_loonatics_ -

Just got back from the MOSES Organic Farming Conference and my mind is full to the brim with new ideas and thoughts from classes, conversations, keynotes, overheard bits and pieces, and prime reading materials.  As always, it was a great conference and my bag is busting at the seams with papers, books, and scribbled notes busting out of my bag.  I also come away really tired.  How many people can you talk to and how much information can you absorb in 2 days? 

Some interesting and random tidbits I found fascinating.  The Allelopathic nature of certain plants.  Allelopathic plants have naturally occuring compounds that will suppress competing plant populations, and may also suppress nematodes and soil pathogens.  I knew about this with rye, but there are a whole host of other plants that can be used for cover cropping or living mulches that will also do this.  Certain varieties of oats, rye, and turnip-rape were found to have suppressed  purslane emergence up to 100% (a noxious weed for us), along with a handful of other broadleafs.  There are also weeds and vegetable crops that have allelopathic properties.  The downside to allelopathic plants is that they may suppress or stunt the growth of the following cash crop.  I bought the book Managing Cover Crops Profitably  to satisfy my want for more information, but the presenter also stressed that allelopathy is still much of a mystery.  Something like 2,300 papers have been written on allelopathy.  It is a fascinating reminder to me that these plant processes still are and always will be mysterious to some degree--we humans cannot dominate and understand everything! There is still mystery in nature and therefore we have a bit of art served up with our science.

Atina gave an awesome, practical presentation on how to grow Brassica plants (many brassicas are allelopathic) from seed to harvest.  The room was packed.

I also liked a roundtable discussion on small-scale equipment for market growers.  It was interesting to hear about some innovative machinery for small-scale operations.  A bulb transplanter from Japan that plants an onion plug in .2 seconds (that was 2/10 of a second)! You only need one person to operate the implement by pulling it--no person is needed to handle the transplants. There are only 3 in the U.S., although John Hendrickson, the presenter, is going to start importing them I believe.  They are relatively inexpensive, especially when coupled with the time one saves from hand planting!!!  In a couple weeks, I'll be heading into the greenhouse to start those onion seedlings.