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Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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Posted by kmcdonou (My Page) on Thu, Jan 28, 10 at 10:56
| I don't have her book handy and am wondering about her use of soybean or cottonseed meal as a supplemental fertilizer. Why was it used and how much was used? I am curious what she was compensating for. Doesn't the decomposting hay/straw provide enough nutrients for the microorganisms? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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| Why was it used and how much was used? Soy meal (6.5 - 1.5 - 2.4)
Plant Available Nitrogen after 28 days - 60%
Plant Available Nitrogen after season - 75% Since nitrogen is usually the limiting factor, calculate for nitrogen. Most sources will say that you need 4-6 pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet per year for healthy plant growth. Soybean meal has 6.5% nitrogen or 6.5 pounds nitrogen per 100 pounds. You will only get 75% of that nitrogen in a season, so there is only 4.875 pounds of nitrogen available in each 100 pounds of soybean meal. Since 4.875 pounds is in the range, that could be an application rate. For heavier feeding crops, apply more. |
RE: Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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| I watched her YouTube video, the one where she talked about her whole life to some younger woman. I watched her toss cottonseed meal down right where she had planted seeds. The amount was I'm sure quite arbitrary or at least unmeasured. The reason is at least for Nitrogen. The decomposing hay/straw will yield little if any Nitrogen or Phosphorous. |
RE: Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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| Great responses. Thanks much. That really helps. |
RE: Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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| Cowgirl: 4 - 6 lb of actual N/1000 ft. sq. = 174 - 261 lb. N/A. Not to brag, but my garden regularly does very well on the heavy feeders, sweetcorn, tomatoes and peppers with 80 - 120 lb/A N. IMHO, your figures are excessive. Also, there is enough N left after cropping the veggies to grow a very well fed oat fallow crop. This may be partially due to very good water management via drip irrigation. Michael |
RE: Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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| Michael, Thank you for your comments. You are correct. The amounts I suggest are very much on the high side and I agree that 80 - 120 lbs. N/ac. will be sufficient for most crops in average soils without following any nitrogen fixing crops. The numbers I used were ones that I found in a search for such a guidline for compost application calculations. The result of those calculations was that 1" of compost would supply sufficient annual nutrients. That of course makes many more assumptions. I was glad that I did not have to add 4" - 6" of compost, as is sometimes suggested. So having come up with reasonable numbers for compost application, I assumed that the fertlizer guidlines I had used were also reasonable. Mea culpa maxima. |
RE: Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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| While I won't argue against the chemical oriented discussion about soybean meal, I would suggest that it is much easier to understand if you forget about pounds of nitrogen and think in terms of pounds of FOOD. Soybean meal is food, first and foremost. So is cottonseed and other grains like corn, wheat, rye, and others. As a food they "decompose" when microorganisms grow on them. I've used the term 'eat' before, but microbes don't exactly eat like we think of eating. In any case what happens is the microbes grow on the soybean meal and convert the soybeans into more and healthier microbes. Microbes are made from protein compounds just like all animals, and it is the protein which stores the nitrogen molecules (amino acids involve nitrogen). When those proteins are shed or digested by other critters that shed them, eventually they return to the soil as plant food. This is the plan that Mother Nature has been working on for billions of years. Another aspect that throws a monkey wrench into any nitrogen calculation is that some microbes have the ability to absorb nitrogen from the air and deposit it in the soil. Thus you might apply 1 pound of theoretical nitrogen and receive 1+ pounds back to the soil. There is no way to predict what the outcome will be from organic fertilizer. Instead of thinking in terms of pounds of nitrogen, I think in terms of pounds of fertilizer. The suggestion for organic lawn fertilizer made from grains is usually 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. How this translates into pounds of nitrogen I could not tell you. For plants I use a heaping handful scattered under the canopy of the plant once a month. |
RE: Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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| David, from reading your posts for years now, it seems that you advocate the continual application of ground grain as plant food. How is this superior to using any other type of introduced plant 'food'? In terms of philosophy, as per Michael's thread? IMO it's simply another way of taking the produce from one area and using it to stimulate growth in some other (probably much smaller) area. It strikes me as not sustainable. I'd rather look for ways that lead to a sustainable loop. If there is something especially vital about using grains as plant food, then perhaps small plots of grain should be grown within a given scheme to be so used, rather than supporting an utterly unsustainable fossil-fuel driven agriculture through the purchase of bulk meal at feed stores. |
RE: Question about Ruth Stout's use of soybean meal
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| Keep in mind that Ruth Stout grew up and garden most of her life before good, reliable soil testing was available and most people guessed at what the soil needed. Since we now know that too much of one nutrient in the soil can create more problems then it would cure there is a real need for periodic soil testing before throwing something on your soil. |
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