There is, and as more stores carry foods grown both organically and with synthetic fertilizers you can sample them and determine for your self which has more flavor.

I suspect that I am not a good gourmet. The subtil differences don't seem that great to me. I can see that animals can make better taste testers than myself.

I have a request concerning this thread. Please check yes or no that you read the 2 pages in the link. It's ok if you didn't read them. I am kind of wondering how these things work.

Makes sense that the "artificials" might contribute to off-flavors which would result in the animals preferring to eat the stuff without them. For the instances where the animals wouldn't graze on land where "artificials" were used I wonder if it was because of the smell given off that was unappealing to the animals.

Rodney

One thing that I am looking for here is NOT the either or thing of organic versus 'chemical' fertilizers, but a test result from a soil loaded with organic matter with a good synergy and then fertilized with good composts, organic fertilizers, AND some so called chemical additions.

So often things are framed in the either or way. This could apply to our bodies too, rather than just the soil. AND rightly so because we are not going to be successful in avoiding all chemicals in this life.

but the document you produced is either/or. I am going to hazard a guess: animals are much better tuned to fermentable fiber and possibly other functional components, and those components grow best with an array of chemicals provided by decaying organic matter.

also, I note that, for example, collards grown with manmade urea do not seem better than collards grown with artificial urea. Collards are from one of two classes of veggies that do not form fungal associations. I am guessing that there may be a mycorrhizal effect.

glib, You are right in that the referenced book section was an either this treatment or that treatment. My lament is that they did not consider the third treatment of a mix of fertilizers.

So are you suggesting that as long as the goodly amount of decaying organic matter is there that the animals would like crops with some so called chemical fertilizer?

no, I am saying that, possibly, brassica and beta will not suffer from artificial fertilization (or not suffer as much), but most other plants will, because their fungal symbiosis will be disrupted. it is a hypothesis. I do not have good data because I do grow most roots and beans fully organically, and the rest gets some urea on top of a lot of OM (my soil is 20% OM). Regrettably, urea is urea is urea, whether organic or artificial.

But you can more narrowly define your problem, Are you talking about all artificial fertilizers, or would like to narrow it down to nitrogen? And where will azomite fall?

First of all Azomite is a mineral supplement that contains a large variety of micro minerals. I think this supplementation could be a very positive addition....especially to sandy soils and soils that are highly leached and that have been cropped without good returns to the soil. I tend to believe this could enhance growth and especially taste.

I tend to believe that a bit to much of an available mineral isn't as much of a problem as too little of a mineral along with ph way out of whack which locks up some minerals

When talking about 'artificials', I believe that they were talking about NPK.

Thank you glib for engaging here. Again, I am not a gourmet, but can especially notice the difference in taste of melons...watermelons and cantaloupe. I assume that good taste requires good plant health, maturity, and with all the required macros and micros.

I will add this...organically grown would not taste better unless the crop was grown with a good synergy of organic matter, microbes, and minerals. Without a good synergy, organic crops could only hope to have less pesticides.

the reason I suggested better specs, is that if you add organic matter to your garden regularly, P and K will never be a problem. In fact, after only 4 years at my current site, P went from 7ppm (way too low) to 80ppm( too high). So, in practice, compost plus artificials= compost plus nitrogen. I can not think of a single situation where extra P and K can help.

Now you are asking whether N in compost, while less, is somehow more conducive to good growth than urea or various ammoniums. Urea is both organic and inorganic, I would like to see in which form N from humus is, and of course N from rain and thunderstorms.

As I kind of understand it, N tends to come on the scene in various forms...ammonium, urea, nitrite and finally has to be converted to nitrate to be usable by the plant.

Farmers test soils for nutrients...both macro and micro. They don't want to over add as they are trying to make a profit. As for my 3 gardens, I don't care if there is extra organic matter and plenty of other nutrients. How does my garden grow? I would say excellently concerning pests, disease, and good production of tasty produce.

From the link: stuff on nitrogen cycle

Plant Assimilation

"Plants use nitrogen in primarily the nitrate or ammonium forms. If any preference exists, it is usually for ammonium early and nitrate late in the growing season. Research has shown that growth is optimized with a mixture of both ammonia and nitrate, with ammonium used preferentially for synthesis of amino acids and proteins. Some plants also can directly use urea (Harper, 1984)"

Example - the booming business of organic 'aquafarming' where varieties of lettuce float around in styrofoam cells in a system with fish tanks. The fish are fed, the water is continually cycled through a substrate where bio-nitrification of urea and nitrates occurs (think gravel bed at the bottom of an aquarium), the nitrite-rich water then passes into a tank where the lettuce floats around, the roots of the lettuce soak it up, then back in with the fish.

to finish this thread. I amend heavily with OM. I do not fertilize certain classes of vegetables (beans and most roots). To me it seems like my veggies are better than even the highest quality, farmer market roots and beans, so I conclude that artificials are unneeded there.

