farming and conservation

I was able to get a half pound of roundup ready sweet corn once for my vegetable garden. I used horse manure placed on winter ground and sowed the corn in that, making sure the soil temp was right for my variety. It also had the bt gene. The corn was planted and fertilized with ammonia nite at planting and once again a side dressing of ammonia nitrate when about knee high. No tilling was done. No weeding was done. I just walked between the rows spraying the roundup. To make a long story short. I had 2 ears per stock, full ears ,no missing kernels, and more sweet corn than my family could eat in a year. It was a very sweet corn... Obsession I think. I would like more. No gasoline used, no real hard labor except having manure , and no working in the hot Alabama sunlight with hoe or tiller. This is my broccoli this year. Goats, glyphosate, spoiled goat hay and Miracle Grow. Will see how it goes. I could go watermelon after broccoli is done. No tilling nd no weeding.

 

Well, to put the EU regulator's side, they would say that's as much opinion as information and would adamantly deny it was protectionism rather than standards.
But hey, bureaucrats and politicians, you can trust them about as far as you can throw a fully grown sow...

 

In the EU they have come up with a list of the 14 most common and potentially harmful allergens and these are required to be identified in ingredients by printing them in bold on produce and listing them on restaurant menus.
The 14 are
celery, crustaceans, eggs, fish, gluten, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soya, sulphites and treenuts.

Now if you could only breed GMO cattle with 4 rear legs you could bring the price of rump steaks and roasting joints right down but you might never be able to catch them ever again.

 

My wife has gotten real good at propagating plants from cuttings. That's a great skill to acquire.

 

I have done Kwazan cherry tree cuttings and some Lilac. Tree cuttings are very difficult and my success rate was dismal. But I did get a few to root. Was never able to get wild azalea stem cuttings but after years of trying I found root cuttings work for them...Good luck.

 

I don’t do much propagating from cuttings. My wife does some with houseplants etc. She uses rooting hormone to increase chance of success.

I have never tried grafting either but my dad did a lot of it when I was a kid with fruit trees. That may be easier than propagating. I’ll bet someone else here has grafted....

It would be great to “save” the old tree. You may be saving valuable genetics that would be lost forever.

 

Or maybe some seeds?

 

I was born in the same town Johnny Appleseed is buried.

 

The story of Johnny Appleseed is one of the first Disney cartoons I remember.

 

LOL. Do you throw sows by hand or with the trebuchet?

 

We learned about him in school. Never knew he owned so much land.

 

Thanks for sharing that. It’s a perfect example of the “positive” attributes of GMO. I really like the ear worm suppression as it really limits insecticide use on commercial sweet corn.

I had a neighbor many years ago that let his garden get weedy. He got tubs and blankets and covered all his plants, then hosed the weeds with Roundup. In a week his weeds and entire vegetable garden were dead. LOL

 

Sure. You will not have a clone of the tree though because that seed will be the result of cross pollination. It will have many genes in common with the old tree, but the fruit, longevity of the tree, etc. may all be quite different.

 

You can grow a root stock from the seed and graft the original apple to it. Or...... buy an apple tree for rootstock.

 

Wow, celery is a new one to me.

I’d just have to buy a faster ATV. I can’t outrun most of them now!

 

I would do some research on what rootstock is best for your climate and soil and graft to that. Of course if the old tree survived that long it fits the environment pretty well. But there could be something better.

 

This is what my wife uses now for rooting hormone.



From Amazon I believe. She used to use a product called root-tone that was better but we can’t find it anymore.

 

LOL.
Since it was you that brought trebuchets up, I can run on about them again with a clear conscience.
It was a common practise to lob diseased or rotten livestock and other animals over a castle's walls, also any enemy caught outside the castle grounds might be returned by air either complete or in pieces.
Wasp nests and bee hives were also a popular item to share with the castle's defenders.
Biological warfare is not as modern as you might think.

The French often accused the English of poisoning their arrow heads due to the high levels of infections in wounds. It's not really known if the infections were caused by copper in the glue used to fix the heads or the English habit of sticking their arrows into the latrines before using them.

 

Any endeavor should produce a profit for the person who is invested. But at what cost?

Just as manufacturers hare held accountable for merchandise that fails, how many people take a tomato back to the store because it had no flavor? Wasn't even vaguely ripe, or did not become ripe? What labeling is on the food we consume to tell us what kind of synthetic chemical treatment it has been exposed to? While Monsanto is being held responsible for Round Up issues, are there any other illnesses other than cancer? Have dead fish filed lawsuits yet from run off? (a little dry humor there) But there are known environmental impacts from an indiscriminate herbicide. Has Monsanto been held accountable for that?

We do a neighbor thing also, If I grow tomatoes of one sort, I share with a neighbor, and they will share their squash, and the other neighbor their corn. Since none of us have big gardens and way too many deer, we are short on melons.

Volunteer seeds are sometimes welcome, though I have tried to save seeds from year to year, since I mainly grow heirloom veggies. The rare times I have tried to reuse the prior year's beans when I've bought them at the big box stores, they don't germinate. Have to wonder on that.

 

I am a 'retired' Master Gardener, plus have health issues that have eliminated a lot of foods from my diet. To say the least, dining out doesn't happen often.

As to chemicals, after having dealt with people who nit pick a post into individual words, I've taken to stating 'synthetic' chemicals, ie, not on the simple variety but compounds involving things one does not normally find in nature.

A meme I have seen several times in the last few months, you are what your food eats. And one can even apply that to crops, as what is absorbed.

 

I used the stuff in the past. Peaches are grafted on quince stock I think

 

I'm sure that if @FatBack were here he would say that too many deer is a delicious problem you could solve with a firearm and a large freezer.

 

Then you should know a plant doesn't distinguish between chemical and "natural" fertilizer. I started using roundup because tillers destroy humus and it is cheaper in the long run. But I also use goats and as little insectide as possible.

 

Sorry to hear about the giving up certain foods. I have a brother-in-law that can eat a few vegetables and rice and that’s about it. It’s miserable for him and it makes it hard for social events as well even though everyone works hard to accommodate his limitations.

That’s fair. I still think that’s a hard line to draw. We have a commonly used pre emergent corn herbicide that is “synthetic” but virtually identical to a compound in the plant it was discovered in. It’s “natural” but not “common” as it isn’t in many plants naturally. But I do see your point and agree on many “unnatural” chemicals/compounds.

Just out of curiosity, what’s your opinion on Bt direct application as opposed to plant “manufactured” in GMO’s? I’m sure you are familiar with it’s use in gardening.

Absolutely. On both sides of the equation. We want our food to “eat” and produce good things not just “not eat” bad things.