The Organic Farming Practices That You Should Know
Posted By arafatrust on June 28, 2011
Organic farming practices guarantee a sustainable type of agriculture that provides a healthy and nutritious food source while protecting the environment. Organic farming practices is dissimilar from conventional farming methods mainly because it doesn’t employ chemical substances and it isn’t dependent on machinery. Here are several examples of organic farming practices and explanations how they are unlike the mainstream farming methods. One can always check online and find information about garden Bark, garden supplies or garden stones.
In traditional farming, soil fertility are improved by applying fertilizers. On the other hand, organic farming practices increases soil fertility through adding organic matter to the land like compost and mulch. Like a fertilizer, this practice enriches nutrients in the land but it also has additional benefits as well. It buffers and neutralizes the soil pH, reduces the water that is lost in evaporation, improves soil structure, decreases erosion, raises biological activity, and enhances water capacity.
Heavy machinery is often utilized in tilling the land for conventional farming.Meanwhile organic farming practices opt for minimum tillage equipment for cultivating the land. Some examples of these are disks, harrows, spades, and chisel plows. Heavier equipment such as rippers, ganged plows, and moldboard plows are employed only on specific circumstances. Some organic farmers practice a permanent bed system using lighter equipment that doesn’t disturb the whole field. There are even organic farmers who are trying out a no-till system for certain crops. This is because disturbing the soil by using heavy equipment has a lot of negative effects on the land, for instance it provides a suitable environment for disease-carrying organisms, causes poor drainage and air circulation, and causes compaction.
In traditional farming, pests, weeds, and diseases are handled using pesticides and herbicides. However, these methods add chemical residues in the food crops and causes water pollution as well. Organic farming practices promote the use of the crops’ natural defense systems to protect themselves from these concerns, and that is why enhancing their nutrition is truly important. Releasing natural enemies of pests and using mechanical and physical devices are organic alternatives to pesticides.
Meanwhile hand weeding, crop rotation, mulching, mowing, livestock, and flame, heat, or electrical control are utilized for managing weeds.
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