Spring Newsletter
March 2007
Global Warming and Pollution
Causes and Solutions
Causes:
It is all over the news, everyone is talking about it, GLOBAL WARMING! From Higher than average temps, polar caps melting, dead zones in the ocean and land, underground water pollution and even air pollution. What are the causes? Industry, transportation, chemical fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide (the making of such), and now livestock!! A report from the Food and Agriculture Organization show that livestock are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. That’s even more than cars, planes and all other forms of transportation combined.
Burning fuel to produce fertilizer to grow feed, to produce meat, to transport it and the clearing of vegetation for grazing produces 9% of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. Remember the burning of fossil fuel for these purposes is a non-renewable resource.
The Ammonia from the chemical fertilizer is one of the main causes of acid rain. Chemical fertilizer used on grazing pastures and to grow their feed wash into our waterways and into our ground water. In the waterways it washes down to the ocean creating dead zones. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is now up to 8,000 square miles. Our underground water is also being contaminated by these chemicals. This has lead to reports of health problems such as, reproductive problems and cancers. The smog can increase asthma, chronic respiratory diseases and can worsen viral infections.
Oxidized Nitrogen rises to the mid-level atmosphere which serves as a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming and more acid rain. Acid rain leaches nutrients, such as Calcium, Magnesium and Potassium, out of the root zone and mobilizes Aluminum. This inhibits root growth. When you apply chemical Nitrogen to the soil you can lose over 50% to evaporation and up to 80% to leaching. Not to mention the hundred of thousands of acres of agriculture land turned into desert by agriculture chemicals each year. Agriculture chemicals, and non-organic farming costs us at least $10 Billion per year in health care, environmental clean-up and other hidden costs. Let’s stop this vicious cycle!
Solutions:
GROW ORGANIC!! The United States imports over 12 million tons of chemical nitrogen each year, yet scientists estimate that microorganisms add approximately 280 million tons of fixed Nitrogen to the soil every year. We all know that chemicals kill microbes, so why not work with the microbes rather than against them. For every acre of land that changes back to organic you are decomposing and detoxifying 10lbs of pesticides and herbicides along with 300lbs of chemical fertilizer that is locked up in the soil. (To date Watson Ranch products have been applied to over 100,000 acres!) Can you name any insect or weed that has been eradicated from the earth by herbicides and pesticides? Give up? There are NONE. So why do we still use them? Healthy plants are less susceptible to insect infestations. Plus pesticides kills all insects in the applied area, including the beneficial ones. Healthy soils also have less weeds. A study done by Agricultural Research Service in Urbana, Illinois shows that by bolstering the activity of microbes by using an amendment (Micro-Grow), the weed seeds are decomposed before they can grow. By growing our hay and grazing pastures organically we are doing a world of good!
Bio-Fuels and Bio-Lubricants should be the way of the future. Instead of the government paying the farmer to let land lay unproductive or to crow a crop that is not needed, why not let that farmer grow crops for the Bio-Fuel industry. Think of the money that the government could save and the profits to be made by the farmers, If we could grow these crops organically, use Bio-Fuel in the production of the crops, use Bio-Fuel in the transportation of the crops to the refineries, then again to the service stations, we could make an end product that would be virtually pollution free. Purdue University has a very successful pilot program developing bio-based oil from canola crops. A Letourneau Professor has developed a way to create energy using sound and water in a test tube. One test tube of water could generate days worth of electricity for an entire city. That method of using water compared to 17,000lbs of coal.
Are we saying that Ranchers, Farmers and Livestock are causing global warming? We are saying it is one of the many causes. Between man, livestock, transportation, industry and even Mother Nature herself, we need to do what we can to slow down the damage.
“We do not own the Earth. We borrow it from out Children.”
Drought Resistant Soil and Plants
To minimize the impact of a drought, the soil needs to capture the rain water that falls on it and store as much of that water as possible for future plant use. It also needs to allow for plant roots to penetrate and proliferate. These conditions can be achieved through proper management of organic matter. These practices can increase water storage by 16,000 gallons per acre foot for each 1% of organic matter. Organic matter also increases the soils ability to take in water during rainfall events, assuring that t more water will be stored. Ground cover also increases the water infiltration rate, while lowering soil water evaporation. Plant health also figures into how your fields survive a drought. The healthier the cell structure the less water the plant needs to survive. A healthy plant can survive on 20% less water. The use of chemicals actually hurt the cell structure. When all these factors are taken into consideration the severity of a drought and need for irrigation can be greatly reduced.
Questions of the Season
Why do we fertilize early with organics?
Organics take longer to work than chemicals, yet organics last longer. The soil and plants get healthier with each application. Organics do not hurt the soil with high salt concentrations and harsh sources of nutrients. With organics, leaching and run off are not an issue. Organics help build big healthy root systems. The reason we suggest a February/March application is that the soil microbes start to improve the chemistry, physics, biology, and jumpstarts root growth before the major growth spurt happens in the spring. While the Chemically minded types but down their chemicals in April, our plants are already growing!
How can Watson Ranch Products equal hundreds of pounds of chemical?
Nitrogen fixing microorganisms can produce at lease 35lbs of Nitrogen per acre, per month. This is fed to the plants by the microbes. There is no run off, no evaporation and no toxic fillers. Leaf sprays or foliar feeding are also highly efficient fertilizers. Uptake of various plant foods are from 10% to 900% more effective when the nutrients are applied to the leaves instead of the soil. Much of the chemical fertilizers may never get used by the plants. As much as 50% of the chemical Nitrogen used in this country leaches into our waterways, creating a complex of environmental problems. Other nutrients may, through chemical reactions, be bound into a form unavailable to the plants. For instance, 80% of the Phosphorus applied through chemical fertilizers may get locked up in the soil. On the other hand, up to 80% of foliar added Phosphorus can be directly absorbed by the plant.
The Microbes that Watson Ranch products add to the soil also help unlock Phosphorus, Potassium and other nutrients, and feed the root systems directly. The roots in turn give off sugars that the Microbes utilize as a food source. That is why anything grown organically has a high sugar content and higher Digestible protein content.
In Other News
An interesting fact:
Did you know that with the ever increasing demand for organic food here in the United States, the Farmer and Ranchers are NOT keeping up! That’s right, less than 10% of the organic fruits, vegetables, milk and ingredients for Organic foods are grown in the U.S. Everything else is being imported from overseas. One company is even dehydrating milk in New Zealand, shipping it to the U.S. and then re-hydrating it and slapping a USDA Organic sticker on it. We need to be growing more Organic Crops at home. This spring Watson Ranch will over seed our hay pastures with Sun Grazer Plus to help bring back production lost by the drought years. We will be purchasing our seed from Poston Seed in Terrell. We purchased our winter pasture seed from James and he seems to have some of the best prices in East Texas.
James Poston/Poston Seed Co.972-563-2158
972-563-215814892 FM 986 Terrell TX
Tell him Watson Ranch sent you!!
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