Better growing through chemistry

[wordwiz]

It seems if not a majority, then certainly a significant percentage of posters are organic growers, which is fine. My best friend is a Vegan and when he came over for a cookout, we always had food he could eat.

Probably because of my upbringing, I'm a big fan of both organic and non-organic fertilizers. We used ammonia nitrate on everything we grew - tobacco, lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, peas, carrots, beets, cucumbers. We also loved manure, tobacco stalks and sowed the fields each fall with wheat which we plowed under in the spring.

Typically, we would spread fertilizer (10-10-10 and 1/3 as much 33-0-0) mixed in mid-late April, and plant in then or in a month (the tomatoes and tobacco were always planted after the middle of May). Once the plants were in the ground and growing for about a month, we would "sidedress" the rows - that is, apply nitrate into the soil about 2-3 inches deep and 4-6 inches from the plant. The effect was immediate and impressive - a large leap in height and width of plants.

One disadvantage of nitrate is that it tends to make fruit (tubers, roots) soggy if applied too late. Thus, we never used it on anything except tobacco after the middle of June. It didn't hurt the potatoes - ours stayed fairly solid through January and usable until late May.

Not trying to say organic farming is bad, but I don't believe improving production through chemistry is bad either.

If you only do organic, and you want to post why, I'm all eyes (all three of them!)

Mike

 

[AlabamaJack]

my grandfather grew 174 acres of corn in fields of 90, 60, 20 and 4 acres...he did exactly as you say with the ammonium nitrate and then side dress about a month later when the corn was about 2 feet tall...then about a month to 6 weeks later when the corn was too tall to plow, we would walk the rows and hand fertilize the furrows between the rows, I remember it was 10-10-15...after that it was keep the weeds out...I remember a couple of times in the early 60s him using liquid ammonium in a pressure tank with plows that would inject the ammonium in the soil...stunk to high heaven and would take your breath away...

grandma grew the garden...can't list all the veggies she grew...major was peas, old timey butterbeans, tomatoes, cucumbers for pickles, and had 20 peach trees that produced bigger than baseball peaches....the only thing she used in her garden was chicken manure...she had 100 chickens so it was readily available in the chicken house...

I won't ramble on about what I am using since I have posted it in other threads and no need to beat a dead horse...all I will say is I am trying to be as organic as I can...no reason in particular, just personal choice..

 

[habman]

Personally I think the key word is balance and common sense.

grandma grew the garden...can't list all the veggies she grew...major was peas, old timey butterbeans, tomatoes, ....

Please tell me you kept those tomato seeds in the family and are willing to share

 

[POTAWIE]

"Organic" is still a buzzword and is not clearly defined internationaly. Every county, province or state has their own interpretation of "organic" which adds to the confusion. For example, some non organic hydro nutrients are less toxic than organic since they remove naturally occuring toxins, but since they use chemicals for extraction they are considered non organic and to most organic means more safe but this isn't always the case.

 

[wordwiz]

AJ,

I can remember, though we never did it, some big-time corn and soy bean growers pulling probably 250, maybe 500 gallon tanks behind huge tractors, treating up to 20 feet at a time with liquiod nitrate. Bushels per acre - that was what counted. With tobacco, it was sort of a trade off. We were allowed to market X number of pounds, at least in latter years. When I was a child, we could grow X number of acres - if it produced 1000 pounds or 10,000 pounds it made no difference to the feds. Once people learned the idea of increasing poundage through variety selection and feritlization, they changed the yardsticks to pounds per farm. I can remember dad growing 4400 pounds per acre, even though it was not the best quality. Once they switched to total pounds, he went to what tobacco grades the buyers wanted to pay the most for.

I saw the difference in using fertilizer last year. A good hill of seed potatoes will produce about 5-6 pounds of spuds. I had a great looking crop (35 plants) last year but harvested only about 90 pounds. Nitrate itself was not to blame - they had no fertilizer applied when planted.

If it ever dries up here (looks like it may be at least next week at the earliest), I plan on spreading some 15-15-15 fertilizer on the garden and tilling it in, then planting about the middle to the third week of May.

I plan on eating fresh or new tomatoes and potatoes all year long. I may be the only person in the northern hemisphere sowing seeds and potatoes in July!

Mike

 

[AlabamaJack]

Please tell me you kept those tomato seeds in the family and are willing to share

lord knows I wish I had some of those seeds Habman but this was nearly 50 years ago...and my grandfather saw to it that all of his children went to school and didn't farm...not one of the children or grandchildren ever grew a garden but me and I always bought sets....hind sight is 20-10 in this case..