Cherries - Spring Rains and Fruit Harvest

 

 

For fruit growers, harvest is their final exam. It is the “acid-test” of how well their plans and efforts paid off. To get close to harvest and not be able to pick due to crop failure is devastating. Avoiding that is a big challenge.

 

There are many details involved in producing cherries. While an early variety can be very lucrative, you only have about a 60 and 90 day timeframe to work within (depending on region and variety) to “make the magic” happen. Invariably there are weather events; sometimes rain and sometimes worse. These bring challenges to the potential yield, planning for them beforehand can be in your best interest. Let’s discuss pre-harvest rain.

First, let’s consider some common concepts and ideas:

Rain assumptions and facts:

Has an average pH of 5.4-5.6

Not necessarily. This tends to differ regionally, especially since there are less sulfur compounds, in the air, due to clean air restrictions, so check rainwater to confirm.

Assumed to be perfectly distilled water.

Not necessarily. In California, for instance, there is a good amount of sodium found in rainwater because of the close proximity to the Pacific Ocean; check to confirm.

A 1” rain event can add 15-20 lbs. of NO₃-N per acre.

I have found this to be fairly accurate, but again, check your field to confirm. The key here is to offset the adverse nitrate effects to the fruit. When harvest is within 2-4 weeks, nitrate levels, in the fruit, should be very low. A nitrate application (planned or unplanned) shifts nutrient proportions out of balance and delays fruit maturation. Nutrient focus should be placed on K, Mg, Mn, Zn and a little P (all in “plant-ready” forms) to stimulate photosynthetic efficiency. The byproduct of photosynthesis is sugar (C₆H₁₂O₆). Sugar is a carbon source. Carbon is needed ASAP to correct the imbalanced C:N ratio, due to the nitrogen influx, from the rain. The fastest way to get these into the plant and fruit is with a foliar nutrient spray. Check with your certified crop adviser for the best options available to you.

Irrigate the field to saturation prior to or during the rain event to lessen rainwater uptake.

The concept: a “full vessel” cannot and/or will not take absorb more fluid. Makes sense; right? Here are few details to keep in mind:

·         Turgor Pressure: Plants drink water. In fact, if supplied to them, they will “bloat up” on water.

·         At Preharvest Stage: Plant focus shifts to “finishing” the crop. That means the movement of liquid is already going into the fruit…adding more probably won’t help as much as you’d think.

·         Osmatic Gradient Differential:

o   The pressure difference between the rainwater “outside” and the (concentrated) sugar content “inside” the fruit tends to "pull" water into the fruit (dilution effect). This creates immense pressure on the skin (from within) and a high likelihood of cellular rupture.

o   Fruit damage: It turns a brown to black color, just like freeze damage. In a freeze event, the cells swell (due to ice expansion) and rupture...it's the same in a rain event. The cells expand beyond their capacity to “flex” and burst.

So what is needed, by the fruit, when it rains close to harvest? Cell Elasticity. Your cherries need to be strong enough to flex and bend. Larger, thicker, stronger (nutrient-rich) cells, fruit cell walls and leaves help cherries more readily manage the adverse effects of rain; because larger cells have more volume capacity and thicker cells are stronger and less permeable and therefore less prone to “stretch marks” or “growth cracks”.

Applications can be made prior to the rain and even immediately afterwards, but “spoon-feeding” nutrition while growing the crop is ideal. Your nutrient plan should include traces like copper, manganese, boron, in regular, small amounts. This will have your crop “front-loaded” before a rain (or weather) event takes place and will have positive benefit on next seasons fruit bud development. Ideally, traces should be included within the product formulation, because a “finished” product is more manageable and less likely to have elevated phytotoxic risk. The less ingredients added to a foliar spray mix, the less the risk of “new chemistry” (phytotoxicity) forming and becoming a problem in the field.

These are some things that have worked for me and while not an exhaustive list of cherry and weather issues, it does give you a starting point for discussion with your crop adviser. And as I mentioned earlier, seek their counsel for sound advice on plant nutrition treatment options.

Soil Microbes Get Their Food First

 

It was less than three generations ago that Pasteur’s work in France suggested the bacterial causation of disease. Even though we are coming to see that the bacterial entry into the body may be encouraged by weakness induced by deficiencies of many kinds, yet the fear of microbes, germs and bacteria is almost universal. Everybody is afraid of getting germs. Pasteur told us that heat is the best weapon for fighting these microscopic life forms and we have been heating, boiling, steaming and sterilizing in the fight against microbes.

