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The
Pernicious Effects of Artificial Fertilisers
Contemporary agriculture treats Mother-Earth like a whore and rapes her. All year round it scrapes away her skin and poisons it with artificial fertilizer, for which a science is to be thanked that has lost all connection with Nature.4 -Viktor Schauberger
In the latter part of the 19th century, apart from his other achievements, Baron Justus von Liebig (1803-1873), a German chemist, carried out a great deal of research into the elements and chemicals required by plants for growth, no doubt in the sincere desire to rectify soil deficiencies and increase fertility. As in so many areas of science, however, analysis rather than synthesis is uppermost, the aim always to find the one factor responsible for a given phenomenon, whereas in reality all physical manifestation is the result of many synergetic influences. In the event, Liebig determined that the principal ingredients for soil fertility besides calcium (Ca) in the form of lime, were nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), frequently referred to today as NPK.
Nitrogen is supplied in the form of urea (CO[NH2]2); ammonium sulphate ([NH4]2SO4) - a by-product of coal-gas production; nitrates, which are salts or esters of nitric acid (HNO3); calcium cyanamide (CaCN2), which is converted into ammonia by water and produced by heating calcium carbide (CaC2) at a temperature of 1,0000C in nitrogen gas. CaC2 on the other hand is produced by heating calcium oxide (CaO - quicklime) which in turn is made by heating calcium carbonate (CaCO3), a substance occurring naturally in the form of limestone, chalk, calcite and marble.
Potassium (k) comes inter alia in the form of potassium chloride (KCI), potassium sulphate (K2SO4) and disodium hydrogen orthophosphate (Na2HPO).
Phosphorus is obtained by heating calcium phosphate with coke and silica in an electric furnace and is introduced in to the soil in other compounds such as phosphate (H3PO4), calcium phosphate as calcium hydrogen orthophosphate, better known as superphosphate (Ca[H2PO4]2H2O).
All of these products are soluble and the majority of them, sometimes in the form of slag, are manufactured from and as by-products of what Viktor Schauberger called 'fire-spitting technology'. In other words, they are produced with structure-disintegrating and energy-depleting heat. In their final preparation they are either made into solutions for sprayed application to the soil or thoroughly ground into fine deliquescent powders, their deliquescent properties enabling them to attract moisture from the air or the soil in order to liquify.
As another means of turning waste material to profit, these compounds were quickly seized upon by various chemical and other manufacturers. Despite Liebig's later recognition and admission that the elements required for healthy growth were far more complex than simple NPK and that further detailed analysis was vital lest irredeemable damage be done to the soil, his words went unheeded and the production of artificial fertilisers proceeded apace. With their use the height of cereals and health of crops generally quickly diminished, each succeeding application further depleting the fundamental fertility of the soil a its organic base was gradually eroded. Applied as part of a highly mechanized farming system using steel implements, large tracts of mid-western America were reduced to dustbowls as a result, forcing the impoverished farmers to leave their land.
Today the use of artificial fertilizers continues unabated, but slowly and surely and just as inevitably they will finally reduce the soil to a lifeless mass. Naturally, the manufacturers of artificial fertilizer will point to the enormous production that has been achieved with its use, but this has been a production of quantity at the expense of continually decreasing quality, of profit at the expense of life. Artificial fertilisers act like stimulants and prop up production like narcotics to which the soil has unwillingly become addicted. Like drug addicts, who can neither function nor survive without frequent injections and who, as their physical condition worsens, require more and more shots to extend their lives a little further, the soil too is dying.
All the vital capillaries, which supply naturally derived nutrients, mature water and conduct rising immaterial energies, are being blocked up by these fine powders. The stultifying effects of the latter substances deenergise the soil and, at the same time, rob both the lower ground-strata and the young plants of moisture, for in their deliquescent state these chemicals use this moisture to become liquid. With insufficient moisture, transpiration is reduced and the plants' internal temperatures rise with the same unwelcome results as we saw in shade-demanding timbers exposed to sunlight.
The capillaries now choked, it becomes more difficult for rain to infiltrate. This in turn gives rise to more rapid runoff, quickly followed by faster re-evaporation, both of which make irrigation a necessity. Such irrigation, however, is carried out with virtually worthless water as mentioned in earlier chapters, and the produce grown under such conditions, while large and apparently healthy, is almost tasteless, their colour often as artificial as rouge.
