How do you deal with nutrient deficiencies in organic farming? How do you a) identify that there is a nutrient deficiency, and b) figure out what nutrient is deficient?

I'm especially interested in the element P, which I've heard can be either overabundant or deficient in organic fertilizers. If it's deficient, what do you do to bring it back up to desired levels?

I sell Pinon on eBay I am from New Mexico if anyone interested in buying wholesale or a couple pounds give me a shout.

I have a few questions about home-made fertilizer. we use nettle manure, which works differently for different crops. next year I want to try fertilizer made from molasses. My question:

1. what do you use?

2. in which period do you fertilize

3. do you use “emergency” fertilizer for weak plants or do you get rid of it?

4. if you buy in fertilizer, what do you use?

would be very helpful for planning the coming year, in which I would like to try out a few things and am therefore currently collecting ideas. Thank you, have a nice day.

Hi there, I'm interested in starting an organic farm in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. I'm new to farming and would love some guidance on getting started.

Specifically, I'd like to know:

1. What government licenses/registrations are required to start organic farming in Haryana?
2. What are the essential steps to convert my land into an organic farm?
3. Are there any local organizations/training programs that can help me learn organic farming practices?
4. What are the market opportunities for selling organic produce in Gurgaon/NCR?
5. Are any government subsides available for taking loans or other help

Any advice/experiences shared by seasoned farmers or experts would be greatly appreciated.

Happy farming!

So my neighbor is intentionally spraying some sort of herbicide over our 6 foot privacy fence trying to kill our tree, shrubs, etc...

It's a long story, but we put up the fence to keep her from spraying her chems into our farm, since I am a beekeeper and my wife organically farms

I have already filed a vandalism complaint with the sheriff but I need to find someone to give me their opinion/quote of how much effort, time, cost it will take to mitigate the damage.

My question is, who or what type of company should I look for to achieve this?

Hello Farmers,

I would like to start by saying thank you for your hard work and for providing food to people around the world. I am a mechatronics engineer with a passion for weapon design, but I am also a proud advocate for organic produce and pasture-raised livestock. As an engineer who loves producing and consuming high-quality food (because I believe food is medicine), I would love to know: what are the daily challenges you face that I could help solve?

I am interested in making your lives easier by reducing the cost of organic produce and pasture-raised eggs while improving efficiency. I understand that organic farming often has a lower ROI for farmers, and I would like to find ways to address that.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

I recently secured 2 acres of land to start growing on and I want to make sure I prep it well.

The land used to be a horse pasture and then was left alone for a couple years. The grass and other growth is now 4-5 ft tall but other than that the land is clear.

I’m thinking I need to brush hog the land and then tarp it for a while.

Open to suggestions.

Thanks!

It is a styrofoam-ey texture. I'm based in Ontario, Canada.

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Step dad sprayed round up on pile of dirt 7-10 years old/ago. Is that dirt pile still toxic or can I grow veg in it now? Would it be called organic or still have residue of round up? Thanks

Just turned 41, and started realizing some of the harvesting that requires basically doing squats over the beds was getting difficult. My partner's been recommending yoga for awhile now for flexibility and spiritual hoo-hah, but I always said no thanks.

Started going regularly a couple months ago and HOLY HELL does my body feel better. Hips are loose, hamstrings aren't cramping after a couple minutes of bending over, shoulders aren't on fire carrying equipment around.

I'm still not much for the woo-woo namaste stuff, but gotta say I wish I'd been doing this for body preservation for awhile now. My harvesting has even gotten faster. A+ recommend trying out for older farmers like myself who are feeling those harvest days heavier now

We operate a small gourmet mushroom farm; we have a major city about 45 minutes away and another smaller but more local food focused city another 45 minutes away. We sell to about 4 restaurants right now (plus farmers markets), but we're having trouble breaking into any new restaurants lately. We've emailed 25+ in the last 3 weeks with not a single response. Calling hasn't given us great luck in the past eirher. Does anyone here have suggestions on how you get into new restaurants or work with chefs?

When I stumbled upon the JADAM liquid fertilizer method, I immidietly started thinking if it's possible to use it instead of a commercial fertilizer in my farm.
I grow wheat and rapeseed each season on a 10 ha (25 acres) area.
Recently, the commercial fertilizer's price shot through the roof, further decreasing the viability of the whole endeavour.

It also just so happened, that I have quite a big lawn that gives me a lot of grass each year. Needless to say I made the link there.

After doing some math I realized that I could be making easily 3000-6000 liters (800-1600 gallons) of JLF from grass clippings each season. I'd probably be making very highly fermented JLF, over the whole year, so that everything decomposes.

Here comes the math of the amount that is sprayed per area. On average I spray 250 liters per hectare (26 gallons per acre). That's 0,025 liters per meter (0,002 gallons per square foot, or 2 gallons per 1000 square feet).

My question is - with such a low spray-rate, could JLF provide enough nutrition for the wheat to justify replacing the commercial fertilizer with it? Even if I spray double that amount, the rate is still relatively low.
My guess is that without diluting it, maybe it will be enough.

Another idea I have is replacing traditional tillage with strip-till, which will greatly stop the erosion and destruction of the micro-biology in the soil, but that's a separate topic...

So, what do you guys think? Is my crazy idea too crazy? Or maybe it could work? If you would change/modify something in my master plan, please give me your insights.

