Re: Lawn Fertilizers and Milorganite
- To: hosta-open@mallorn.com
- Subject: Re: Lawn Fertilizers and Milorganite
- From: G* O*
- Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 08:07:56 -0400
At 07:17 AM 9/26/00 EDT, you wrote:
>
>It was reported in our local paper, STAR Tribune on Minneapolis. They got
the
>story off one of the wire services.
>
>The study involved a number of diffrent items involving farming.
>They looked at three diffrent types of farming:
>
>Organic- No man made chemicals
>Standard - Minimal use
>Chemical intensive- Synthesized Fertilizers and pesticides
>
>The Organic and the standard farming practices produced the same amount of
>green house gases across the production spectrum while the Chemical
intensive
>farming produced the least amount of green house gases.
>
>Paul
Ahh. It sounds like the scientists were measuring soil CO2 efflux. CO2 is
given off by soils as a result of (among other things) microbial growth and
root respiration. If intensive chemical fertilization suppresses microbial
activity in the soils (and it does), the result would be less CO2 released
to the atmosphere. Organic fertilizers tend to increase microbial
activity, thereby increasing CO2 efflux.
Concluding that organic additives are therefore "bad" for the environment
makes as little sense as the statement that was made years ago about trees
being the major "polluters" on the planet.
Please don't take this as a personal attack, Paul. As a scientist involved
in climate change research, I just wanted to get more information..Were
there any names (the scientists) given in the Star article?
Gerry
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