A very tough growing year…

One very tough growing year for a lot of sections of the country which followed what I thought was one of the toughest weather years on record.  I won’t be making that statement again after the year we just went through.  Have you seen the flood pictures from Vermont?  Did you see the pictures of the floods in my home state of New Jersey this summer?  Is everyone aware of how dry it was this year in Texas and surrounding areas?  They are giving away/destroying  livestock because they don’t have water to give the animals!  Do you guys on the right side of the country know how much money the guys on the left side of the country spend on water?  Water – that’s a great big topic for another day!

…every year we go through one of these hot/dry/extreme weather years the more and more I am convinced that getting a carbon foundation in the soil is a necessity for anyone growing grass.

I am very happy to announce that our “Carbon Based Fertility” guys did pretty well this year albeit still a tough year, but every year we go through one of these hot/dry/extreme weather years the more and more I am convinced that getting a carbon foundation in the soil is a necessity for anyone growing grass.  Twenty some years ago I came up with the phrase “Balance the Chemistry and Feed the Soil” and I think with today’s economy that these words ring truer than ever before.

Balance the Chemistry is getting your soil tests in balance chemically so that we can open the soil physically allowing for a better biological profile in the soil.

Feeding the Soil is Carbon Based Fertility that balances the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio in the soil.  How simple!  And it always works, it may take longer in weaker soils but it always works and problems become less and recovery is better and most superintendents tell me that weekends are better with their family than putting out fires!!!

I had the great privilege of speaking at the ACRES USA conference a few weeks ago.  For those unfamiliar, ACRES USA is the voice of sustainable agriculture and is a place whre a lot of really good soils thinking goes on.  One of the strongest voices in sustainable agriculture is Jerry Brunetti, who happens to be my co-founder at EarthWorks and my soils mentor!

Other speakers at the conference from our team were Bill McKibben who was signing his new book that I highly recommend entitled “The Art of Balancing Soils”  which is available at www.acresusa.com or from Logan Labs at www.loganlabs.com.  Logan Labs leans on Bill for agronomic expertise and he has been extremely helpful to all of us here at EarthWorks more times than is probably polite!

Two other people we count on quite a bit for technical expertise who both spoke at ACRES were John Kempf  and Lawrence Mayhew.  John has been helping us build our liquid product line and Lawrence is a true expert in humic acids and has been instrumental in helping us with our new micronized humic acid technology used in all of our liquid products.  If all works out well this coming year we will have both gentlemen on webinars through the EW website.  Keep and eye out!

Keep an eye out for a fat man in a red suit soon as well and make sure he cleans up the raindeer mess on the roof!!!  Merry Christmas.