Now that the science of microbiology has brought us penicillin, streptomycin and other similar microbial products as protection for our bodies against the microbes, particularly since we are learning to live with them more for our benefit than for our harm. We are coming to see that microbes are a foundational part of the pyramid of life forms, of which we are the topmost. If we are to live complacently with them, we must remember that they are next to the soil in that pyramidal structure. They are between the soil and the plants. They either cooperate with, or compete with, the plants for the creative power in the form of nutrients in the soil. Hence, they are a part of the biotic foundation on which animal and human life depend. Microbes are now recognized as important because they eat more simply than all other life. They also eat first of the fertility of the soil.

1.      struggle for calories

Microbes are less complex in their anatomy and in many respects are less highly developed than plants. Unlike plants, the microbes cannot make their own energy-food compounds by the help of sunlight. On the contrary, sunlight kills microbes. By the process of photosynthesis, plants build their own carbohydrates for body energy from carbon dioxide in the air and from hydrogen and oxygen in water from the soil. Plants make many carbonaceous complexes from these three simple elements which they build into intricate energy-giving compounds of high fuel value and as deposits above the soil or as additions within its surface layer. Plants work in the light. Microbes work in the dark. Unable to derive energy directly from the sun, they must get it from these chemical compounds passed on to them by the death of the plants.

As a means of getting energy for heat and work, the microbes burn or oxidize organic compounds, just as we do in our bodies. Microbial life depends on just such compounds as make up dead plant and animal bodies. It simplifies them. It tears them apart. It is the wrecking crew taking over dead plant and animal tissues or return the separate elemental parts back to the air, water, soil or other points of origin. It is working in the dark and sending back to simplicity all that the plants built up to complexity.

This microbial struggle is what we call decay. The process of rotting organic matter is the result of microbial processes of digestion and metabolism of the organic matter, by which the energy initially put into chemical combination through plant photosynthesis, is released again for microbial life service.

As humans, we too use organic compounds such as sugars, starches, proteins, fat and other food components to provide our energy. This occurs as part of the process by which we break down these compounds into carbon dioxide, water, urea and other simple substances eventually thrown off as body excretions. Humans, like the microbes, are struggling for calories. In humans we call it digestion and metabolism. For the microbes, it means decay, or the simplification process which the different substances are undergoing when we commonly say “They are rotting.”

2.      competition with crops

Plowing under some organic matter in the garden or field is a good way of disposing of crop residues because the microbes “burn” or oxidize them. They do it slowly, however. Yet the process of microbial combustion of such materials may have disastrous effects on a crop planted soon after plowing, when we say we “burned out” the crop.

Microbes need more than energy “go” foods. They need the “grow” foods, too, just as we do. They do not demand that their nitrogen be given them in the complete proteins or the more complex compounds of this element as we do. Nevertheless, they are just as exacting in their needs for nitrogen, at least in its simpler forms. This is a “grow” food necessary to balance their energy foods in the proper ratio just as we demand the balance in speaking of our own nutritive ratio, or the balance of carbohydrates against proteins in our own diets or in the ration of feeds for our domestic animals.

So when we plow under any woody residue of stalks, leaves or other parts of plants that have given up their protein contents for seed making, these residues are an unbalanced microbial diet. They do not permit the microbes to grow rapidly on them. They are too much carbohydrate. As a diet they are deficient in “grow” foods. They are short in proteins, or nitrogen, and in minerals, hence decay very slowly.

Woody crop residues, like straws, have long been used for roof covers in the Old World. They last well but need to be replaced more often at the ridge top than over the entire roof. It is at the ridge tops that birds sit more often to leave their droppings, which are rich in urea nitrogen. When this soluble nitrogen – along with the mineral salts of the bird droppings – is added to the straw, the first rain hastens its decay. This decay, however, is limited to the ridge of the roof, or to the area in which these supplements of nitrogen balance the microbial diet originally consisting of straw. Until this balance was brought about the straw was too carbonaceous to decay, and was good thatch. Microbes require little of the “grow” foods but without it they do not carry out their decay processes.

