# Bad soil?



## revolt1776 (Mar 13, 2012)

I heard that the chemicals put in the soil are actually making the soil dependent on Those chemicals. Once those chemicals are stopped being used the soil is dead! Also those chemicals contain different types of poison that are very very harmful to us! How can we tell which fruits and vegetablea have been grow in with these chemicals?


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

I'm not sure what you're getting at with this. In most modern farming the farmers rely heavily upon chemical fertilizers rather than organic methods. The thing is organic methods such as spreading manure, plowing fields, and rotating crops helped to rejuvinate the soil by replenishing nutrients, supplying organic matter and slowing soil erosion. On a modern farm it's more cost effective to rely on chemical fertilizers, grow a single crop year after year, burn off crop residue after harvesting then use either no-till methods or till the ground using a vibra-shank or disk. Since there is no organic matter being turned under the soil become sterile and quite often compacted from the barrage of heavy equipment being used.

When farmers used natural fertilizer such as manure and crop residue (plowed under and mixed with the existing soil) and crop rotation, the ground was alive with microbes and other little guys who lived by converting the manure, crop residue, etc. into nutrients used by the plants. Using chemical fertilizers kills those little guys because the chemicals used are the end product of the microbe's digestion process. It's kind of like a human trying to survive by eating his own excrement. They all starve or are poisoned to death. At that point the farmer is committed to using chemical fertilizers from then on. The soil is effectively, and for all practical purposes, dead.

Now the farmers are dependent upon the chemical (petroleum industry) fertilizer giants for their livelihood and the crops they grow are lacking in many of the "side" nutrients that used to be a natural part of the soil the plnats were grown in. That's one reason vegetables grown in organic gardens taste so much better than those bought at the store. (There are a lot of other reasons for this as well.) Note that I haven't even started on pesticide and herbicide use and their negative effects nor the fact that most shallow wells in farm country are now polluted by nitrates (chemical fertilizer) and unfit for human consupmtion.

One of the primary reasons grocery store food prices are on the increase is due to the rising cost of oil. Not only do farmers need it to power their equipment, it's used to nurture their crops too. As the price of oil escalates so does the price of fertilizer. An oil embargo/shortage could cause more than parking your car and walking ... it could also bring failing crops and mass starvation.

If you aren't growing your own food yet get started now.

Cheers,

Steve


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## fedorthedog (Apr 14, 2011)

If you take any soil and start adding amendment, manure chips grass you will reinvigorate the soil and cause plants to grow better. There is a life cycle to soil. You can seed this up with fertilizer but it leaches out within the growing season.


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## ContinualHarvest (Feb 19, 2012)

Compost and grow your own food. Best advice I can offer.


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## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

Again I hate to sound like a broken record but, on the topic of herbicide, just because you dont use them, dont assume you are safe.

Herbicides can drift many miles and do their damage, manure produced by animals eating hey treated with it can pass it on through the manure and kill your garden and even commercial (organic) compost can be contaminated with it. Some of the more nasty ones can persist for up to 3 to 5 years in the soil before leaching out or breaking down.

My garden was a victim of drift last year, I hesitate to call it drift though, the local feed store sprayed a neighbors field right up to our common fence line and to within 5 feet of my garden with a 10-15 mph wind blowing it right onto my property and through the open windows of my house, the majority of my garden to include my fruit trees died or barely survived.

I have planted this year in the areas worse hit last year to see if anything will grow. If not, I have an attorney lined up that is chompin at the bit to proceed. The owner of the feed store would not even talk to me the following week when I finally figured out what had happened and the kid doing the spraying denied doing anything wrong.

The Texas Department of Agriculture decided different and fined him, opening the door for a law suit if any lasting damage was done. Time will tell, the beans are over due for breaking the ground.

Watch the herbacide even if you dont apply it. The reason your garden fails may not be a soil problem.


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## ContinualHarvest (Feb 19, 2012)

Davarm said:


> Again I hate to sound like a broken record but, on the topic of herbicide, just because you dont use them, dont assume you are safe.
> 
> Herbicides can drift many miles and do their damage, manure produced by animals eating hey treated with it can pass it on through the manure and kill your garden and even commercial (organic) compost can be contaminated with it. Some of the more nasty ones can persist for up to 3 to 5 years in the soil before leaching out or breaking down.
> 
> ...


The owner didn't offer to replace your lost trees at least? Sad.


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## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

ContinualHarvest said:


> The owner didn't offer to replace your lost trees at least? Sad.


He would not even acknowledge that he did anything wrong, If he would have just sat down and talked and let me vent a little I probably would have let the whole incident pass with just chalking it up to a case of innocent Dumb A$$.

A really bad part of the whole thing was that we sold alot of our surplus through a local Health Food Store(where my daughter works) as "Organic". We have no way of knowing what we passed on to those customers.

We had experienced several bad years in our garden, started when the current owner bought the pasture that borders our property.

It "WILL NOT" happen again....If by some chance it does, I see an increase in my net worth closely following.

I have seen signs around the area that he is running for "Commissioner" of our precipitant this coming election. Wonder if his run in with the "Texas Department of Agriculture" had anything to do with it?


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