Dear SteveK,
Is there a source of cheap organic N? Probably not. Cheap and organic do
not go together.
Before the advent of synthetic N fertilizer, N limitation was one of the
principle limits to yield in traditional agriculture. People were
ingenious in figuring out ways to increase N flows through their production
systems and very careful in conserving N containing wastes. In Asia,
because of relatively higher population densities and greater poverty,
human wastes were also carefully conserved and used. When people choose to
farm organically, N limitation once again becomes an issue.
Initially, organic farms were thought necessarily to be mixed farms that
included a significant ruminant livestock component. Ruminant livestock
could eat leguminous forages that fixed atmospheric N, and their wastes
could be conserved and recycled. The best of such farms could be largely
"self-sufficient" with respect to N, but still need modest inputs of P and
K. This was (is) considered part of the organic ideal: self-sufficiency,
where the farming system itself generates N fertility.
In California, many "organic farms" are really market gardens that do not
include animals. These may grow leguminous green manures at the price of
lost economic productivity from the land idled (economically) for this
purpose. Since there are no animals to eat the legumes, land must set aside
from the production of economic crops to capture N fertility. In one
sense, this is the cheapest form of N. But there are seed and
establishment costs and perhaps irrigation costs as well, and to be
effective as a N input, the plant biomass must be incorporated. For
orchards or vineyards, the space between the trees and vines may be used in
the winter for leguminous cover crops. Is any of this cheap? That depends
on the circumstances of the farm and the cost of alternatives.
Because organic market gardens do not generate much of their own fertility,
it must be imported onto the farm as manure, compost, or higher analysis
by-products, particularly from the meat industry (bone meal, blood meal,
hoof and horn meal). Manures can come from poultry farms, beef feed lots,
or large dairies where such manure is "surplus" because somewhere else in
the food system that supports those intensive livestock feeding operations,
fertilizer N is used. But the use of surplus organic materials has always
been the traditional role of market gardens.
The cheapest source of organic N will be associated with businesses like
food processing (freezing, canning, oil seed crushing), large animal
confinement feeding operations, or fish processing. Also, some counties
concentrate urban yard wastes at land fills. The recycling of "biosolids"
is another cheap source of N but is not allowed in organic farming to my
knowledge. There, disposal of N containing wastes is an economic cost for
the core business and it is socially prudent to find a useful outlet for
the N contained in these wastes. The water content of such materials,
however, makes them low analysis and therefore requires some kind of
processing step (like aerobic composting) to eliminate excess moisture and
concentrate whatever remains of the N after losses from processing. The
processing step tends to be expensive, and then the material must be
transported to the point of use with trucks, diesel fuel, etc.
In the Imperial Valley, there are a large number of livestock feeding
operations and a slaughter house where surplus N-containing materials might
be available. In the San Joaquin Valley, particularly in Tulare County,
there may be dairy farms which cannot manage all the manure they generate
in an environmentally sound manner because they simply have too many cows
and too much manure for the land available for recycling of the cows'
wastes. Some of these producers may welcome help with their problem. In
Tule Lake, they grow a lot of potatoes and may have wastes from that
activity, particularly associated with potato storage. Vineyards must
generate a considerable amount of pumice from grape crushing. Except for
the dairies, I'm sure these businesses already address their waste issues
in some way, but a private entrepreneur may offer them an improved
solution. It is hard to say how cheap any of this will be. It will all
take fossil fuel to process and transport.
Steve Kaffka
April 18, 2006
At 02:30 PM 4/17/2006, Rick Roush wrote:
>Any offers for assistance?
>
>Thanks
>
>Rick
>
>--------------------------------------
>Date: Monday, April 17, 2006 2:25 PM
>From: steve koretoff <aplusstorage@kermantel.net>
>
>
>Mr. Roush, I am looking for cost effective sources for organic nitrogen.
>There are several fertilizers available but they are cost prohibitive. I
>was wondering if you have any ideas about how I can obtain the nitrogen I
>need at a resonable price. I look forward to hearing from you.
>Steve Koretoff
>Purity Organics, Inc.
>stevek@purityorganics.com
> <x-html>
><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
>Mr. Roush, I am looking for cost effective sources for organic nitrogen.
>There are several fertilizers available but they are cost prohibitive. I
>was wondering if you have any ideas about how I can obtain the nitrogen I
>need at a resonable price. I look forward to hearing from you.
>Steve Koretoff
>Purity Organics, Inc.
><mailto:stevek@purityorganics.com>stevek@purityorganics.com
>
Stephen R. Kaffka
Director, Center for Integrated Farming Systems
Extension agronomist
Department of Plant Sciences
Mail Stop 1
University of California
One Shields Avenue
Davis, California 95616-8780
tel: 530-752-8108
fax: 530-752-4361
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