Moreover, if excess nitrogen is introduced in any of the above compounds, it makes less ionised material available for root development, leading to further water starvation of the affected plant, because the negatively charged ions, the anions-, in the nitrates in artificial fertilisers take cations+, the positively charged ions of other elements, downwards away from the root zone, thereby robbing the trees and plants of positive cations+ such as magnesium and calcium ions. It is important to remember that the magnesium atom is the core atom in the chlorophyll molecule.
Nature quickly despatches the 'Health Police' in the form of parasites and other blights to remove the organisms which have now become diseased, necessitating the use and overuse of pesticides and fungicides. Once the crop thus treated has been harvested, apart from passing on the pesticides to the consumer, it then becomes necessary to fumigate the ground in order to eradicate these supposedly pernicious pests, which are none other than sure indicators of the ill health of both plants and soil. Areas of ground are sheeted with plastic and probes inserted into the ground to infuse it with poisonous gases.
Everything dies - earthworms, micro-organisms and beneficial bacteria alike. Life with all its differences is completely eliminated as total uniformity supervenes.
While it is often stated in defence of artificial fertilisers that the world population could not be fed if their use was discontinued, this is yet another smokescreen to ensure large profits, far there are other ways far more effective, far cheaper as well as environmentally sustainable, which not only increase quantity, but quality too, and to which we shall now turn.
Biological Agriculture
In sustainable agriculture the key factor is not so much the make-up of the underlying ground-strata, but rather the composition of the uppermost stratum referred to as the top-soil, which can vary in depth from a few centimeters to several metres. The long term fertility of the soil is wholly dependent, firstly on the depth of this stratum, and secondly on its content of organically processed material. Under natural conditions this friable zone is populated with an abundance of earthworms and other creatures, and culminates in a profusion of microbial activity in the surface layer of humans, which generally consists of decomposing leaves and other organic matter. Without all this mineral and chemical processing, fertility decreases rapidly and it is therefore in our vital interest to ensure that a suitable soil environment is not only maintained, but also increased wherever possible.
This can be done in several ways which will only be elaborated briefly here, since there is ample information readily available in most bookstores. Viktor Schauberger's contributions, however, will be addressed in more detail and while we are here concerned more specifically with food production and soil fertility, all the others factors and influences discussed in previous chapters should still be taken into account.
SOIL REMINERALISATION:
In 1894 Julius Hensel, an agricultural chemist and contemporary of Justus von Liebig, published an important book, Bread from Stone, elaborating the beneficial effects of fertilizing with stone-meal, better known as 'crusher dust' or 'rockdust'. However, by this time the production of artificial fertilizer was well under way and as his book posed a significant threat to this new industry, just about every copy was sought out, bought up and destroyed, to the great detriment of both life and soil.
In essence, soil remineralisation is an inorganic approach to increasing soil fertility. While it may sound very much like artificial fertilising, it is however, a fundamentally different process and involves the use of very finely ground, but otherwise untreated, mainly igneous rocks with a broad mineral spectrum, such as diabase, basalt, etc. Once ground in a cold process which retains its inherent energies, it is then spread over the cultivated land and, because of its wide variety of salts, minerals and trace-elements, it gives rise to the emergence of an equally large variety of different micro-organisms.
Although this system of fertilization has been in use in Switzerland for nearly 150 years on a limited scale and, no doubt, contributed to the compiling of Julius Hensel's book, its more recent use has been pioneered with amazing effect by the American engineer, John Hamaker. In his book The Survival of Civilisation5 written in collaboration with Don Weaver, he explains in detail the climatic importance of remineralisation, as it is the magnitude and mixture of the available mineral and trace-element base that is the determining factor in the growth and quality of vegetation, the latter being the vital moderator of climatic extremes. The book also describes the marked increase in fertility and depth of top soil that John Hamaker achieved on his Michigan property, which increased from about 10cm (4in) to about 1.2m (4ft) over a period of 10 years.
More recent experiments with this material by the 'Men of the Trees' under the direction of Barry Oldfield in Western Australia showed a remarkable increase in the growth and health of seedlings planted with it as against those without. Rockdust has already been produced inadvertently for most of this century in all quarries where gravel or blue road-metal is crushed for road making or aggregate produced for building. The plant and machinery for its larger scale production is, therefore, already at hand and, with a little extra investment in fine crushing mills where necessary, almost unlimited quantities can rapidly be made available relatively cheaply. Indeed, at the 1993 annual convention of the National Aggregate Association and the National Ready-mix Concrete Association in San Antonio, Texas, where Don Weaver gave an address, he was informed that the combined production of both organizations amounted to 2 billion tons of aggregate of which 200 million tons were rockdust 'fines', whose disposal was a recurring headache.
