Vuh-LARRY,
Thank you for offering to help us understand Ovinsky's book.

Tilling to 2 inches is called "conservation tillage" here in Texas. It is used in "no-till" operations to sweep the weeds out between the rows of crop.

What I found fascinating in Ovinsky's book was the idea that you want to have humus concentrated at the surface of the soil. This is the argument against deep plowing or tilling. Ovinsky claims that the humus absorbs any ammonia gas that might be in the atmosphere or being released from the soil. I can tell you that if my compost pile starts to stink, all I have to do to stop it is cover it with leaves. So I fully believe in the idea of humus (or compost) absorbing ammonia gas. But then Ovinsky talks about the humus absorbing humidity. This is key because when the air or soil temperature falls to the dew point, the humidity stored in the humus condenses and drips down into the soil. I presume the moisture is laden with ammonia and that, my friends, is free fertilizer out of thin air.

Just to reiterate what Valerie said about the translator, every time you hit the refresh button on your browser, a little more of the book is translated. It seems to stop translating near the end of the book. Maybe Google has a limit. The book is not very long - more of a booklet.

And a side note, Vuh-LARRY is close enough to the Russian pronunciation of his name. I still have to use that device to remind me not to call him VAL-uh-ree (the pronunciation of that girl's name here). He and I go back aways.

Vah-Lary sounds good for me, a little laughable as if in the Caucasus, but I like it.:)

As for ammonia Ovsinsky even gives estimations of amount of ammonia in the rainwater.
I can demonstrate an example of ammonia in rainwater. Here in Russia grass grows very badly immediately after the winter though the soil is overlogged with water after the snow melting. But immediately after the first spring rain grass become green and lush in 2-3 days.

Can you imagine how much ammonia fall down with jungle rains??? But this ammonia is washed out because nothing can capture it. Could it be the secret of Terra Preta soils that charcoal capture those ammonia?

Just to heat up the topic.. (Are everybody healthy? Catch a cold? Kha-kha-khhh...? DonÂt be ill!!!:)

What I aways was surprising is that plants didnÂt learn how to catch a nitrogen from the air. From the evolution point of view it is a paradox. Listen, plants learned how to catch a quantum of light (very complex phisical task, it was given Nobel prize for that to a man after millions years the plants discovered it, electricity, chemistry and almost nuclear phisics) but didnÂt learned how to perform a much easier task  to capture an atom of N). And I was thinking  why? (And I think I am thinking:)

And I came to a conclusion that plants didnÂt learn how to catch N from atmosphere (like they capture CO2) just because there always were a plenty of nitrogen (N) under their foot. The drilling manÂs mind that drilling and drilling and drilling again (and drilling again!) came to a conclusion that it is because there are plenty of nitrogen fixixng bacterias in the soil, so plants rely on them.

Is it an answer to the evolution idea? I think  yes!

What Ovsinsky found, is that nitrogen fixing bacterias live only in upper layer of the soil. They love oxigen (O2), and donÂt love CO2 which inhibit their growth. When organic matter of the soil is decomposing, it produce CO2 (which inhibit nitrogen-fixing bacteria and they donÂt produce nitrogen for the plants). What to do in this situation??? (It is the question of the plants, because they need N). They ( plants) found an excellent idea: we (they were thinking as individuals) will remove CO2 by making deep holes in the soil, where CO2 will go down beeing heavier than air. And they done it!

Now CO2 beeing heavier then air go down to the soil, connect itself with the water producing carbon acid (CO2+H2O=CH2O3) which increase the solubility of minerals 30 times! Minerals after dissolution in water (with the help of carbon acid) go up in soil by capillarity force and the plants "eat" them. And again and again the process continues millions of years.

And now think, why plants have such a long deep roots? They are seeking water?Nnno-o!
They are making holes for next generations of them (plants) to withdrow CO2 from upper layers of the soil deeper in the soil to have minerals and nitrogen both.

This is the individullity of the plants!

(The End of the symphony)

Advertisement:
The next symphony will be about water (H2O).
Prelude:
Water is where the plants, not plants where the water.
(Buy tickets at the local philahrmonia!)
Vah-Lary

Dchall said:

" So I fully believe in the idea of humus (or compost) absorbing ammonia gas."

Are we talking about compost or humus as the top layer?

