NPK of everything

[Oliver Buckle]

When I said 'plants not just microbes' I was thinking things like single cell plants, small stuff that actually lives in the earth , not weeds, but yes weeds too, and there are very few crops where the farmer uses the whole plant. One of the available sources around here is hop shoddy, when the hops are stripped from the vines there is a lot of leaf and stuff that is spewed out sideways. Of course the farmers spread it back on the land, but it is a big heap and they usually don't mind gardeners coming and filling a few bags, of course it is not truly 'organic' the hops get synthetics, but I would be quite happy using it, the synthetics have been processed. I bet there is stuff like sweet corn as well where lots of synthetics are used, a little bit of the plant is sold, and the rest gets fed to animals like cattle that produce farmyard manure. Hey they even feed the cows artificial hormones and antibiotics to increase milk production.
Yes, it is a drag that they pollute rivers, but algal blooms are just plants using the fertilizer, even if the other things that live in the river can't co-habit with it. TBH I use what I get cheap or free, and that means it is largely organic, at least in the sense of being made from dead things. I think the over use of things that kill, like insecticides and weedkillers, is much more threatening than fertilizer, and if your experience of needing less of them is general it is probably the best argument for organics.

 

[Chuck]

The only bad thing about organic fertilizer is that it costs more than synthetics, or it did until this Ukraine fiasco. I don't know what it costs now. But the good thing is that next year I won't use as much and then less and less for years to come. I guess I am lucky because one of the best if not the best organic fertilizer is made about 20 miles from me and it is fairly cheap at 18$ for 40 lb. 23 years ago when I moved onto this place I built a 1/4 acre raised bed garden. I heavily fertilized the first year but in following years I got down to 1/3 of the recommended rate before I started noticing production wasn't what it had been so used it at the full rate for a year but again less and less the following years. So I suppose the costs averages about the same in my experience. Anyway, you might find the following link (pdf) interesting. Just click on the blue PDF download button.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283500340_Synthetic_Fertilizers_Role_and_Hazards