Many of you requested notes from RFTG Meeting Sept. 9, 2017
Moringa Tree
This is a picture from South Africa where the moringa is being kept low for easier leaf harvesting. Also, the pods are edible when young and high in protein.
A story follows on Mavis Mathabathafed many AIDS orphans with this natural protein supplement.
Wikipedia definition:
Maria Thun – Biodynamic preparation
Judelon gave you a packet of the Pit preparation. It was specially prepared through a Maria Thun formulation who had spent a lifetime of biodynamic research in Europe. This preparation is referred to as manure compost: manure concentrate. It consists of four components: cow manure, basalt powder, ground eggshells, and the 6 biodynamic compost preparations. The mixture is placed into a pit which has been dug into the ground, taken out to used after 3 months to a year.
All the biodynamic preparations are meant to used together as a whole. It is all about biology, and biodynamics is about biology.
This is packet is to be mixed in 2-3 gallons of water and stirred vigorously for twenty-minutes. First in one direction and then reversed many times. It should be stirred vigorously enough to create a vortex in the water nearly to the bottom of the bucket.
A film by FrigyesFogel and Christopher Mann on Vimeoabout healing the Earth through biodynamics– for anyone who might be holding questions about what biodynamics is follows here:
David Johnson, PhD
A fantastic in depth biological discussion of David Johnson’s research results from his compost/biological inoculation of soil:
The following site explains the Johnson-Su compost reactor:
Gabe Brown, North Dakota farmer.
Gabe is part of this short video:
He is speaking in this video:
Feel free to look up more videos or articles on Gabe.
Some asked who the hosts were:
Judelon LaSalle, RN – worked in Africa helping refugees have kitchen gardens for food security. She used a biodynamic approach to restore/regenerate degraded soil. Additionally she provided moringa seedlings for villagers to plant on their home grounds to bolster protein levels for the very poor who often lacked resources to purchase.
Judelon became a certified biodynamic farmer from the educational and training program at Spring Valley New York. She developed a biodynamic demonstration garden along side the Rodale Institute’s 30 year-old organic garden in Kutztown, PA.
She was one of eight original licensed volunteer medical emergency personnel who served post Hurricane Katrina and Rita in New Orleans. She saw the difference of the effects of these storms on healthy and degraded soils and has become a strong proponent of the biological approach to healthy soils.
Tim LaSalle, PhD - Since 2007 Dr. LaSalle has championed his science-based hope for a regenerative food system that will mitigate climate change by carbon sequestration in place of soil carbon loss.
LaSalle has served as the first CEO of Rodale Institute, Executive Director of the Northwest Earth Institute an international organization dedicated to grassroots movements, Executive Director of the Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management, an international non-profit who mission is to restore and regenerate deteriorating landscapes, consultant, advisor, and research coordinator for the Howard Buffett Foundation in Africa on soils and food security for smallholder farmers, and most recently Co-founder California State University Chico, Regenerative Agriculture Initiative.
While serving as a professor at California Polytechnic State University, he also started and operated his own dairy farm and became involved with the California Agricultural Leadership Program. LaSalle soon became its CEO, where he arranged educational leadership programs in more than 80 countries with heads of state, ministers, community leaders, and thus became exposed and a student of many of humanity’s global challenges, of which climate change and soil loss remain our most pressing.