Organic v Inorganic

[rary]

I would like to know the difference, if any of growing fruit and veg. organically as opposed to using chemical feeding, I don't mean treating pests with chemicals, or using chemical weedkillers, but simply the pros and cons of the two systems. What benefit would I get from growing one way or the other? Or would I get better results with a mix of both systems?

[Bigmallly]

I think it's more a personal choice Rary, some folk choose to go down the Organic route, others don't. Imagine a Farmers return who only grew organic crops. Maybe that's why they are more expensive in the shops.

[Mr Bones]

Agree with BM, farmers have to guarantee a marketable harvest or face going bust. From experience using chemical feed is perhaps more likely to produce large, fast growing veg but in doing so flavour and I suspect food value is reduced. Chemical feeds can also kill off beneficial soil microbes which then need to be replaced, usually with more chemical feeds.

[rary]

BM that's one of the reasons I ask the question would growing organically be a sustainable way of producing food and as Mr.B asks do we lose something in our food values growing chemically. I know in Cuba they grow a lot of their food organically but are they getting any health benefits from it? and could it be sustainable here

[Thelma Sanders]

Some research I read on organic veg v non organic showed no difference between available vitamin content of the vegetables of each group. The growing veg don't seem to care where the 'food'' they need comes from, as long as there was enough
Soil is much healthier with organic content though and I think it is important to keep soil healthy for future generations.

For Organic farms the required input (manure/organic feed/soil amendments) and lower yields make the system more expensive.
Seems to work very well on small scale systems, like gardens or allotments, but yields are lower on farms, without chemical fertilisers.

To go back to organic farms, I feel it means a return to mixed farming, where animals are kept on certain areas to fertilise them for following crops and rotated around the farm - rather than huge mono-cropped fields we see nowadays, they only work with high chemical input, which eventually leaves just dust rather than healthy soil
Sorry if thus seems a bit of a rant

[burnie]

For me being organic means no chemicals to be used at all, no slug pellets, no artificial fertilisers and no pesticides. But I don't buy organic seeds, nor do I know if the stuff in the seed compost/grow bags I buy is organic. I don't go over board, just try to be kind to nature and get a tasty crop.

[rary]

No Thelma I don't think it's a rant, it's that type of information I am after, as BM said for the gardener it will be a personal choice but are we losing something in our food with the agrichemical method, you point out that the vitamin content is the same, but as Mr.B stated we lose some taste, could this possibly be due to a drop in mineral content?

[burnie]

Some research I read on organic veg v non organic showed no difference between available vitamin content of the vegetables of each group. The growing veg don't seem to care where the 'food'' they need comes from, as long as there was enough
Soil is much healthier with organic content though and I think it is important to keep soil healthy for future generations.

For Organic farms the required input (manure/organic feed/soil amendments) and lower yields make the system more expensive.
Seems to work very well on small scale systems, like gardens or allotments, but yields are lower on farms, without chemical fertilisers.

To go back to organic farms, I feel it means a return to mixed farming, where animals are kept on certain areas to fertilise them for following crops and rotated around the farm - rather than huge mono-cropped fields we see nowadays, they only work with high chemical input, which eventually leaves just dust rather than healthy soil
Sorry if thus seems a bit of a rant

We have farmers round our village who grow organically, they grow their crops under fleece, brassicas mostly.

[Lumpy]

I think that there are many growers on here who try and maintain a balance between the 2 growing techniques.
I am not organic but have provided plants for the bees and ladybirds (green and black fly munching machines) etc. I slug hunt and use beer and orange traps. Epsom salts, watered milk etc.

However, like Burnie said I have no idea about my compost or seeds. For me the issue of organic seeds is a problematic one as I have no idea whether any of the parent plants could have been cross pollenated from a non organic parent source.

I try, where I can to use a natural chemical solution rather than a man made one.

I appreciate that my yields may be lower but what we get is more often than not enough.

[Thelma Sanders]

No Thelma I don't think it's a rant, it's that type of information I am after, as BM said for the gardener it will be a personal choice but are we losing something in our food with the agrichemical method, you point out that the vitamin content is the same, but as Mr.B stated we lose some taste, could this possibly be due to a drop in mineral content?

Mineral content in veg has dropped, we've discussed this before. I can't seem to find a more recent test but this pdf shows the change between 1940 and 1991.

http://www.mineralresourcesint.co.uk...ral_deplet.pdf

I think the only way to naturally remineralise soil is to add something like rock dust and wait for it to slowly degrade.

[Chris11]

The difficulty with this subject is 'Organic' means different things to different people.

Although wherever there are shared good intentions to do things the most natural and sustainable way, that is obviously a good thing.

[BUFFS]

going organic does mean that it took me about 4yrs to get a balance on the veg patch, picking slugs out, and using the results of the compost bin to nourish the soil, and feeding the birds 12 months of the year, to establish "residents", who hoover up any available bugs they can, but that was about 30yrs ago and it generally works out, you do get failures, but growing where we are now you have to expect that sometimes you will get mixed results, but if it was always guaranteed would we all bother? ..

[ESBkevin]

I've read the bit about negligable difference between organic and modern farmed veg re vitamin content too. Taste is a subjective thing and if your palet is used to sweet/salt modern processed food it might take time to appreciate. What is becomming clearer is the 'none vitamin' content that modern farmed vegetables have. There is now some question as to how much build up of things like glyphosate traces we all have and the possible side effects on our health. this is a new phenomenon so there is much to learn yet. Also I don't think you can replace the home grown taste compared to supermarket produce. The same with our meat and the build up of resistance to antibiotics being an animal lead thing.

There are plenty of 'organic' growing systems (everyone champions something unique) and it seems the less you disturb nature and avoid mono culture the more the plants take care of themselves. Things like a settled soil with it's own soil life web and encouraging indigionus micro organisms (IMOs) are important. Mother nature is pretty good at preserving plant life when left to her own devices, it's just hard sometimes to leave her to it if you want pretty rows with clean cultivated soil between.
Getting the soil to a state where it takes care of the plants better takes time and several seasons is a likely timescale, also having a neighbours plot covered in blight and such is hard to watch. But spending your time making leaf mould, worm castings, nettle and comfrey teas, IMOs and gathering compostable materials from sound sources instead of digging and hoeing is an interesting swap. Whether it's for you is the question.
In case you can't tell I'm slowly going more organic but it is hard to let some practices go. They fairly instant results of a commercial spray on a fungus are not matched by many 'organic' options, however the theory is that having that basic healthy soil and growing environment should eventually negate the need for drastic action in the future. I still hate catterpillers and slugs though! ;-)

[spamvindaloo]

I don't want to spray chemicals on my food which might be potentially harmful. I try to grow as naturally as possible but don't beat myself up about being organic. I use plastic pots, non organic seed and the perpetually reliable B&Q verve compost. I think most of us on here are the same, we try to grow naturally rather than organically. The only rather non scientific result I can give you is based on my taste buds which tell me that the food I grow is a lot tastier than the food in the supermarkets so I think there must be something in it.

[BUFFS]

I don't want to spray chemicals on my food which might be potentially harmful. I try to grow as naturally as possible but don't beat myself up about being organic. I use plastic pots, non organic seed and the perpetually reliable B&Q verve compost. I think most of us on here are the same, we try to grow naturally rather than organically. The only rather non scientific result I can give you is based on my taste buds which tell me that the food I grow is a lot tastier than the food in the supermarkets so I think there must be something in it.

I couldn't put it better myself.....