Skip to main content

How Polyhalite will change organic farming

The truth about organic farming is different from what most people think, it's far more complicated, especially, if you want to be fully certified as bio/organic.  Our farm has that advantage, in addition to being located in the United Kingdom, where certification is not only complex but intrusive, of being considered as testing ground for many new agricultural practices.  Our ability to replenish the land with both organic and inorganic supplements is critical.  Although we don't grow soya beans, it is one of the most demanding crops in terms of potassium.  A favourite of the vegan/vegetarian but only some of them realize how destructive to the land soya bean production is in mineral depletion.   In the UK, 100% of our potassium comes from Russia (and Ukraine...).

Yeah, so the greens' strong appetite for soya products supports the Russian economy, and it's not a pretty sight.  These mines are very polluting and are rumoured to use forced labour.  That's a truth that the anti-meat lobby conveniently forgets.  

Over the next few years the Woodsmith Mine in Yorkshire will open (pushed back to 2027) for commercial quantities of polyhalite (POLY4).  POLY4 is a multi-nutrient and low-chloride fertilizer suitable for organic farming. Derived from a naturally occurring mineral polyhalite, POLY4 contains four of the six essential macronutrients required for plant growth: potassium, sulphur, magnesium and calcium. All this from the United Kingdom less than 250 miles from our farm...

Over the past 18 months, we have received small quantities (less than a tonne) of Poly4 for testing purposes.  The results have been excellent and it meets all the criteria that are essential for us to maintain our bio/organic certification (it is ground a little too fine and creates too much dust).  The extent of processing is grinding.

UK farming will benefit, like many others, from this new source of naturally occurring minerals, because it is not a pure compound it is far less abrasive (although are application was somewhat challenging because of the powder form...) still it brings all the essential minerals that are depleted by agriculture.  

Note:  All summer and autumn we have had faculty and students from two UK Universities testing on our POLY4 fields, from leaching studies to absorption to impact on the plant growth. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b)...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spray painting Taylor Swift G650 aircraft (updated)

 First, a bit of paint will not harm anyone.  These climate activities are going to learn two things in the next few days:  (1) Trespassing at an airport is a felony almost anywhere in the world.  That means criminal prosecution.   (2) removing paint from an aircraft is expensive.   So these climate activists are about to find out the reach of the British criminal system and it will not be pleasant, the UK has very strict laws about that, I would be surprised if cleaning the aircraft of all the paint will cost less than $100,000.     I am sure that when they planned (premeditation) this little show they had a very valid logic to doing this.  Tonight, they are probably realizing the depth of their troubles.   I understand that in the UK it's a minimum one-year jail sentence.    Also, good luck travelling with a criminal trespass charge against you.  I am relatively certain that the airline industry will ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Janet Yellen from China supporter to Hawk...

There is rarely serious news in the world these days, it seems that most newspapers are filled with headlines and little else, and then Ms Yellen went to China.  Secretary Yellen has long been known in the Biden administration as the voice of moderation when dealing with China, yet as her trip which concluded yesterday a hawk was born:  She warned the Chinese against dumping goods in the United States.    fighting words! The American administration is very concerned about the lack of Chinese domestic consumption.   Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, there were already the beginning signs of a slowdown, automobile sales were off.   China is facing domestic deflation (a clear sign of collapsing demand) China imports few consumer goods, they import raw materials and intermediary goods.   It seems that the American administration is concerned that the Chinese administration will dump consumer goods abroad to keep its manufacturing machinery ...
Post a Comment
Read more