When strawy crop residues or sawdust, for example, are plowed into the soil, the soil microbes are offered a diet that is high in carbon, or energy, and low in bodybuilding foods. Since the microbes are well distributed throughout this plowed soil, they are in such intimate contact with the clay that they make colloidal exchanges with it for its available nutrients. They can take ammonia nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, calcium and other nutrients for their own growth from the clay to balance the sawdust as a more adequate diet.

It is unfortunate for the plants when woody residues are plowed under. When the microbes are more intimately in contact with the soil than are the plant roots, the microbes eat first of the available fertility elements. While the microbes are balancing their sawdust diet by taking the fertility of the soil into their own body compounds, we do not appreciate the production of the microbial crop, nor the proportion of the available fertility which they appropriate for their own needs. Instead we see how poorly the corn crop or other plants grow when planted soon after straw, heavy weeds or sawdust are plowed under. We say “The crop is burned out,” when it is extra fertility and not water that is needed. Yes, the microbes eat first. This disaster follows inevitably when the soil is too low in fertility to feed both the microbial crop within and the farm crop above the soil.

But unfortunately the disaster is only temporary. While the energy compounds are being consumed, the excessive carbon is escaping to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The nitrogen and inorganic nutrient elements are kept within the soil. Thus while the carbon supply in the soil is being lessened by volatilization, the ratios of the carbon to the nitrogen and to the inorganic elements are made more narrow. These ratios approach that of the microbial body composition – more nearly that of protein.

Thus by decay the straw with a carbon-nitrogen ration of 80 to 1 leaves microbially manipulated residues going toward what we call “humus” and toward a carbon-nitrogen ratio of nearly 12 to 1. This resulting substance is then more nearly like the chemical composition of the microbes themselves. So when no large, new supplies of carbonaceous organic matter are added to the soil, new microbes can grow only by consuming their predecessors or the humus residues of their creation.

Humus residues, used as food by the microbes, comprise a diet low in energy values, but high in body-building values. Humus is also unbalanced, but unlike straw, it is unbalanced in the opposite respect. It is not badly unbalanced, because “grow” foods, like proteins, can be “burned” for energy. Man can live by meat (protein) alone, as Steffanson and other Arctic explorers have demonstrated. It is a bit costly, however, so we use carbohydrates to balance the protein. In that case the proteins are going for tissue building rather than to provide energy. The microbes also can use protein-like compounds for energy and very effectively. We encourage them to do this when we plow under legumes. Here again they balance their own diets but with benefit to the crop above the soil, rather than with disaster which follows the plowing under of straw.

When we plow under proteinaceous organic matter, such as legumes, with not only a high content of nitrogen but also a high content of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and all the other inorganic nutrient elements, the microbes are placed on a diet of narrow carbon-nitrogen ratio. The ratio of carbon to the inorganic nutrients is also narrow. It is like an exclusively meat diet would be for us, or like a tankage diet would be for a pig. The energy foods in such a ration are low in supply. Conversely, the nitrogen and minerals are a surplus. This surplus is not built into microbial bodies. Instead, it is liberated in simpler forms which are left in the soil as fertilizers for farm crops.

What we plow under determines what we have as left-overs for the crops. The microbes always eat first. The crops we grow “eat at the second table.” In wise management of the soil we must consider whether the composition of the organic matter we plow under is a good or poor diet for the microbes. If the soil is so low in fertility that it grows only a woody crop to be plowed under, then there can be little soil improvement for the following crop. It gives the microbes only energy foods. They must exhaust still further the last fertility supply in the soil to balance their diet and consequently the crops starve.

But if the soil is high in fertility so that it grows legumes, and if we then plow these protein-rich, mineral-rich forages under, the microbes receive more than energy foods. Given the nitrogenous, fertility-laden green manures plowed under, they pass this fertility back to the soil. Here their struggle is for energy, a struggle by which they are not in competition with the crop, the energy for which comes not from the soil but from the sunshine instead.

Microbes eat first. On poor soil with little humus and inorganic fertility, this spells disaster to the farm crop if we plow under only the poor vegetation which such soils produce. Growing merely any kind of organic matter to let it go back to the soil is not lifting the soil to higher fertility; any more than one lifts himself by pulling on his bootstraps. On soils that are more fertile in mineral nutrients, the idea in plowing cover crops to turn under is to help the farm crop. It helps them if we plow under the more proteinaceous and leguminous cover vegetation which fertile soils produce.

