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Cows Create Meadows
In Karl König's fascinating work Earth and Man he proposes that specific animals create landscapes like themselves. In particular, one that stands out for biodynamic practitioners is the cow, which, König suggests, creates meadows.
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First Rule of Intitiation
If we don't first accept there's a problem we also can't fix it. So the first step is not hiding in denial but accepting the exact conditions as they are and looking within those for hidden possibilities. This is the very basis of fertility for the farm organism and even the emergence of the biodynamic preparations from latent potential in manure and humble weeds.
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Fertility is a Marriage
Even Steiner says in the Agriculture Course that it is virtually "inconceivable" to consider farming these days -- in 1924 -- without a tractor. He was not recommending a return to draft power or doing away with technology but rather making sure that technology must serve LIFE.
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Light Ether
The value of humus comes from light. As such, it's easy to see why cultures would venerate the Sun. The Sun shines on the righteous and wicked alike, sharing with impartiality to all. If we wish to make plants more receptive to the light streaming in from the cosmos, we must add some carefully decomposed byproducts of light (humus and biodynamic preparations) so the plants "remember" who they are.
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Leavening Your Soil
The biodynamic preparations work a bit like specialized "yeasts" in compost and create a better final product. Are the biodynamic preparations absolutely necessary?
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Rudolf Steiner
How do we restore healthy life to the soil? We do this with responsible common sense farming, incorporating the latest scientific research plus biodynamic preparations. We don't have to exclude anything that works.
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What are pest peppers?
The charred dandelion seed can only rot, but the charred seed can only rot in a dandelionish way. This means you're really creating a pathogen vector by rotting these seeds, specifically something that will corrupt the seed-forming process of that specific species.
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Is Biodynamics Pseudosience?
What hypothesis does biodynamics as an intuition advance? That these special biodynamic preparations will measurably improve the quality of compost, hasten the formation of humus and the build-up of organic matter in the soil, and increase the nutritional value of crops. This hypothesis must be tested, but funding for research is a very different question!
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Build Soil Rapidly
“In the early days we ran trials. Depleted soil was deep ripped. We sowed the right species and applied 500 and had the well known results. In six years we raised the organic matter levels from 0.9% in the top 4” to approximately 12% and, varyingly, to 2.4% at 40” depth. Ripping exactly the same way etc, but without 500, the soil biology developed to 20 cm depth, no further. In modern farming the right soil treatment and the Bio-Dynamic preparations must be applied together."
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Healthiness
If we wish to have healthy plants, we should consider using healthy inputs. But that means reaching beyond soluble fertilizers which, let's face it, are not alive enough to be "healthy." Now, a particular chemical may be healthy or unhealthy for a living organism, but if we wish to foster healthy plants, we need to add heathliness back to the soil.
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Esoteric Biodynamics?
Biodynamics is not an abstract philosophy but is drawn from the real world and its inner workings. Biodynamics is chiefly about what works and what can be in service of LIFE.
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Beyond Organic
Biodynamics helps you go beyond merely avoiding what is toxic and helps you include what is vitalizing.
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