After thinking about this a few thoughts come to mind. Since Ovsinsky got his idea from the Chinese, it makes sense to see what else the Chinese practice. And too, since the Chinese use EM and BIM extracts, the addition of these techniques seems logical to me.

My thinking is to use Ovsinsky technique of planting (no need to till since the soil is amended with organic matter and very soft), use BIM to (foliar and soil drench) fertilize for maximum nutrition, and leaf mould to control weeds. The addition of charcoal in the soil should negate the drought conditions we are in here in the southern USA, and feed the roots in a long lasting manner. All this should offer bountiful harvest, call for limited management, and create healthy soil for generations to come.

Of course continued research and open-mined attitude will only add to this learning process. For now this appears to be the best of all techniques for my given situation; any thoughts are welcomed and appreciatedÂ

Blutranes

My thinking is to use Ovsinsky technique of planting (no need to till since the soil is amended with organic matter and very soft)

Ovsinsky technique is based on 2 ideas:
1) compost or humus or plantÂs residues on the surface of the soil
2) long tubes or holes in subsoil instead of deep tillage.

Long and deep holes in subsoil are formed naturally by rotten roots of previous year crops. If you donÂt have them you may try to make them with the drill. Take a borer 0.5 meter long and 0.5-1 cm width and drill holes in soil with the distance 2-3 inches between them on the depth 0.5 meter. Then cover with compost and plant the plants. Hope this wooks.

The knowledge of regenerative agriculture is obviously there since a long time and now rediscovered by Fukuoka, Bill Mollison, Christine Jones, David Johnson, Herwig Pommeresche and more.

The contributions in this forum are very helpful for the understanding how nature works. The other thing is that there are people which try to make their home garden or professional agriculture based on this ideas. For the professionals there are examples in germany like Friedrich Wenz, Josef Braun ... For the home garden I'm looking for examples, but recently found books of Nikolay Kurdyumov, Herwig Pommeresche, Heinz Erven and Kurt Kretschmann.

My primary concern is home garden, as I'm not a farmer.

I would like to download the article of Ivan Ovsinsky but cannot. Could you please check link or invoke a new one , thanks

Heribert

"Being inquisitive he looked at Chinese farming and probably there he got the idea to grow cereal crops by rows."

The British had been doing it since the 1750s, as well as shallow tilling. It was hard to get the Russians to change methods because they had cheap labor from the serfs and saw no need to change until the serfs were freed.

Hereibert, the original post is from 2009; the OP hasn't posted since 2010 - you're not going to get an answer or new link from her.

thanks for the link valerie, but unfortunately I'm not allowed to download the pictures therein. b.t.w. I'm located near Stuttgart, Germany

I give a new link on the book. All the book and few illustrations are presented on one web-page.

Book

thanks for the link, it works fine. You provided a very interesting contribution on N and CO2. I'm curious on your contribution on H2O you announced earlier :)

Are you working as a professional in this area? Where are you located in russia?

Heribert

Heribert, I suspect that your name is Galina Choikhet and you are located in Novosibirsk :)

You can get a decent translation from here with Google Translate. It's quite a diatribe :)

https://coollib.com/b/134896/read

Valerie, my name is Heribert Keilwerth, I'm living in Stuttgart Germany. I'm a physicist and worked for Airbus, now I'm retired. I want to do my contribution to support a sustainable environment. For this I'm teaching school kids in the 3rd class on the cycle of nature in a very practical way. We have here large areas of fruit trees and meadows. So I teach them on planting, maintaining and harvesting fruittrees. On Insects, on supporting them. On flowers and herbs. We are also making bread in ovens fired with wood. Of course I'm teaching them on natural cycles and on waste and correct treatment and avoidance. I'm maintaining fruit trees for communities to keep the trees in good shape. I'm started to cultivate our garden following permaculture principles. We have farm land lent for rent to farmers. I try to motivate the farmers to manage the farmland with the principles of regenerative agriculture. We have good examples here in Germany and I want to spread this ideas, as the conventional methods are still dominant. Nowadays the world is divided in lots of specialists which provide solutions or handle problems isolated from each other with a lot of technology ignoring nature or even try to master nature, harm nature without negative consequences or attempt to outplay nature. Fukuoka sayed the right thing: It's about watching nature, looking at the interdependence, try to steer and at most think always whether the activity men does is necessary or could be omitted. (do nothing agriculture).

