Boycott Annie's brand food, please!

Crash - Yes, most GMO foods are 100% safe for consumption.

It's how they are grown that's the problem... It's an environmental disaster. THIS is the part I expected you all to care about.

http://www.enveurope.com/content/pdf/2190-4715-24-24.pdf

Fisherman are a pretty diverse group...shoulda expected some smart ass comments. Lol. Life is too short. I'd rather spend my energy on things that make me happy not piss me off.  But hey...keep on keepin on brutha!

Is it wintertime already?

 

Is it wintertime already?

 

Game of Thrones?

Crash - Yes, most GMO foods are 100% safe for consumption.

It's how they are grown that's the problem... It's an environmental disaster. THIS is the part I expected you all to care about.

http://www.enveurope.com/content/pdf/2190-4715-24-24.pdf

I hear ya....  We have a private well with water that is "unsafe" for some drinking applications thanks to years & years of farming that has 'ruined' the ground water with high levels of nitrates.  Saw a map somewhere that shows almost all of the valley land in california has the same ground water problems.  Now, for us to have "safe" drinking water from our won well, we would have to install a costly water filtration system.  Now we spend $$ per month to have drinking water.

These nearby wells that service the organic & non-organic fields are spraying this very same water all over the food.

Personally, I'm looking for matching "shakers" to hold my monosodium glutamate and my GMO's. That shit is delicious.

I also support human cloning since the world could definitely use a couple hundred copies(or more) of me.

Yes. Nitrates are one of the many problems caused by conventional farming. Watering and spraying plants with that Nitrate contaminated water won't necessarily have any negative affects in the crops (nitrate is one of the forms of nitrogen that plants take up as nutrients), but I agree that it's a little odd to call a crop organic when the water you give it is contaminated by all the nearby conventional farms.

I do groundwater remediation for a living, so this is a topic that's important to me.

I have ours checked locally by a friend who does groundwater remediation as well.  He is also a NCKA member though not on too often.

I beg you all.  Know this,  it's a fact.  Organic does not equal non polluter.   It means lower yield and excellent prices that afford the grower more fertilizer.   I just left a site that applied 320 pounds of N to grow a crop that takes up 40 pounds.   This is typical in my experience.  The rule.   Not the exception.  That's a load of 280 pounds of N to ground or surface water.  Enough N is lost on one crop to take an acre foot of pristine water and contaminate it to a level that it exceeds the mcl.

The biggest fallacy in all of agriculture is that organic is more environmentally friendly.  The mom and pop operations might be doing a great job but they are 1% of the market.

It's big business. 

How do I know?   I advise on 20% of Ca's organic vegetable production.

I trust ya MoMo 

Cappy - What product did they apply for the nitrogen? 320 pounds of N sourced from ammonium nitrate is a lot different than 320 pounds of N from, say, alfalfa meal, cottonseed meal, manure, tilled-in legume cover crops, etc. One dissolves and readily leaches to groundwater, one breaks down slowly and (should) release N at about the rate it is taken up by plants.

I am a bit of an idealist, but I do understand that organic farming AS ITS CURRENTLY PRACTICED isn't all peachy. I know that most "organic" farming these days is done by old-school conventional farmers making the switch to organic by simply buying different fertilizers. In reality, a lot more goes into creating healthy soil that will feed plants without excessive fertilizer application.

10 tons of organic compost.  1 ton of 4-4-2

As an agronomist N is N, no matter the source.  The water board agrees.  Slow release composts still release N. It may or may not be when the plant needs it or at a rate that corresponds with what the plant needs.

In a mass balance scenario,  crop uptake matters.  You could grow any crop on that level of inputs.   I just chose organic spring mix as an example as the N uptake is so small. 

Closer to home.  Another client would apply 3000 pounds of 8-5-1 to grow the spring mix.  Loading 200 pounds.  They would do this 3-5 tints annually loading 600-1000 pounds annually. 

On another ranch,  the N content of that water is 10x the MCL.  You can grow a crop with no added N.  There they load a minimum of 1000 pounds annually. 

Groundwater is doomed. You can't do a good enough job keeping the N where the roots are.   It's impossible. As a pro at this,  under ideal settings,  I can grow a series of crops that we will apply 1.6x the fertilizer needed.  2-5x is common

Organic certifiers don't request applied N data, crops grown and their crop uptake of N.  Those would be more inline with a sustainability index.  We have sustainably grown wine grapes (mostly conventional) but there is no produce being grown sustainably yet.  I hope to be able to change that in the next year.  When I say sustainable,  I'm referring to a third party certification. 

Some times it is a blessing not to know what you have eaten. One reason I still hate mushrooms. Kept in the dark and grown in shit. Some time horse some times in chicken but it is all shit to me.

any idea how much nitrogen % comes from septic systems?

AlexB, I applaud your decision to boycott a company that you no longer agree with.  We all should vote with our feet and wallets. I never used their products so have essentially been an early adopter.

GM is one of our biggest buyers of food grade wheat. 60,000-150,000 bushels a year depending on protein content any given year. Our grain isnt gmo, and is technically organic, if you want to mislead people. We dont fertilize, we dont irrigate. Plant n pray for rain. We rotate crp and production and manage the crop/land.
Squeaky wheels get greased, and the wheel is the gmo haters. All living organisms have evolved, and that is basically all we are talking about. A laboratory alteration to enhance a plant to perform a certain way-usually higher yield. Get used to it, it is a necessity. Population explosion has led to the need to do more with less. Once farmland is lost to development, it will forever be lost to production of food. As long as the world population goes unchecked, and we get better at keeping us alive a lot longer, we will need accelerated farming practices.
Right now, there are less cattle in the united states, than in 1955. Think about it.

-potassium nitrate, most common fertilizer. Ammonia nitrate is hard to get because it is the base ingredient for ANFO, the most widely used bulk explosive. Blasting prills are hollow to hold fuel, but solid prills will saturate with a longer marinade. Average Joe cant buy ammonia nitrate.