Organic Definitions

[Bilby]

Organic Growing is essentially a case of substitution.

Fertilizers that are allowed:

Blood & bone, Charlie Carp (R), compost,rock phosphate, various manures,green manure crops,mushroom compost and worm castings.Pig or human manures are not recommended unless used to grow comfrey.

Fertilizers that are not allowed
Synthetic chemical types.These are usually a powder that is disolved in water.There are also some slow release pellets.Probably not as bad for the soil but still not classified as organic.The problem with fast acting chemical fertilizers is that they kill all the micro-organisms in the soil.

Soil conditioners that are allowed:
Gypsum, lime, dolomite and sulphur.

Other soil improvers that area allowed:
Perlite, vermiculite, coconut husk fibre (often called Coir)

In Australia, it takes three years to get certification.

[TheGreenerThinker]

Plus a requirement that all cultivated soil has been maintained in this way for a period of TEN YEARS I believe - this also applies to organic meat, the land the animals graze (and any hard feed they are given) must adhere to this 10 year rule.

Is this the case outside of the UK? Has the HDRA relaxed the rule (I'm going back to my childhood here when my parents started organic gardening & I worked on a farm that couldn't get organic status because they had only owned it for 6 years and couldn't prove what went on before - still, we didn't care, we got fantastic meat!!)

[Eurpancreas]

I think this one is the mother of all lists (for the US, at least):
http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NationalList/FinalRule.html

There's a large assortment of allowed chemicals.
Most of it is pretty boring stuff. There are a couple of antibiotics that can be applied sometimes. Bleach is on their a couple of times too. Insecticidal soaps, acids and bases, hydrogen peroxide too.

Fortunately, strychnine and arsenic are explicitly forbidden, LOL.

[S]

love those micro-organisms! :alien:

[S]

organic gardening basics...

http://www.enn.com/food.html?id=164

great link

[TruePurple]

Are organic pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers put to environmental and health safety tests? Or is it just that its natural, thus assumed safe and allowed for organic gardening in any quantity?

[S]

Are organic pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers put to environmental and health safety tests?

of course

Or is it just that its natural, thus assumed safe and allowed for organic gardening in any quantity?

of course not

[TruePurple]

Afraid I'm not quit convinced S

I refer to the standards in the US, as thats where I live. But it would be interesting to know about how it works elsewhere too.

Bt bacteria for example are allowed in organic farmers yes?
What testing has been done on it to show it safe for use in organic farming? What quantity limits and spray timing limits are in place? Why wouldn't GM corn who produce the same protein pesticide as BT bacteria be acceptable for organic farming?

Originally Posted by organicsolvent

The Bt bacteria is the same species as Anthrax. It only differs in the plasmid (small piece of circular DNA) that it carries. But its never been tested for safety and organic farmers love it.......

........I am a plant biotechnologist

What tests has sulphur gone through to show it safe in organic farming, both health wise and environmental impact wise? Aren't environmentalists working to get sulphur out of diesel fuel due to the dangers of sulphur oxide? What are the quantity and timing limits for applying sulphur on a field?

Today, some products sold to organic farmers for use as soil amendments or organic fertilizers are not subject to the same standards for food and environmental safety as inorganic fertilizers. For instance, in its basic standards, IFOAM asserts that "mineral inputs should contain as few heavy metals as possible". In fact, this requirement on heavy metals should apply equally to organic sources, which often contain much higher levels of heavy metals, per unit of nutrient applied, than inorganic fertilizers.

Is there no truth to this?

Please demonstrate some source of your claims of equal testing & standards of organic applicants verses synthetic ones all around. Like can you show me some of the test results and standards for many of the other approved organic farming (chemical) applicants? (yes lime for example is a chemical, most anything that alters something else at the basic level can be considered a chemical and that means most all the stuff you mentioned, even manure can be considered a chemical)

Look, I've been buying organics for some time, and I'm the last person I'd expect to fault organic farming in any way. But some issues have been raised enough time to give them some consideration. Even just looking at the almost nonexistent regulations concerning the safety/effectiveness of "natural" supplements.

[S]

[TruePurple]

Demonstrating your knowledge on the subject S?

Can anyone point me to what studies have been done on the safety and environmental effects of such substances?

*edited in after finding my post shorter then I left it*
P.S. Did you edit out that first line S? If so, I do not feel thats a good use of mod powers. Sarcastically pointing out the futileness of replying to such questions with a meaningless smile does not constitute flaming or anything. Its not meant to hurt your feelings but goad you into a reply that has some actual substance and reasoning behind it. Plus ones choice of replies to a post that only contains a smillie is limited to say the least.

You could have actually answered or at least approached the issues I brought up in my previous post, unless you actually don't have the knowledge to do so.