While we have been mining our soils to push them to a lower level of fertility, the microbes that originally were working for us are now working against us. They are eating first, not only so far as the plants are concerned, but indirectly so far as even we and our animals are concerned.

It is in this competition with the microbes that inorganic fertilizers and mineral additions to the soil can play their role by balancing the microbial diet. Such minerals are taken by both the plants and the microbes. But if the fertilizers are put deeper into the soil, they may be below the layer where they affect the microbes, either favorably or unfavorably. They will serve the plants, which send their roots down there, under the power coming from the sunshine. They will not affect the microbes unless they are mixed into the humus-bearing surface soil. Putting the fertilizers down deeper puts their nutrient contents where the plants, rather than the microbes, eat first. This is fertilizing, by means of inorganics, the fertilizing crop that combines them with organics to serve the microbes when this fertilizing crop is turned under for true soil improvement. This is a way of composting the inorganics within the body of the soil itself.

-          Excerpt from The Albrecht Papers Vol.1 - 1948

Of Soils and Nutrients

Phosphate, among other things, is a catalyst, and as such it recycles. It has a function that is special, for it guides all elements into the plant except nitrogen. In other words, all elements go into the plant in phosphate form except nitrogen. Somewhere along the line there has to be a union of the phosphate atom with necessary nutrient elements for healthy plant growth. If there is a phosphate insufficiency, the plant can still uptake nutrients, but they will not be incorporated into the cell. The consequence is shrinkage. When the crop is hay, shrinkage can make the crop almost vanish. A third of the corn crop can disappear because of shrinkage. The alfalfa crop is literally annihilated when there is a phosphate shortfall. Stems will be hollow, and the difference between half a yield and a full yield.

The last cutting on a farm I worked with had 80% solid stemmed alfalfa when we foliar fed after each harvest. The yield was greatest on the fourth cutting even though it wasn't taller – but there was no shrink.

A thinner stem may permit a larger population, but if the soil has insufficient nutrients there will not be enough energy to support the plants. If corn is healthy, tubules will be packed together all the way to the center. The center or pith of the stalk should be pearly white, not the dirty gray called gummosis.

Excess nitrogen will reveal a black layer node when the stalk is cut and put under a microscope. Such tubules often are completely blocked, much like a water pipe that is completely clogged. This is always an indication that there is not enough phosphate and calcium in relation to nitrogen.

Peppermint and spearmint do not have hollow stems if correct mineralization has been part of the fertility program. Even oats have solid stems if phosphate levels are maintained correctly to permit cell nourishment and growth. Properly nourished and nurtured, such oat stems will be more like a sturdy willow than a fragile soda fountain straw.

The research station at Bethesda, Maryland fed phosphate through the leaf in order to measure the effect on rootlets. Workers found that phosphate will travel to the roots at the rate of three feet per second. When it reaches the rootlet it forms an organic acid and solubilizes fertility elements for plant uptake. But once phosphate reaches a basic level in the soil, its need is greatly reduced. 

Nitrogen can carry all essential nutrients into the plant, potassium included. That is why much of agriculture grows crops with a combination of nitrogen, potassium and lots of water. This approach paints the field deep green, but at harvest the shrink is fantastic. It reminds one of grocery store hamburger made to look superb by blending the meat with crushed ice. That same hamburger melts away in a hot skillet. 

The same thing applies to livestock. It is possible to simulate growth and weight by feeding more nitrogen and potassium and keeping the phosphate level down. The gain is simply water in the cells. In a skillet or roaster, such meat shrinks and at the table it tastes like cardboard because minerals and nutrients for really good quality meat simply weren't there. 

