Books about hydroponics sound plausible. That is, until you actually
_see_ the results. Plants grown in chemical nutrient solutions may
be huge but look a little "off." Sickly and weak somehow. Without a
living soil, plants can not be totally healthy or grow quite as well
as they might.
By focusing on increasing and maximizing soil life instead of adding
chemical fertility, organic farmers are able to grow excellent
cereals and fodder. On richer soils they can even do this for
generations, perhaps even for millennia without bringing in plant
nutrients from elsewhere. If little or no product is sent away from
the farm, this subsistence approach may be a permanent agricultural
system. But even with a healthy ecology few soils are fertile enough
by themselves to permit continuous export of their mineral resources
by selling crops at market.
Take one step further. Cereals are mostly derived from hardy grasses
while other field crops have similar abilities to thrive while being
offered relatively low levels of nutrients. With good management,
fertile soils are able to present these lower nutritional levels to
growing plants without amendment or fortification with potent,
concentrated nutrient sources. But most vegetables demand far higher
levels of support. Few soils, even fertile soils that have never
been farmed, will grow vegetables without improvement. Farmers and
gardeners must increase fertility significantly if they want to grow
great vegetables. The choices they make while doing this can have a
strong effect, not only on their immediate success or failure, but
on the actual nutritional quality of the food that they produce.