Dean Hoffman wrote:


One small point. Soybeans are legumes. Applied nitrogen for corn
following a soybean crop can be reduced by 45#/acre. There's probably more
info here than you really want to know.

http://www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/fieldcrops/g174.htm

Dean

Very helpful, thanks Dean. I was not able to get that reference, perhaps
too busy.

Anyway, I have a ton of questions that need answers as to mowing of
legumes in the strips for fertilizer and the rows of cash crop. If I planted
corn in rows and leave a 3 or 4 or 5 foot strip to mow between rows, the
important question is whether alfalfa, or clover, or soybeans provide the
corn with nitrogen fertilizer if I take the clippings and sell them as a 2nd
cash crop.

I do know from experience that when you plow under a field of alfalfa
and then plant corn in that field that it becomes the best corn crop you
ever seen.

So what I really need to know is the science research of whether a legume
provided fertilizer only in the plowing over. Or whether that legume
also provides fertilizer to the nearby crop row if the clippings were to
remain. Or, *best of all*, whether the root system of legumes provide
the nearby crop row with nitrogen fertilizer and that the clippings of the
legume can also be harvested and sold as a 2nd cash crop.

Seems to me that the world has millions of farmers that some of them
must have had some experience whether accidentially or by design with
knowing what will happen if you have a crop row and have a legume
growing between the crop rows.

My guess is that if you have a crop row of say corn or tomatoes and have
a legume such as soybeans or alfalfa or clover growing between that you
can mow the legume and sell it as a cash crop and that the legume does
fertilize the crop rows but that the yield from the legume and the yield from
the cash crop are nowhere near the yield of a monoculture herbicide and
fertilizer
method. But when you combine that yield of the cash crop with the legume crop
that equals the monoculture result. And the great benefit is that Mowing
Method
does not need any fertilizer nor need any herbicide application. And, if there
were
any easy means of harvesting, the MowingMethod need not ever use a tractor
at all.

Summary: I need the science data research of whether a legume crop nearby
to rows of corn or rows of tomatoes provides fertilizer solely from its root
system and whether the mowing clippings can be sold as a 2nd cash crop.

It would be wonderful to think that if farmers planted tomatoes or corn in
rows and between the tomatoes and corn was alfalfa that fertilize the tomatoes
and corn and that come harvest time the farmer has 2 or 3 cash crops of the
tomatoes and
corn and the alfalfa between the rows. Wonderful in that you eliminate the
need
to ever plow the field and that you eliminate fertilizer and herbicide.

Archimedes Plutonium,
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

"Fred B. McGalliard" wrote:
(snipped)

Boy it has been a long time since I learned this. I hope I recall it
correctly. Clover, and I think the other similar legumes, have a symbiotic
bacteria, in clover it is found in little nodules on the roots, that fix
nitrogen. So if you can keep the roots from competing too much with your
other crop, you can grow the two crops together and the nitrogen is
available as long as the bacteria lives.


Someone suggested that the nitrogen in clover, or alfalfa or legumes or
locust trees is not released to other plants until the legume dies. I do not
believe that. But nonetheless we need a thorough science investigation as to
the correct answer on nitrogen release to nearby plants from legumes.

If it is found out that legumes will release nitrogen to nearby plants we are
living in the best of all possible worlds because then we can combine
two cash crops where one crop fertilizes the other and never need to buy
fertilizer.

We can also do it for trees and especially use locust trees in between orchard
trees.

I have had the joyful experience of witnessing the best growing pear tree
smack up against a locust tree. I assume the pear was drawing nitrogen from
the locust. I have since cut down the locust and am monitoring the pear to see
if it is even more vigorous in growth. This is where other people's
observations
comes in handy. If there are enough people out there reading this and have
had a locust tree nearby an apple or pear or cherry etc and found that fruit
tree the best of all fruit trees then we can assemble some sort of plausible
credence in the belief that a locust aids nearby trees in nitrogen fertilizer.

One of the bad features of botany is the time span to reach conclusions since
many trees take decades to find out answers.

I have another observation under testing to see if a checkerboard fruit orchard

mixed with pine and spruce conditions the soil pH so that the apples and cherry

grow the best than if they were purely fruit trees. I have witnessed my best
apple
tree is one that is next to a huge bluespruce and feel that the apple is
thriving because of the acid conditioning given by the bluespruce. Here again,
if alot of
readers have found a similar situation of where their soil is alkaline and
their
best apples are amoung pine and spruce would lend credence to the statement
that a evergreen mixed fruit orchard is better than a pure fruit orchard.

We need science research answers about legumes planted between rows of crop
as to whether we can get a double cash crop and never have to fertilize or use
any herbicide in such a field.

I have a yellow blooming legume in my vegetable field where I am experimenting.
It is not alfalfa but resembles it very much. It is great because
when I mow it helps this legume to take over more and more of the field.
Fred, you happen to know the name of this yellow blooming legume?

Archimedes Plutonium,
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

Now already I have come across a problem when using concreteblock in the
Mower Method of farming or gardening. Several rows I put the block not
contiguous with various spaces between the rows. As compared to rows
where the block are contiguous and touching. The contiguous rows are so
much easier to mow because you just follow the outside edge for one clean
mower cut but the noncontiguous requires a weaving in and out or a trimmer
once the mowing operation is ended.