The environment around you will tell most of the story if you see what you look at. If you go through an area where all the trees have branches bushed out at the top but there are no branches down the tree, that is an indication of a phosphate deficiency or a lack of availability to the plant. If a tree is branched out all the way to the ground, that indicates a good phosphate level in the area, or perhaps that there was one… 

Photo credit: AgFax

…carbon in the molecular structure of the seed brings water into the soil…one part carbon will hold four parts water. There are two million pounds of soil in the top six inches of an acre. A 1% organic matter soil will thus contain 20,000 pounds of carbon, and 20,000 pounds of carbon will absorb 80,000 pounds of water – or 10,000 gallons. It takes 28,000 gallons of water to cover an acre one inch deep. The problem of a three inch rain on a 1% organic matter soil is at once apparent. Even a 5% organic matter soil – which is difficult to achieve under row crop conditions – would have only 100,000 pounds of carbon, and therefore a potential for holding 400,000 pounds of water, approximately 50,000 gallons, only enough capacity to absorb a two inch rain. Once a saturation point is reached, the rest of the water will run off. The soil management problem is further complicated by hardpan, which prevents water from moving down into a water dome or aquifer and forces it to run off. 

With good biologically active carbon in the soil, there will still be a complement of soil air…Carbon attracts moisture from the air, especially at night. If there is high humidity in the air and enough carbon in the soil, plants can get enough moisture from the air to fix a crop if there is at least 20 to 25% humidity. 

Southern California was essentially desert in the early 1900s. The hills had no grass or trees. The Soil Conservation Service presided over the seeding of mountain areas with a variety of grasses. When the water wash ran off in the spring, a green layer developed and worked its way into the valley. Now when they get rain in that area, there is a basic climate change. In fact, it is possible to so manage carbon that is will change the climate of an area. It is also possible to so mismanage carbon that droughts are created. In Iowa - where they plow every possible acre from border to border – they have created droughts in areas where this phenomenon has never been heard of before. 

It is difficult to get carbon in the soil to go down. Magnetism must first be created, meaning phosphate molecules must be utilized to create a condition supportive of bacteria. This means aeration – and incorporation of carbon dioxide into the soil. When air can no longer enter soil, carbon goes out as CO₂ gas. Bacteria that run into salt-rich plow pan areas die off, much as if they were cast into a salt brine tank. 

The chemical symbol "C" means pure elemental carbon, a product that is difficult to achieve. We use the term carbon, but this expression requires a modifier. Carbon does not go in the soil as pure carbon. Generally speaking carbon is bonded with water and nitrogen to form organic acids in the soil which contain carbon. To really make soil magnetic, carbons have to be in residence to provide food for bacteria in the form of sugars. 

A cornstalk has cellulose, a form of carbon. If you break it down, the breakdown products will include sugars. Bacteria can work on this cornstalk if they have a suitable environment. A mandatory component of that environment is oxygen. Another is moisture.

It is not uncommon to see cornbelt farmers put in soybeans after one corn season, then return the third year to plow up corn stalks that have been neatly embalmed. Dead soils form formaldehyde, the same stuff that's used to preserve cadavers until after the funeral. Formaldehydes are an anaerobic breakdown product. In some cases aerobes work from the top down and dilute and break out the preserved biomass. But aerobes cannot survive in formaldehyde. The remedy, again, is carbon.

Carbon, we have noted, keeps the soil from blowing, not because it is some foo-foo dust, but because it serves up amino acids and nitrogen – the key to stickiness, in that order, and in that order of importance. This is the soil's method of storing nitrogen from one year to the next. The conventional wisdom has farmers using a modified hydroponic system. In this view soil has little function except to prop up the crop, and maintenance of a microsystem is a luxury too costly to justify. Such a soil on injectable nitrogen is much like a drug addict. It becomes dependent on the needle arrangement. 

No-till is to a large extent needle-till, forever dependent on hard chemistry. There is also a negative aspect to no-till, an inability to get the carbon to go down without air. No-till works best if the crop residue is incorporated into at least the top two inches of soil – a sort of contradiction. There has to be soil contact for microbial breakdown. There is usually as much biomass under as above the soil. 

Minimum tillage, in the beginning, is better than most management systems in keeping topsoil from blowing. With residue incorporated in the top inch or two of soil, it permits enough contact for meaningful activity. Basically, organic matter is some form of plant or animal life. Mixed with the life and work of microorganisms, organic matter delivers a most valuable constituent, carbon. Carbon can also come into an active soil through the air via the agency of bacteria. 

Another source is photosynthesis. The leaf takes in CO2 from the atmosphere through its stomata. Organic matter in the soil decomposes under proper conditions, releasing carbon dioxide for plant use. Decomposing bacteria break down into humus – a point at which parent material can no longer be recognized – organic material such as corn stover. The efficiency of this process is governed by the ratio of carbon to nitrogen in the soil, which at its optimum level should be twelve parts of carbon to one part of nitrogen. 