Though an initial application is preferable in extreme fineness, because it makes the greatest surface area immediately available to micro-organisms, a mixture of large and small particles also ensures a slow release of minerals over a long period. Another beneficial effect of rockdust is that it has been shown to be a buffer against nitrate, sulphur dioxide and nitroxide, and it absorbs and fixes anions-while leaving cations+ free for the the use of the plants. Under normal conditions rockdust need only be applied every five years or so, the quantity being determined through careful analysis of soil deficiencies, although whatever the soil condition, the effect has been shown to be beneficial6.
That people and not only plants can benefit from rockdust is amply demonstrated by the state of health and well-being of the Hunzas of Northern Pakistan. Living in the high, clean air of the Himalayas, their fields are watered by cold glacier melt-water, rich in trace-elements ground from the rocks over which the glacier passes. Their fields were therefore constantly fertilized with a broad spectrum of minerals, which not only maintained a high level of productivity, but ensured that the produce itself was vibrantly healthy and disease-free. At the time of the British Raj, an army doctor was once stationed in Hunzacut for a period of ten years as resident medical officer. During his sojourn, apart from treating the occasional wound and fracture, he had nothing to do, such was the high state of health of these mountain people, whose average life-expectancy of between 130 and 140 years can only properly be attributed to the supreme quality of the food and water available to them.
A further pointer to the wholesome influence of rockdust, which has very interesting and positive ramifications for the improvement of drinking water, was demonstrated by the behaviour of the pet dogs of some friends of mine in Queensland. As rockdust enthusiasts they had been fertilizing their fruit trees with it, using a bucket for transportation. While the dogs normally drank copiously from bowls on the veranda filled with rain-water from the tank, over a period of days it was noticed that the bowls were always full. Wondering where the dogs were getting water, they were followed and seen to drink out of the bucket used for carrying the rockdust. Left beside the heap, this still contained a small amount of rockdust and had filled with rainwater in the interim. As animals are far closer to Nature than most human beings and because they act on instinct, there can be little doubt that these dogs knew what was best for them, as was also the case of the cows whose behaviour is described below in the section on biodynamic farming. We would therefore be well advised to take a leaf from their book of knowledge.
ORGANIC FARMING:
Although, prior tot the introduction of artificial fertilisers, organic farming, with the use of cow manure, farmyard liquor and composted vegetable matter was the norm, over this century these practices largely lapsed due to the les labour-intensive use of chemicals and the apparent resultant rise in productivity and therefore profitability, with the result that most farmers switched to artificial fertiliser completely. Others, however, steeped in the organic traditions of their forebears, were not swayed by the blandishments of artificial fertiliser manufacturers and held to their well-tried and trusted methods, thereby safeguarding the older knowledge, which, since the end of the Second World War, has experienced a renaissance, organic produce now increasingly being seen to be of far higher nutritive worth.
The underlying philosophy of organic farming is to return to the soil for reprocessing what was previously removed from it and, in this way, the fertility of the soil was successfully sustained for many centuries. Moreover, as the material is organic rather than so-called inorganic, it requires less of Nature's energy to reconstitute it into a form readily assimilable by plants, as the energies required to convert it from an inorganic to an organic state are spared.
With composting as generally understood today, however, instead of previously dried material, green sap-laden vegetable matter interleaved with layers of earth is used, which generates considerable heat in the compost heap itself. Indeed this warming is generally taken as a sign that the composting process is progressing properly.
While the product of such a heap is eventually broken down and well-fermented at completion and while it does maintain the current level of fertility, according to Viktor Schauberger it does not increase it markedly, except in cases where no compost has been used previously. One of the reasons for this is that the relatively high internal temperatures prevent the entry and activity of the earthworms, always sensitive to heat, until the latter stages, when the heap has cooled sufficiently for them to be attracted into the decomposing material.
Furthermore, there is no consideration given to the effect of rainfall which, as mentioned earlier, is juvenile, element-hungry water and avidly seizes upon whatever material it can find in order to become mature. By constructing it from rain, he end-product will be of far higher than hot processes of fermentation, but also due to its higher content of protein and other immaterial, fructigenic energies.
