Nitrate Loading of Canterbury Aquifers – is there a biodynamic solution?
The nitrate loading of the Canterbury aquifers has been in the news recently.
Peter Bacchus believes that this is where Bio Dynamic methods can help. In this article he explains that when used to its optimum capacity we can increase production and profit on a dairy farm, while greatly reducing any nitrate that may leech away.
There are two aspects to the issue of nitrate leeching, One is the chemistry side. In several places in the agricultural course Rudoph Steiner mentions calcium.
Nitrogen fertilizer is applied in its ammonium form but quickly oxidizes to the nitrate form. Add water or hydrogen and we have nitric acid that is very hard on soil biology and that which can not be taken up by plants need a free alkali to form a salt like calcium nitrate that is neutral and therefore stays longer in the soil. Calcium is the major alkali in a reasonably neutral soil so having adequate calcium in the soil is vital to give plants a longer period to take up the nitrate. Some soil scientist claim that for white clover to help most with converting nitrogen to its most useable form the pH should be 6.2 or closer to 7, a neutral soil. Other legumes may be different.
When making compost that is stronglyrecommended for pasture, to ensure adequate nitrogen, adding burned lime in small amounts is recommended. We need to note that 78% of the atmosphere is nitrogen. When the right soil biology is present the inert nitrogen of the air can be transformed into a form readily used by plants.
To ensure that the biology is dynamic there needs to be a generous amount of plant sugar being exuded by plants, while other soil conditions like moisture and temperature are adequate for their vigorous life. This means that photosynthesis has to work well and that requires good soil moisture as well as good light with adequate magnesium in the leaf of the plant.
In Biodynamic practice this includes the regular use of all the preparations including Horn Silica for the darker part of the year. This might be from early April to the end of October depending on soil moisture. I have seen up to double the refractometer reading in pasture sap that measures mostly plant sugars. Approximately one third of the sugar made each day is exuded through the roots to root feeding soil biology. They form the food source for others, which eventually gets to the Earth worms at level four. I have seen them cast a two centimeter continuous sheet over the whole pasture in as little as ninety days.
On another occasion I sprayed a paddock that had mature nitrogen patches including old dock plants with all the preparations in evening and with Horn Silica the next morning. Shortly after that milking cows spent a night there and the paddock looked as though a big mob of dry cows had been there for three days. The paddock was cleaned out, especially the nitrogen patches. That lead me to ask whether the horn silica had increased the quality of the protein to make it palatable.
