Posted 06 May 2003 - 06:39 PM
HT There are standards, practises and ethics set by overseeing bodies for organic growing. To sell any food product in Europe as organically produced, you have to belong to and be inspected by an organic association to prove you are following organic standards and regulations.
For instance if you bought an organically raised chicken. It would not be fed any food that had been grow with chemical fertilisers, sprayed with any chemical pesticides or fungicides or have genetically modified genes. Further than that the soil that the food was grown on had been certified to be up to organic standards. It takes at least 3 years to get land certified as organic or until soil samples test clear of chemicals. It means no chemical input of any sort for at least 3 years. That includes input of any other banned substance. A banned substance could be bat guano or sedge peat as examples but the no’s is a long list.
The birds have to have access to organic pasture, each bird has to have space and the amount per hectare is limited. They are not fed any of the numerous hormone growth promoters, neither are they fed routine antibiotics. After slaughter they are not injected with:- water, saline, artificial/natural flavours or flavour enhancers, meat extracts from beef pigs or sheep.
A sedge moorland is made of layers of slowly decaying sedge grass, it takes hundreds to thousands of years for the peat to be formed. As long as it has not been contaminated with any chemicals, it is just lignins and cellulose partly broken down, ie humus, humic acids and plant nutrients. In resent years the horticultural industry has been using both sedge and moss peat as a base to make potting compost. Billions of tons of it have been used, so much so that wetland reserves are getting short world wide.
Its because of that its use in organic production is banned. This is on ecological grounds not because the substance is not organic in its nature or makeup. I tend to support this, it would be nice if my grand children could see say the Somerset levels as I have, that they have not all been dug up just for short term use. Once they are gone they are gone, along with all the natural diversity that lives in the environment.
The organic organisations check every thing on registered farms every year with random visits. They take soil core samples, food samples etc that are tested. Animal welfare is looked at, I could go on.
Dope growing is a totally unregulated industry, its illegal, there are no controls. Pollution from hydro solution just being poured down the drain is getting to be a major problem for sewerage farms to try and clean up. I try and grow as organically as I can and in as an environmentally friendly was as possible. I recycle my potting compost, don’t discharge any effluent into the sewer system and try not to use resources that are none renewable or deplete the environment. So I go some way towards growing by organic principals. Its not the same as using an organic based nutrient! Guano is an organic based nutrient that would not be used by someone who grows organically, not because its not a good nutrient but because of the environmental toll.
Q. how do i make seeds?
A. You take a splinter off my cross, tie a few hairs to one end of it, dip the hairs into the pollen and lightly brush the pistils with it.
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