Artificials are needed with things like tomatoes, onions, most brassica. But I use only nitrogen fertilizer, and any source of nitrogen works there. I see no difference, but I am open to using artificial nitrogen sources.

Wayne: during a talk on soil (for wildflower enthusiasts) Dr. Bird, well known in Michigan organic grower circles, mentioned that there is work going on at present to define "soil health" measurables. He said that some two dozen are being discussed, suggestiong that it will be difficult to come up with a single measurement. I remember that one was the soil's propensity to mineralize organic nitrogen. I respond to that one because I never have (well, hardly ever) used artificial nitrogen, but depend on legumes-in-rotation and compost, so that my soil routinely tests 75 pounds organic and 25 pounds mineral as opposed to the suggested ideal of 50/50. I have been using BRIX as a taste-test predicter, and I assert (not a lot of proof) that artificially fertilized soils can't produce the highest BRIX levels.

Now here is a wild suggestion that would more clearly relate to fruits. Plants use some quite complicated phyto-chemicals tto entice animals to eat their fruits by producing a wide range of tastes, and also scent and color. Research in the last ten years or so has shown that the level of many phyto-chemicals (only those that have been measured of course) is about twice as high in organically grown produce as it is in conventional, which to me suggests that "chemical" agriculture and horticulture results in much lower soil health and poorer tasting porducue. Wild, cetainly, but if anyone really knows about this stuff, I would be most pleased to read it. Regards, Peter.

I can taste the difference between organic and non organic, especially with carrot juice. Organic is so much sweeter.

My original premise is the lack of trials to see just why organic might be sweeter or whatever. I tend to surmise that a third avenue exists. If a soil has an abundance of organic matter with a good soil synergy from composts, manures, a good mineral base, and return of residues, why would some so called 'chemical' fertilizers upset the applecart? I suspect that they would not.

It seems that few will really discuss this. It's goes to an either or it seems for the most part.

I made an exception only for urea. I do think that if we were willing to bury all OM, to prevent nitrogen losses, and wait some time so decay sets in, we would not need even nitrogen fertilizers. Why they are needed? Because the process of composting loses 50% of the carbon and 50% of the nitrogen. The P and K are 100% recovered.

Of course my back disagrees with burying 40 bags of leaves every year, but I do bury all garden residuals in a single bed every year.

Since we are dealing with gardens, we can 'import' a fairly large amount of organic material. This helps to replace macro and micro minerals and make a good soil synergy. Without this cheating, we would be hard pressed to maintain fertility. We would need lots of deep rooting crops and lots of fertilizers....NPK, sulfur, lime, zinc, boron, cobalt, copper, and more.

Indeed, I have tried not doing the "cheating", and production from heavy and medium feeders declines to very low levels. Roots and legumes do fine, which supports what others are saying.

Glad to see you you are still around Pat (with the censorship here, a number of favorite posters have left). Yes, when I had acidic sand I used OM, urea and large amounts of wood ash (I heated with wood back then) to take care of P and K. So my conclusions relate only to clay soils. In sandy sand, you need help.

Hey Glib! Yeah, not posting much because the new site is kind of off-putting. I guess I was so used to the old format. BTW, there is a pretty fun FB group called "regrarians" you might enjoy. Lot of very knowledgable folks there.

"Sir Albert Howard" died almost 70 years ago.

Can we get some current references?

Maybe not, tsudhonimh. That is kind of my point...that the nutrients and taste seem always an either organic or highly not organic frame...70 years and no 3 side by side testing it seems!!!

I have been Organic gardener all my adult life, but I can not tell a fresh organic foods from friends who have fresh non organic foods.

Fresh eaten raw & fresh cooked is as important as organic is.

You can not get fresh from the trendy whole food stores, unless they have a garden behind the store.

Nutrients in food is far more important the poison residue, so organic that is not fresh is a waste of time & money.

consider also that vegetables are themselves poisonous. Biochemist friends fall off chairs when you tell them that veggies are all goodness. They know that evolution dictated that plants need to poison animals to avoid getting eaten.

Broadly speaking, seeds are the most poisonous as a group. Fruits, being designed to be eaten, are the least poisonous (the seeds inside are poisonous). Parsley, celery, and parsnip are from a family of plants that include deadly hemlock, and you may die if you eat a pound of parsley. All brassica have iodine metabolism inhibitors, all solanacea have alkaloids (alliums have them, too), all beta have oxalic acid, and most legumes have a variety of enzyme blockers. Hybrid and GMO grains have been bred for toxicity, to have robust crops, and in particular hybrid wheat is correlated with a lot of degenerative diseases.

So, yes, organic/ non organic is often irrelevant. I would much rather eat sprayed wheat from old heirlooms than unsprayed hybrid wheat.