Although shown here on a small scale, the same principle can be applied to larger compost heaps. In Viktor Schauberger's view, a compost heap should be egg-shaped, reflecting the life-giving properties of the egg, and should ideally be built up under a large fruit-tree with a broad canopy as shown in fig. 19.10. Protected by the foliage above, a cavity is scooped out of the ground around the base of the tree into which a 20cm thick layer of sun-dried or otherwise desiccated leaf-matter and vegetable residues are laid. It is important that this material is thoroughly dried before being added to the heap, for excess water will trigger unwanted heat during fermentation. The whole is then covered with an equally thick mixture of earth, fine sand and river gravel. Use of the latter elements not only harks back to the system of remineralisation above, but also to the improved quality of material carried by naturally flowing streams. To this mixture is added a small quantity of copper and zinc filings, whose function will be explained later.
Before this is done, however, the trunk is first wrapped loosely with several layers of newspaper or other suitable decomposable material, which not only protects the tree but, once decomposed, then provides a duct surrounding the trunk for the entry of air. The heap is then temporarily covered with clay or an impermeable material to prevent the entry of rain and its content of raw oxygen. Since this is a cool process, earthworms, insects and other aerobic micro-organisms are at once attracted into the heap and begin their reprocessing activity aided by the diffused oxygen, nitrogen and other trace gases entering through the newspaper or sacking round the trunk and the overlying mixture of earth and sand.
Gradually, as more vegetable refuse becomes available, the heap is built up in to the stable form of the egg shown in fig.19.9. Once finished, and to ensure the wholesome completion of this cold decomposition, the entire heap is then faced and smoothed over with clay to prevent the entry of rain which, due to the near vertical external surfaces, is more inclined to drain down the side than infiltrate through the clay. The final act of maturation then begins.
Having by now infiltrated the whole of the compost heap and thoroughly aerated it, the microbial life and, in particular, the earth-worms which by this time have populated the compost heap in their thousands, begin to die off, their decomposing bodies giving an additional nutritive boost to the end-product with the provision of large quantities of animal protein. In late autumn the strength of the Sun's light and heat diminishes, the ground begins to cool more markedly and a strongly positive temperature-gradient is established between atmosphere and ground. This is when the compost heap is demolished to ground level, the residual matter being left in the cavity around the trunk and roots of the tree. Towards evening, the material is spread evenly over adjacent fields, for under the positive temperature-gradient - most powerful at this time - the nutrients are carried below with the infiltrating rain or dew.
In this way the land is provided with far richer and higher-quality, natural fertiliser, which not merely maintains but increases fertility. At the same time, the host tree also benefits enormously and produces an abundance of healthy, blight-free and tasty fruit. By constructing such compost heaps under different trees each year, eventually all the fruit trees are well fertilised. Where no suitable trees are available, however, compost heaps can be built up in similar fashion, but in the form of dome-like humps or barrel-shaped clamps, which should not only be suitably protected against the entry of rain-water but insulated from the heating effect of the Sun.
BIODYNAMIC FARMING:
Biodynamic farming is a system of agriculture devised by Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), a teacher and philosopher born in Austria, and founder of the Anthroposophical Movement. Anthroposophy sees the human being as the highest exponent of the Divine on Earth, embodying all the instruments and agencies of creative power and pattern of physical manifestation; it studies the world through the inner and outer nature of humanity. Its approach to farming basically assumes energy to be the primary cause, and growth the secondary effect. To what extent Rudolf Steiner and Viktor Schauberger mutually influenced each other's thinking is not recorded, although it is known that they did have fairly lengthy discussions.
Biodynamic farming's attitude to fertilisation is to exalt the energies in decomposed and organically transformed organic matter by filling empty cow horns with a base material of cow manure. These are then buried en masse about 60cm underground in autumn, when the Earth's geospheric energies sink into the ground as the repose of winter approaches. Due to the vortex-like and vortex-enhancing shape of the cow horns, the transformative, horizontally propagated fructigenic emanations in the ground are focused on the contents of raw dung and, in the coolness of the ground over winter, are transmuted under cold processes of fermentation. In early spring, when the fields require fertilisation, the cow horns are dug up, their contents having been transformed into a sweet-smelling, highly active substance as a result of their sojourn in this zone, permeated by geospheric energies.
