian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('greenworm', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou must not garden or grow your own food. Nitrogen requirments aren't the same for all plants.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('greenworm', 'T')he green revolution was neither green, nor a revolution. ...

...I'll feed ya lead and you will gladly eat it.

What you gonna do when fertilizer quadruples, keep paying like a sheep? My input cost is $0 on my farm and you think I'm silly.

[greenworm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')’m not the one questioning the importance of Nitrogen in fertilizer or the means by which plants use it. I’m only pointing out the flaw in your original geeky statement.

[greenworm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')y today's MSM buzzword definition it certainly was not Green in the buying things from different companies than we used to, but I'd challenge you to tell me the population of the world today had that "change" in global agriculture (ignore the term revolution if you think hybridization to utilize more nitrogen and thus produce several times larger crops is not revolutionary) had taken place and what part of your family you'd say would not be here without that change.

[Ludi]

Another screaming loon is revealed!

Wow!

[Pops]

Because farming is a business from which people make a living.

Show them the way to make to make a better living and they will.

[greenworm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ecause farming is a business from which people make a living.

Show them the way to make to make a better living and they will.

[Pops]

OK.

Hope they are listening.

[Jupidu]

There are already some solutions to handle the fertilizer problem all around the world:

For rice it is even possible to produce more food without chemical fertilizer:
It's called the "Duck revolution". Invented by TAKAO FURUNO, a japanese peasant. He is practicing ecological farming since 1977 and in 1987 he got the idea to combine rice farming and growing ducks at the same place. Gradually he enhanced his idea by adding other organisms to his system. He published in 2001 all his knowledge in the book "The power of duck". The result of his work is the combination of rice growing together with growing of ducks and fishes in a paddy.
Even better is to let grow different sorts of Azolla ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla ), a aquatic fern in the paddies. Azolla works like legumes in fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere in the ground respectively in the water.

For crops/grains:
- Inter cropping of legumes and grains (not only one year after the other but instead at the same time at the same place): Legumes deliver nitrogen and the grain is the plant for the legume to creep.
- Instead of aritificial and costly fertilizer Bacteria (Diazotrophs, usually living in symbiosis with legumes) can do the work - even better, because plant and Bacteria (in symbiosis)are living together in symbiosis. Bacteria delivers nitrogen and the plant delivers carbohydrate (starch/sugar). Even better is the combination of these Bacteria with a special flavonoid (plant pigment) called naringenin (especially in tomatoes; e.g. in tomato puree or tomato paste). With this substance legumes are signaling in a chemical matter that they are needing nitrogen in exchange for delivering starch or sugar. The colonization of the roots of the legumes (or here: of the crops) is enhanced through the application of naringenin.
The enhancement of the growth of the plants is not only better because of the nitrogen but because of different substances which are produced through this symbiosis.
Here is a study which analyzed this effect at Brassica napus (rape, canola):

"Effects of Glucosinolates and Flavonoids on Colonization of the Roots of Brassica napus by Azorhizobium caulinodans ORS571"
http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/66/5/2185

One firm (i am too lazy in the moment to find similar products with a description in english; i get no money or any advantage from this firm. It's just my private struggle against misinformation and agrimultis like pioneer, Cargill, ADM, Monsanto, Bayer Crop Science, Syngenta, et.al.) where you can buy this ecological (!) sort of fertilizer (there should be more, which are selling suitable Bacteria):

"Phylazonit link The price is 57 Euro (ca. 92 Dollar) plus shipment for one kilo (needed for an area of about one hectare) of powder. You have to mix it with water. It's quite expensive for the owner of a small garden, but perhaps you can convince your neighbours AND: If you are cultivating your garden in a ecological way (no articificial fertilizers, no insecticides, herbicides, etc.) then you only have to buy and apply it perhaps once in your lifetime, because then you don't kill your tiny little friends and they are happy in your soil till the end.

[EnergyUnlimited]

What about phosphorus fertilizer?
Nitrogen is no so difficult to provide.

[Jupidu]

The product Phylazonit contains Bacteria which can extract Phosphor of the soil, if there are phosphorous compounds in it, and make it available to the plant. The availability of nitrogen is not the biggest problem i think but the price of it. In the moment you have costs about 200 Euros (320 Dollars) per hectare (2,5 acres), if i am remembering correctly, of fertilizer for producing rape or maize.

Fertilizer is like software products, water, energy, automobiles, weapons, drugs, chemicals, a multi billion dollar business. Another company which offers a Bacteria-fertilizer: link

This product has been tested in Australia for two years with success. Phospor and other minerals has to be added.

[manu]

Keep some cows and oxen and make your own fertilizer. Learn to compost properly.

[Starvid]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('manu', 'K')eep some cows and oxen and make your own fertilizer. Learn to compost properly.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jupidu', 'T')he product Phylazonit contains Bacteria which can extract Phosphor of the soil, if there are phosphorous compounds in it, and make it available to the plant. The availability of nitrogen is not the biggest problem i think but the price of it. In the moment you have costs about 200 Euros (320 Dollars) per hectare (2,5 acres), if i am remembering correctly, of fertilizer for producing rape or maize.
Fertilizer is like software products, water, energy, automobiles, weapons, drugs, chemicals, a multi billion dollar business. Another company which offers a Bacteria-fertilizer: link This product has been tested in Australia for two years with success. Phospor and other minerals has to be added.

[Jupidu]

@Starvid
Artificial Fertilizer are nothing else but a mixture of different salts. Using this over and over again is damaging the soils. It's like doing irrigation with salty water. Rivers and lakes are getting too much fertilizer and algae are spreading out and in the sommer there could be a lack of oxygen in the lake or even in the river, fishes or other animals are dying.

@Manu

For a peasant with one or two acres that's for sure a possibility but when a cow breeding farm with thousand cows or more wants to distribute the manure on it's "nearby" ten thousand acres, then you need a lot of fuel!

A few weeks ago i joined a discussion with an old farmer from Mississippi here in Germany in the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. He made a visit with his wife in Europe. He wants to make his own fuel by building an oil mill and squeezing rape or cotton seed for example and therefore gathered information by a visit of a german farmer who is already doing this since over five years. He was only able to visit Europe because he is producing rolled sod.

The soils in America were once one of the most fertile in the world, even short after WWII. Then Europe was feed by this fertile ground.

Farmers could enhance their soil at least in a certain distance near their house by growing trees as practiced by the methods of agroforestry ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroforestry ), e.g. alley cropping. You have to wait at least ten years (poplar or willow) to harvest your investment, but for sure wood has soon more value than gold or oil.

[Jupidu]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')nfortunately most of crops don't like acidic soils and this can cause many secondary problems.

[strider3700]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jupidu', '1'). The main goal of organisms is usually not to destroy their own environment.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jupidu', '1'). The main goal of organisms is usually not to destroy their own environment.

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jupidu', '1'). The main goal of organisms is usually not to destroy their own environment.