Does anyone work for a research farm, or work with a university to conduct experiments?
If you do, what are you researching what are you goals?

Owning an organic research farm is something that really interests me. I love doing various plant trials to figure out how to improve older cultivars, or research the viability of different specialty crops in my climate.

My wife and I converted our front yard into an organic food garden four years ago. We ripped out the lawn, built eight large beds, and bought three truckloads of organic compost and soil amendment to fill the beds. We tended the garden fairly consistently, growing various fruits and vegetables, but recently we have been away from home and decided to let the beds sit fallow. Last week, we cleared and prepped the beds to plant, tilling the soil to assist us in removing crabgrass roots (and other weeds) that had grown in and around our beds. This morning, our gardeners sprayed RoundUp around the perimeters of the beds and in at least one garden bed (possibly all of them). We have never used pesticides or herbicides and are looking for advice on how to counteract the herbicide. Do we need to clear all of the soil from in and around our garden and start again? Can I use activated charcoal to inactivate the herbicide (if so, should I apply it now)? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

We have dogs who eat soil (weird, I know, but I think they are looking for worms or something), and I'd like to limit their exposure to chemicals.

Hi guys so I’ve recently become responsible for a plot of land that’s been my family’s for many generations. I loveeee this land and the area and it has a big sentimental value to me but unfortunately I just don’t have the resources to keep it up myself :( I have listed it for sale but I was also wondering if any of you know how I could go about finding an organic farmer to rent it to? Even to sell to because I cringe at the thought of selling it to someone who’ll destroy it even if it won’t be mine at that point…

The local farmers it seems they don’t really do fully organic… I’ve asked the only organic farmer and the area and he has enough already.

If anyone happens to be personally interested in this sub please message me….

I want to start a pig farm, and till now all the calculation I have is as follows, I m calculating based on a single pig for easy calculation, 1 pig, 1 months pig feed priced around 2000. So, for 1 year 2000*12= 24000. In 1 year the pig weigh around 70-100kg, priced at 25000-30000. So, the profit is 1000-6000 per pig (excluding labour cost). Is that calculation right? If so the margin is so low, the pig feed takes up all the cost. If there is any pig farmer here, please evaluate this, help me.

Hi all, I'm upgrading my gravity drip line from 16mm to 24mm, but would like to use the existing drippers installed. Is there an easy way to remove these and reuse on the new line, or should I save my time and just buy new ones?

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Hello fellow organic farm folk! I am in dire need of help managing mosquito numbers on our rural property. For context, we are located just south of Houston Texas so naturally we get quite a lot of rain throuhout the year, but these past 2 months have been INSANE for us. Our animals are also suffering with constantly trying to fend off mosquitos and flies.

*Key points to consider, the back of our property is essentially a wetland and is "protected" under some government regulation or another.

*We are working on building a barn, but as of now, all animals are on pasture or outdoors 100% of the time. They have shade but no dedicated barn structure.

*We are currently keeping Bees and hope to continue to do so & produce honey in the future so nothing that would harm our bee friends please!

Here's what I've done so far:

Mosquito dunks & bits:

• I've added mosquito dunks to our well trough, this is a large reservoir of water that collects when our wind powered well is running. It has developed it's own ecosystem with aquatic plant life etc.

• tried to reduce any standing water that I could find and sprinkled mosquito bits in some of the extra watering buckets & troughs

• I use a natural mosquito & fly repellant on our animals (wipe & spray for the equines, cow & goats)(those that I can safely administer the spray to) - Not able to do anything for our chickens & guinea fowl though.

anything more I can do to make farm chores more bearable? I've doused myself in more OFF than I'm comfortable with, and try to keep it on my clothes rather than my skin, but it's still not entirely effective. I get bit through my clothes every time I'm outside.

PLEASE HELP!

Hey peeps,

I just cleared some trees (about 2-3 acres) on my land. Where do I go from here to start farming? The plan is to create a flower farm. They mulched the trees down, and there were pieces of tree everywhere and in piles. Do I have to wait for the mulch to dry and rot? Are there any recommended books? Any advice?

I will be starting my fall crops seeds soon and I want to start them outdoors because I dont have enough space indoors and I don't want to have to harden them off as much. I plan to start them in seed trays so I can directly transplant as soon as some of my summer crops are finishing up so I can keep the soil covered more.

For context I am in zone 6a and I am sowing lettuce, cabbage, spinach, and broccoli. I will also probably do 2ish succesion showings of lettuce.

My main concern with starting seeds outdoors is the rain and my seedlings getting too much water and suffocating. I don't have a greenhouse so I was planning on just putting my trays on a table in some shade to keep the soil cool until the seeds (90% lettuce) germinated and then brining them out to the sun but my area has been getting rain a few days a week for a few weeks so I'm not sure what to do about that. Are the seedlings ok with the rain? I don't want to put a tarp over them and deplete them of light so I figure that's not an option. I have a clear plastic solar cover for my pool (the bubble wrap kinda cover) and was wondering if making a diy greenhouse to give the seedlings cover from rain but will get light was a good idea or if that could be too hot for more cool weather crops. Also would the different seeds prefer different things of the options ive listed above.

Any suggestions would be great and very much appreciated. I'm trying not to spend too much money.

I'm currently in process of obtaining a NOP organic food manufacturing certification, but my pest control provider can't find bait products approved for rodent control measures, any help would be very much appreciated