…bottom line seems to be that poor soils with less than 1% organic matter are not uncommon. Midwest prairie soils were running 10 to 12% in organic matter before the arrival of the moldboard plow. Today most of them have organic matter in the 2 to 3% range. Only a few well managed soils have a 5 to 6% index. Only rarely will 8% become an entry on a soil audit. Once intensified farming is started, most excellent soils have a tendency to back down to 5 or 6%.

…When such soils have a high carbon content, the roots will travel through the soil rapidly.

 

- Excepted from Mainline Farming for Century 21 - Dr. Dan Skow and Charles Walters

 

Phosphorus - There is a chemistry

 

When phosphate loads are rapidly complexed or not made available, fundamental sugar formation continues to function. Symptoms wave a warning flag that can be seen from great distances. Leaves often become reddish and purplish – a lack of chlorophyll – and tips die off. Seeds, tubers, grains, all suffer since all require phosphorus for adequate metabolism. Growth is slowed accordingly. The corn plant has a sign all its own. When there is a phosphorus deficiency, the kernels drop off about an inch or two from the cob’s end, or they may fail to develop in the first place.

In short, there is a chemistry involved whenever anything is put into the soil, inorganic, organic, salt form, whatever. Rock phosphate is called tricalcium phosphate, and this means it has three calciums, or three negative charges for bonding. This makes it more difficult to disattach from fixation than would be the case with dicalcium phosphate, which has only two charges – thus tri, di! Last, there is the water soluble monocalcium phosphate, which means that as a consequence of acid treatment this form has only one remaining bond.

So if you’re over 6.5 pH, and you want to farm organically for good and obvious reasons, you’re in trouble. You probably shouldn’t be using nonwater soluble phosphorus because the soil does not have enough acid to free it up. If a soil system has a pH of 7.5 the farmer probably shouldn’t be using the di forms. He should go to strictly mono forms of phosphate. Any farmer who doesn’t take into consideration the importance of the active hydrogen ion as being the most important thing to work with thereby authors his own failure.

Acid treatment merely means rock phosphate is being converted from tricalcium phosphate to monocalcium phosphate, and that this highly unstable form is subject to natural reversion back to the stable tricalcium form. The rate of reversion differs. The pH, the free calcium in the soil, the organic matter – all figure in this rate of reversion. But it is safe to say that 75% of the monocalcium phosphate reverts back to stable tricalcium phosphate within 90 days. In some soils the reversion takes place within hours. As soil conditions worsen, release of nutrients from rock phosphate worsens, and the chemical amateur becomes married to buying salt fertilizers, each go-round worsening still further the structure of that soil.

The water soluble phosphates are simply water soluble, not acid. But they are a poor substitute for having the proper pH with calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium in equilibrium, and form an economic point of view they take on ripoff dimensions.

First, the soluble phosphates come from rock phosphate in any case. By treating, say, 1,400 pounds of rock phosphate with 1,200 pounds of sulfuric acid, the fertilizer industry gets 20% superphosphate – the tricalcium phosphate form being converted into water soluble monocalcium form. This chemical reaction causes 20% superphosphate to be represented by about 45% monocalcium phosphate, and 55% calcium sulfate, or gypsum. This means the bag of 0-20-0 contains about 45 pounds of water soluble monocalcium phosphate, which is presumably desired, and about 55 pounds of calcium sulfate, which may or may not be desired, but which farmers are frequently not aware of.

The fertilizer rating 0-45-0 is quite different material. Farmers who see symptoms of phosphorus deficiency sometimes think a higher rating is the answer, and this one comes styled triple superphosphate. Here the acid used to do the etching is phosphoric. This eliminates the calcium sulfate in the bag, calcium frequently needed to kick up to calcium reserve, sulfate needed to complex an excess of magnesium. By invoking the hotdog concept of plant nutrition a much needed nutrient might be eliminated exactly when it is needed.

Ammonium phosphate such as 8-32-0, 11-48-0, and 80 on, also involve concentrated phosphoric acid in the processing, and this provides a handy outlet for otherwise unsalable fossil fuel company byproducts.

- Excerpted from Eco-Farm An Acres U.S.A. Primer