This transformed material is then used in the production of the natural fertiliser known as '500 mix'. Due to the sustained efforts of Alex de Podolinsky in Victoria7 and others such as Terry Forman in New South Wales, it has been increasing widely used as fertiliser, at least since 1947. To date over a 11/4 million acres are fertilized in Australia using this system and, seen from the air, those properties where it has been applied stand out clearly from neighbouring farms, due to the greater abundance of green pasture. Indeed on Alex de Podolinsky's farm the grass was so lush and wholesome that several of his neighbour's cows broke through the fence to eat it. Discovered some four hours or so later, they were rounded up and returned to their own paddock. It was noticed that they did not eat for two or three days, so high was the quality of the grass they had eaten on the biodynamic farm.
The fertiliser '500' itself is produced with a pulsating movement similar to the homeopathic process of succession, in which the state of energy or order is progressively increased through the successive creation and recreation of order and chaos. A small quantity of the transformed cow dung is added to water and mixed in such a way as to create vortices rotating about the vertical axis of the mixing vessel. Here the liquid is stirred in, in one direction until the vortex has been formed. The direction of mixing then reverses until another vortex is created. This process of repeated reversal of direction not only imbues the liquid with the opposite charges arising from opposite directions of rotation, but also draws in inseminating 02 while gradually building up and structuring the liquids internal energies in a process best explained by the art of sword making.
Apart from the various alloys used in the Japanese art of swordmaking, the base material is first made red hot and then beaten out or 'structured' with a hammer as it cools. It is then further heated to incandescence, folded over on itself, fused together and beaten out again. Here the reheating represents the chaoticising aspect, whereas the beating is the structuring aspect. Little by little, with continued repetition of the two processes involving order and chaos-creation, the structure of the blade increases and the level of chaos diminishes, ultimately producing a razor-sharp blade whose structure is both laminar and flexible. In similar fashion with the fertiliser, as the vortices are alternately formed and destroyed, the level of energy rises and the degree of chaos decreases until, after about an hour, the product is ready for use. This is applied to the fields in spray form towards evening within two to three hours after preparation and before the accumulated energies have dispersed.
In many mixing devices, when not mixed by hand, the vortices are created by motor-driven paddles rotating first in one direction and then the other. Many of the mixing vessels are cylindrical but it would obviously be preferable if these vessels were of egg shape (as discussed earlier). Moreover, in lieu of the paddles to generate vortices, a simple single-blacked impeller like the head of a golf club mounted through the bottom of an egg-shaped vessel (as shown in fig. 19.118) would achieve the same results with greater economy of motive force.
The apparatus shown here is of a type Walter Schauberger used to infuse carbondioxide permanently into water under a partial vacuum. Instead of steel or galvanized iron, the vessel should be made of fired clay, wood or copper, and mixing should be carried out in the open on the ground (not on reinforced concrete slabs) so as to permit the insuction of both cosmic and geospheric ethericities.
If stirred by hand the quality of the energies generated can be further enhanced by classical or Indian music or by what was known and practiced by some of the older Central European peasant farmers in a ritual called 'Tonsingen'. The German word 'Ton has a two-fold meaning, as either clay or tone as in music. Here Viktor relates an event where one evening he came upon a farmer bent over a wooden barrel stirring the contents. This peasant's farming methods were very unusual, but he nevertheless achieved extraordinary results with them, far surpassing those of his neighbours, which was why Viktor went to see him.
As Viktor watched him stir the contents to the left with a large wooden paddle, he sang in rising tones, only to change to descending tones when stirring to the right, but all the while crumbling pieces of aluminum-bearing clay into the water. After about an hour of these not wholly musical sounds, the peasant declared that he was finished and that the mixture was now ready for spreading over the meadow the following morning. This was done by dipping a bunch of small, leaf-covered branches into the barrel and then flicking the energized clay-water emulsion over the ground in a manner similar to the sprinkling of Holy Water with palmfronds on Palm Sunday.
In essence, the energies generated in this way are the result of the combination of two phenomena already discussed. The energies derived through the bio-dynamic procedure of forming and re-forming vortices are essentially the same as those created by the longitudinal left-hand / right-hand alternating vortices in naturally flowing rivers (discussed in chapter 13 with regard to Viktor's 'Energy Cannon' (fig. 13.14)). With 'tonsingen', however, we are more concerned with the encapsulation of the harmonies of the chanting (as formative energy)in the water's 'memory' (see discussion on homeopathy, chapter9), which must be transferred to the waiting plants before the resonances abate and the water 'forgets'.
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