So if you use the concreteblock as an aid in the MowerMethod of Farming
then those block should be contiguous.

Some of my watermelon are now leafing out inside the concreteblock and
some of the tomatoes are twice as tall as corn that is not inside block.

For potatoes I like the 16X12X8 block instead of the 16X8X8 since potatoes
need more space. This year I had the trouble of having to use store bought
potatoes and cut the eyes. I do not like that because stores spray their potatoes

with some chemical inhibitor of eye sprouting (yes we ingest that chemical
whenever eating nonorganic potatoes).

I may end up staking my tomatoes (for the first time) because I have found
wire type baskets that you push into the ground with its 3 wire prongs that is
fast and efficient so as to keep the tomatoes away from the mower.

Archimedes Plutonium,
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

On 6/7/03 3:31 AM, in article , "Archimedes
Plutonium" wrote:

Part cut.

If it is found out that legumes will release nitrogen to nearby plants we are
living in the best of all possible worlds because then we can combine
two cash crops where one crop fertilizes the other and never need to buy
fertilizer.

More cut.

I don't think it would be practical for regular farms. Alfalfa, for
example is normally cut 3 or 4 times a year in my area. There wouldn't be
any practical way to cut it out of a standing corn field.
The closest I saw to two simultaneous crops in the same fields was soybean
and corn. Eight rows of beans, then eight rows of corn. It alternated like
that through the field. The most obvious problem with that is irrigation.
Beans and corn need about the same amount of water. The problem is the
timing. Corn needs water earlier than beans. Most irrigation here (eastern
Nebraska, USA) is by pivot irrigation. That means problems for the
irrigation scheduling.

Dean






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Archimedes Plutonium wrote:



I have a yellow blooming legume in my vegetable field where I am experimenting.
It is not alfalfa but resembles it very much. It is great because
when I mow it helps this legume to take over more and more of the field.

It is Trefoil. Some call it Birdsfoot Trefoil. It is a legume that is perfect for
mowing just as clover is perfect because it thrives under mowing conditions.

Does anyone know whether you can have wild growing trefoil and have
wild growing clover that does not fix nitrogen? The reason I ask is because
someone said an inoculate of rhizium bacteria are needed in seed
applications. I find it difficult to believe that entire patches of wild growing
legume would not be having nitrogen nodules with the proper bacterium.

I suppose I could always dig up a few plants to see if they have nodules
and replant them.

Has anyone researched whether a field of thriving legumes exists and yet
does not have the benefit of nitrogen fixing?

Trefoil and clover are perfect plants for the Mowing Method of farming.

I suppose one can have a mower with a bag attachment and mow his/her
20 acres and sell the clippings. And the row crops never need fertilizing
because the legume strips provide all the nitrogen needed. And never
need herbicide. And never need to plow the field dirt raw and bare.

Just the other day I heard of the concern of nitrogen into the nation's
water where fish live and that the farm runoff is so bad on fish.

Well, if all farming were to convert to the MowerMethod, then there would
never be any application of herbicides. There would never be any application
of fertilizer. There would never be any need to yearly plow and to expose
topsoil to erosion ending up in the Gulf basin. Farms would have at least
2 cash crops of the legume feed and of the crop rows. And the consumption
of petrol in farming would be cut to a minimum. About the only petrol used
in farming would be the 9 or 10 times a season that the field strips are mowed.
A lawnmower to mow 20 acres for 10 times a season uses a fraction of the petrol
that a tractor would take per season.

The USA is not going to switch to the MowerMethod of farming from its
current Petrolbased farming any time soon. But Europe can make the switch
immediately and eliminate the European subsidy on farming. The subsidy on
farming worldwide is because the world is losing its petroleum resource and
as petrol goes higher and higher, farms cannot be using petrol but must return
to Renewable-Agriculture. If the USA government overnight proclaimed no more
farm subsidies then all USA farmers would be returning to Renewable Agriculture
such as the MowerMethod.

Archimedes Plutonium,
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies

Only in petrolbased farming can you have the luxury of turning huge
plots of land into bare dirt and topsoil. Where you can kill every plant
except a crop plant with herbicides. Where some heavy machinery
equipment does all the work but guzzles up petrol.

Farming should never have been like this, but because of the opening
of a new resource such as petrol begun in the 20th century have we
made a profligate waste of that finite resource. Like a bunch of kids in
a ice cream parlor with no bars hold.

Farming should never have been where you eliminate all plants except
for the crop plant and then apply fertilizer. Farming should have been
where the other plants become the fertilizer. Thus combining the
need of herbicide with the need of fertilizing.

Farming should never have been where you expose huge tracts of land
to erosion and where the Gulf basin becomes filled up from the topsoil
of the USA heartland.

Farming should never have been where the price of petrol is beyond the
economics of Petrolbased farming but that the government enters by making
Petrolbased farming subsidized. Subsidized farming is propping up a bubble
that should have been burst decades ago.

Archimedes Plutonium,
whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots
of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies