Renewable Farming

What nutrient does your corn need — in the largest amounts — through the growing season?

Many corn growers will probably answer, “nitrogen.” That’s because we’ve been conditioned by nearly a century of mineral fertilizer research and marketing to think nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

But the correct answer is carbon. Crops extract carbon from carbon dioxide, the compound which our United Nations officials branded a pollutant, and convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to confirm our federal government’s right to control it. That Supreme Court decision came in 2007.

This week, ACRES magazine posted online a reprint from a feature by Dr. Will Brinton, which we missed when ACRES published it in 2015. Brinton’s Farming the CO2 Factor is one of the clearest and strongest foundations we’ve seen for emphasizing the importance of building soil biology. Brinton posted a PDF reprint of his ACRES article on the website of his company, Woods End Laboratories.

We enthusiastically recommend that you print Will’s article and keep it with you in the pickup or truck… read it between waiting for loading or unloading this year’s harvest.