So, that's about me and my interest on agriculture

Heribert

I think my favorite part about this thread is someone revived it from 6 years ago then the reviver was told the op wasn't going to respond only to have the op respond 2 minutes later!

valerie_ru(Russia),

Thank you for the book. Love it!!!!

John Donovan,

btw 2017 -2009 =8 years ago. :))))

Thanks Heribert, John, Avgusta and others for the posts.

There was not agreement about 2 minutes. But looking back at 2009 I really see that my vodka consumption that times slightly exceeded the rates defined by International Health Organization.

Ovsinsky's book is a great monument of those times. I was surprized by myself of how deeply my ancestors tried to understand the nature.

The plow came to Russia with the reforms of the tsar Peter I who copied everything from Germany, Netherlands and other Europe. It was normal to speak French even in bedrooms among landowners and other aristocrats.

A previous tool for working with soil was "sokcha" - a tool for shellow plowing. And there were no problems. But tsar Peter was firm and inflexible and plow quested sokcha. It caused many crop failures and hunger strikes in the next times.

The first who noticed the phenomenon of water steam condensation in soil (soil dew) was a landowner Bochinsky(1850-th). Then prof. Kostychev in St.-Peterburgh confirmed it making experiments with deep cylinders puting them in and out of the soil (1880-th). Ovsinsky made an outstanding 30-years experiment on the fields. It ended with this book (1899). And eventually all those researches finished by A.F.Lebedev with his great book "Soil waters.Ground waters" (1930-th). And he is a founder of the Soil Phisics.

This is a brief history of the qweestion. This aspect of agriculture is important untill now.

Just one nowadays example.

And in the end I can just only add that reading of this book is truely pleasure for me. Though the language in the book is slighly outdated but it has an aromat of those times.

PS I am "he", not "she".

Valerie (vuh-LARRY) is most definitely a man; about the tallest man in the world ;-) I made the same mistake...9 years ago.

Finally I completed reading the book and got a good understanding on Ivan's findings and practical advices as well and on the evolution of things.

As in our time he was inspired by the latest technology, in this case the deep plowing technology as quintessence of agricultural science until he questioned it as being too complex and too expensive. He tried shallow plowing and early and continuous maintenance of the soil as guiding principles. Until he made first successes he was not at all accepted and even laughed at. This in my eyes explains the verbal attacks against current practices at that time in some sequences in the book. After his method has shown successes he started to explain the method why it works so well and refined it. I think this is a good example of finding a solution in supporting nature rather than try to be better than nature. The book contains a lot of details on the interaction of living and nonliving things, a description of critical success factors of plant cultivation and a very practical guideline on the how to. There are advices one can use right away like preparation of soil, seeding, weed management and other things which are good for the understanding, as the soil irrigation by dew.

Looking at todays agriculture we are still on the way to regenerative agriculture. The technology on machines and chemistry enhanced further and the understanding of processes of nature enhanced further - and there is still the same question - Do we need all this technology?

Let me give you some links which I find very interesting in this respect:

Feeding the soil, building top soil

Establishing the right milieu for plants: Fungi Bacteria Ratio

Design of permaculture

Regenerative agriculture and Humus built up

The way we treat the plants and soil is of course dependent of the quality of the food the customer wants. So whether the customer wants food grown w/o chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides. Respective trademarks in Germany are 'bioland' and for a biodynamics standard 'demeter'. This trademarks are very well accepted by the customers. Looking at the bare fields of conventional agriculture a lot of changes are still required, but I think we are on the right track.

PS: Now Valerie I know that you are a man, but ... Could you let me know a bit more about you?

Heribert

Heribert, my speciality is Fluid Mechanics and computer calculations based on Navie-Stock's equations. It is neccessary for large bodies moving under the water with the speed more than 100 km per hour.

Nice to see David Hall here! He is observant person.

Thanks Valerie, very interesting. I never had to apply Navie-Stock's equations, but came of course in contact with them during my physics studies in Heidelberg, which is a long time ago. I made my thesis in High Energy Physics and worked for an experiment at CERN in Geneva. My first job in industry was in SW and System development. I changed jobs quite frequently. At some point I became CIO. In the last years I was responsible for the business process architecture of Airbus DS.

Heribert