213 results for author: Joanna Campe

Hurricane Pummels Equinox Farm, but Remineralized Cannabis ‘Orchard’ Resurges

Hurricane Isaias brought 60-mile-an-hour winds to the Berkshires that toppled trees around Equinox Farm in Sheffield, Massachusetts, beating down much of this year’s outdoor cannabis crop in the process. Fortunately, says Ted Dobson, general manager and farmer-in-chief, cannabis is vigorous, like growing an “annual orchard,” and soon after seeing the devastation of Mother Nature’s wrath, he was back at work, having trellised 3,300 plants less than three weeks after the storm. The crop is recovering nicely. “The average plant size is six feet tall, and it’s like being in a marijuana forest, really. That is not an exaggeration. To have ...

Seeds of Education: RTE Teams Up with NASCO to Help Ghana Students Grow Trees

Remineralization initiative at Ghana schools Remineralize the Earth is teaming up with the NASCO Foundation, which aims to plant fruit-bearing trees at 23 schools in Ghana, to teach students to care for nature as part of the ongoing fight against global climate change, while also contributing to the financial sustainability of their schools and generating local employment. For its part, RTE plans to coordinate the application of rock dust at one to three of the schools to create a more diverse agroforestry system along with the cashew trees. Potential candidates for the agroforestry system include shea and mango (which are feasible provided there ...

Rock Powder with Biochar: Synergies & Co-Benefits

Rock powder and Biochar are two of the most powerful tools for reversing climate change, especially when used together! Tom Goreau explains the synergies and co-benefits. (Originally published by Global Carbon Alliance.) Biochar and rock powders can provide major, cost-effective, atmospheric CO2 sinks to reverse climate change through nature-based solutions, or planetary BioGeoTherapy. These methods produce major synergies and co-benefits when practiced together, but the benefits of each method have been measured in isolation, without positive feedback from combination. The most effective use of each material is mixed together with the other in ...

Rock Dust Crop Dusting: Pulverized Rock Makes for Effective Pesticide

As long as there has been agriculture, there have been insects, mites, and other creatures eager to share in the bounty. Pests remain an enduring problem for agriculture. Increasingly, communities are seeing even pesticides designed to deter or eliminate pesky insects become a liability as essential pollinator populations decline, unwanted toxins infiltrate crops—endangering farmers and consumers—and insects develop resistance to traditional deterrents and poisons. One possible solution: rocks. Crushed rocks, to be precise. Seeding mineral-poor soils with pulverized rocks not only introduces badly-needed nutrients to the plants they house, it ...

Barbuda Limestone Soil Crop Growth Stimulated by Montserrat Volcanic Ash

Fig. 1 Principal John Mussington surveying the plants. The plot receiving the volcanic ash on the left, and the control plot on the right. Introduction Soil fertility depends on the geological history of the minerals in it, climate, and their management. Oceanic islands are either limestone or volcanic, the only exception being the high granite islands in the Seychelles, an ancient small continental fragment. Most limestone islands, including all atolls, are low and flat and are much drier than the high wet volcanic islands. Volcanic islands are much more fertile, because they are wetter, and because basalt contains an ideal mixture of the nutrient ...

Basalt Rock Dust Increases Carbon Capture Fourfold

A research team within the Leverhulme Centre for Climate Change Mitigation has demonstrated basalt rock dust as a method of improving crop yield and sequestering carbon.

High Times at Equinox Farm: Ted Dobson talks cannabis, coronavirus and Ancient Greeks

BEN GARVER — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE Ted Dobson, owner of Equinox Farm in Sheffield, is working with Theory Wellness to grow cannabis outdoors in Sheffield, Wednesday, October 9, 2019. Remineralizing agricultural soil is as old as agriculture itself, says Ted Dobson, general manager and farmer-in-chief at Equinox Farm in the Berkshires in Sheffield, Massachusetts. “We all know that soils are particularly made up of rock minerals. Eventually, some of those particles are no longer being regenerated. That’s what we’re really talking about with rock dust — it’s about the regeneration of things that are missing. Once upon a time, [the minerals] ...

A True Hero: Bernardo Castro Medina Intensifies His Remineralization Efforts in 2020

Version original en Español: https://www.remineralize.org/2020/04/un-verdadero-heroe-bernardo-castro-medina-intensifica-sus-esfuerzos-de-remineralizacion-en-2020/ Bernardo Castro Medina is a remineralization superhero for our time! Through his ongoing workshops for farmers and his yearly Expo and conference, he has facilitated many tens of thousands of hectares of agriculture in Mexico going organic while using rock dust with some of the most sophisticated formulations to be found anywhere in the world. This is a good example of the potential for agriculture to store carbon in our soils and create lasting soil fertility. --Joanna Campe, Executive ...

Un Verdadero Héroe: Bernardo Castro Medina intensifica sus esfuerzos de remineralización en 2020

Bernardo Castro, agricultor de Sinaloa y presidente de Ecoagro, quien lleva más de 22 años trabajando para generar conciencia a los agricultores sobre la importancia de agricultura ecológica, nos explica como los agricultores ven que en un corto plazo sus sistemas tradicionales de cultivo serán cada vez menos sostenibles debido a su alta dependencia de insumos, por lo que la agricultura orgánica se presenta como una opción interesante. Sin embargo, es fundamental una adecuada fertilidad del suelo para asegurar una producción de calidad, dice Bernardo. Actualmente, Ecoagro continúa trabajando con la crianza de lombriz californiana y en ...

Alex Podolinsky (1925-2019) Was an Australian Biodynamic Farming Giant

In 1988 I had the good fortune, along with my husband Christian, to assist Christopher Bird and Peter Tompkins on their upcoming book Secrets of the Soil, after their previous worldwide bestseller The Secret Life of Plants. I assisted on the chapters, “The Dust of Life” and “Life and Death in the Forest,” which focused on remineralization. During that year, Christopher Bird travelled to Australia to join Alex Podolinsky on his yearly tour of biodynamic farms, which covered over a million and a quarter acres of land. Christopher would send the hand-written scripts to me to give to Peter Tompkins. While on their tour from farm to farm, Alex ...