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dc.contributor.authorPatriquin, David G.
dc.date.accessioned2012-12-01T12:07:18Z
dc.date.available2012-12-01T12:07:18Z
dc.date.issued1986
dc.identifier.citationPatriquin, D.G. 1986. Biological husbandry and the "nitrogen problem". Biological Agriculture & Horticulture 3: 167-189en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10222/15767
dc.description.abstractSince 1978, the author has been conducting research into the theory and practice of biological husbandry in collaboration with a farmer who stopped using pesticides and mineral fertilizers in 1976. Eggs are exported from the farm. About 60% of feed is grown on the farm in a legume-cereal rotation (faba beans-oats-clover-winter wheat), and plant and animal residues are recycled. Annual weeds function as a self-seeding cover crop, protecting the soil, conserving nutrients and fixing carbon where and when cultivated crops are not present. Yields average about 25% lower than those on conventional farms, but the farm is more profitable because of lower input costs. A nitrogen budget suggests that inputs of nitrogen are sufficient to sustain cereal yields equivalent to those of conventional systems. However, much of the annual input of N to cereal fields, in manure, is not available in the short term. Various laboratory and field studies suggest that as fertility or the biological activity of soils increases, problems related to immobilization of N by straw, phytoxicity and annual weeds decline, and that less manure is required to augment the N supply by a given amount. While N might be identified as the "limiting factor" for cereal production, alleviation of N shortages is dependent on intensifying cycling, rather than on increasing N inputs. This intensification is achieved by augmenting natural rhythms on the farm through appropriate tillage techniques, and by ensuring an abundance and high activity of the catalysts of the N cycle, i.e. of all of the farm biota.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Basil and Lilian Aldhouseen_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherBiological Agriculture and Horticultureen_US
dc.subjectTransition
dc.subjectBiological agriculture
dc.subjectOrganic farming
dc.subjectFaba bean
dc.subjectWheat
dc.subjectOats
dc.subjectYields
dc.subjectProfitability
dc.subjectNova Scotia
dc.subjectTunwath
dc.subjectLaying hens
dc.subjectNitrogen balance
dc.subjectRecycling
dc.subjectCrop rotation
dc.subjectManure
dc.subjectStraw
dc.subjectSoil biological activity
dc.subjectNitrogen immobilization
dc.subjectLime
dc.subjectpH
dc.subjectOat cultivars
dc.subjectPriming
dc.subjectTillage
dc.subjectWeeds
dc.subjectWeed-crop interactions
dc.subjectNitrogen limitation
dc.subjectLimiting factors
dc.titleBiological husbandry and the "nitrogen problem"en_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
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