Innovation and organic growing

We can now extract the essential oils or phyto-chemicals that were the active ingredients in the old plant infusions, or mass produce toxins originating in actinomycetes and other soil organisms.

We can refine these products and create uniform, finely filtered, quality controlled products with long shelf life.

Although the principles espoused in the old organic gardening books remain current, some of the techniques are now well outdated.

Using washing up detergent in foliar sprays is a poor practice compared to using a modern professional potassium-based horticultural soap, which will have much less chance of causing leaf burn, will not clog plant pores and provides a better sticking function.

Interestingly all of the new science is supportive of organic, and none is contrary.

No one suggests that we should not be increasing soil organic matter and biological activity, or that it is good for us and the environment to spray synthetic chemicals around.

New science plus human ingenuity means we now have an incredible array of new products that organic gardeners and farmers can use.

I count between 50 and 65 organic products in each of the five major nurseries I visited in Adelaide recently. They include solid and liquid fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides, composts and potting soils. Most were certified organic.

A good example is non-drying glue, available in several brands such as Tangle Foot and Tembo.

Previously we used paraffin wax, but the commercial product will stay in place when the temperature dips below freezing or goes above 40 degrees.

It comes in a convenient tube for gardeners, or a commercial size that fits in your silicone gun. It will stay in place all season and nothing will climb past it, including soil dwelling caterpillars, beetles and bugs that climb the stems at night to feed.

Stopping ants from climbing will prevent them from protecting scale and aphid colonies.

On organic farms and gardens, with no pressure from synthetic pesticides, natural biological controls will clean up these pests in almost every instance, or perhaps with the smallest amount of spot spraying or hand picking of pests.

This product alone could reduce pesticide use in Australia for climbing pests by more than 50 per cent. Ants will bite the legs off ladybird larvae, making them ineffective.

Machinery innovation is an mous field in itself.

Tools such as the Weed Fix range of implements are very appropriate for organic farmers.

We recently encountered the ‘dogleg harrow’, a wonderfully simple concept that can be constructed into any size chain, handles high rates of trash and leaves a pleasingly even surface.

The Fischer under-vine mower is a remarkable machine. It combines a heavy duty mid-row mower with offset mowers capable of dodging posts and stems. It is the ideal tool for organic vineyards, allowing us to manage living cover crops throughout the season.

This means we can do away with the bare strip under vines or orchard trees, because we can mow vegetation back so that it is not competing with the main crop for light or water.

That must be the most organic, biologically-friendly and carbon friendly technique available.

Woodshield is an innovative appropriate technology tool for farms, parks and gardens that I find very satisfying, because such a simple concept works so very well. Woodshield is a non-treated timber post encased in recycled plastic. It is the combination of the two materials, pine posts and recycled plastic that produces the unique benefits of Woodshield posts.

I remember wrapping a hockey stick with tape so that it would absorb impacts better. The timber provides the essential rigidity, while the plastic provides additional support and strength, greatly increases resistance to breaks from bending or twisting, eliminates splinters, rot and borers, receives all the traditional fixers and

enor- is as versatile as traditional copper chrome arsenate (CCA) posts.

The result is that a smaller post can be used, reducing weight and making handling easier. The process does not use persistent chemicals and the post is complexly recyclable, unlike CCA, which is becoming a disposal hazard, particularly in viticulture regions.

The post ends are capped with an extra thick plastic layer so they can be hydraulically knocked into the ground exactly as a standard timber post would be. The product is easy to handle and does not have the rough surfaces of CCA or the unpleasant characteristics of creosote.

Electrification is easier and cheaper because the plastic requires fewer insulators and less maintenance.

Woodshield posts are also ideal for eco applications, such as supporting wetland boardwalks, because they will not contaminate water or soil.

They are available in white for horse properties and are ideal in marine, tropical or wet environments, since plastic is inert in seawater and they are not susceptible to marine borers, salt, water, or barnacles. Woodshield posts are flexible enough to be breakresistant if hit by barges or boats and sturdy enough to survive strong tides currents and storms.

All these stories are only a sample of the amazing array of new products available to sustainable and organic growers. Each time I revisit favourite websites, and now sometimes even the local garden centre, I am amazed by the number of new and convenient innovations.

My admiration hasn’t diverted me from the essentials however; the compost heap, rotation and a range of other strategies designed to keep soil covered, increase diversity and maintain plant cover as much as possible always take prominence.

Under these conditions, I can reduce garden inputs to the lowest extent possible.

Ti m ’s latest book, The New Organic Gardener, proposes a new look at organic gardening, that sticks soundly to fundamental principles, but incorporates new science knowledge and embraces new commercial products consistent with these principles. “Without question, this is the great informative book organic gardeners everywhere have been waiting for,” Peter Cundall.

The New Organic Gardener, 364 pages, hard cover and with full colour photographs by Dan Schultz, Tim Marshall and Elle Dawson-Scott, is published by ABC Gardening Australia/Harper Collins, and is available for $55.