Re: Peat

**G* R* <g*@tiscali.co.uk>**

But surely the peat should be left in place to 
lock up the carbon? And what we should be doing 
is using coir, straw and other by products of 
necessary agriculture to provide soil improvers 
and composts for our gardens.

It is often true that, especially in seed and 
seedling stages, plants do best in peat composts. 
However, when plant breeders are growing many 
thousands of seedlings in the development of new 
varieties of bedding plants - they are all grown 
in peat. So the plants self select for thriving 
in peat.

Some peat in England, by the way, is derived more 
from sedges and some from sphagnum. In 2000 
Scotts sold a large sphagnum peat bog in 
Yorkshire for £27m - to the British goverment who 
turned it over to English Nature to manage as a 
nature reserve. The peat in Ireland is derived 
from sphagnum and has been the staple, sometimes 
the only, ingredient in potting composts for many 
years. The Irish, by the way, also have a number 
of peat-powered power stations. I gather that 
installing wind turbines on the vast flat peat 
bogs is being investigated.

The RHS has mainly been concerned with habitat 
destruction; they assume that the use of peat as 
a soil-improver is unnecessary and aim to cut use 
of peat in their composts by 90% by 2010.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Learning/research/conservation_and_environment_peat.asp

Graham Rice
Milford PA, and Northamptonshire, UK

Take a look at Transatlantic Plantsman, my blog on plants
and books about plants at http://www.transatlanticplantsman.com

>I have been a supporter of Canadian sphagnum peat moss for over 20 
>years.  I have visited the bogs in Alberta and I have spoken to the 
>peat moss association on several occasions - just so my bias is out 
>in front.
>
>Anything written about peat in England is apples and oranges to 
>Canadian sphagnum peat.  European and much of eastern European peat 
>is not renewable; it is not from the sphagnum plant.  So to worry 
>about peat being a non-renewable resource in England is a legitimate 
>concern.
>
>Sphagnum peat is renewable, although the industry did not start to 
>get into the renewing business until about ten years ago.  Now all 
>the bogs harvested in Canada go into a renewing mode.  Yes, it takes 
>100 years for a sphagnum bog to renew.  But it renews.  Canada is 
>larger than the U.S. and about half of the land is spagnum peat 
>bogs.  The Co2 released in the harvesting and processing and shipping 
>of peat is miniscule compared to the CO2 produced by cars in just one 
>American city.
>
>Coir is touted to be better than Canadian peat because it comes from 
>coconut trees and they are clearly renewable.  What is not observed 
>is that now most new coconut groves are created by clearing even more 
>of the rain forest.  Is that a reasonable trade off?  Coir happens to 
>be superior to peat in some professional green house applications 
>because it resists the development of algea better.  After that, 
>Canadian peat is just as effective as a potting mix or soil amendment 
>as is coir.
>
>At the current rate of harvest, it would take several hundred years 
>to use up all the available peat in Canada.  In 100 years, the 
>renewed bogs come into play and we have a truly renewable garden 
>product.
>
>In the next month or two yet another national gardening magazine or 
>newspaper story will again moan about the use of Canadian sphagnum 
>peat moss not being a renewable resource.  That story will never die 
>and it is a bad story.
>
>Jeff Ball
>jeffball@usol.com
>810-724-8581
>Check out my daily blog at www.gardeneryardener.blogspot.com
>Check out my extensive web site at www.yardener.com
>
>
>
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