Question from Dan Mangum: I have been using biodynamic preps (including the 3 Kings) and I am getting an increasing amount of insect/pollinator diversity and quantity. I had problems with yellow jackets eating the cherries but after balancing the soil and trees that has subsided. This year I have a LOT of songbirds and such,…
Category: Biodynamics
The Discovery of Horn Clay and Biodynamics
By Hugh Lovel With thousands of lectures and uncounted insights Rudolf Steiner launched anthroposophy as a study of human wisdom. With extraordinary learning in both the classics and modern science, Steiner combined his immense erudition with innate clear seeing gifts to forge a vision of the world that at once was both spiritual and scientific….
Biodynamic Banana Culture
By Hugh Lovel The first biodynamic banana farm I consulted for was in Innisfail, Far Northern Queensland in 2005. It was a bit upland on the coastal side of the Dividing Range with good rainfall and awesome red basalt soils. The grower showed me a picture from his first banana harvest 40 years previously where…
Let’s talk about carbon
If we’re going to attract the life forces that agriculture feeds to human society as a whole to keep it alive, then we have to collect carbon. Let’s talk about carbon. Carbon is associated with the earth element, and of course we’ve got water, air and fire as well. Sometimes carbon is called the Philosopher’s…
Hugh answers Ibo Zimmermann, Deputy Director Agriculture and Natural Resources Sciences Namibia University of Science and Technology
Dear Ibo, How biodynamic does a farm have to be to be biodynamic? Here is what Rudolf Steiner had to say about farms: A farm is true to its essential nature, in the best sense of the word, if it is conceived as a kind of individual entity in itself — a self-contained individuality. Every…
Weather Moderation: Drawing Rain Using Biodynamic Preparations
Biodynamic Preparations and Drought
Hugh Lovel
How certain notions arise and become entrenched is a bit of a mystery, especially when they are wrong. Yet they do get started and entrenched. One of these is the belief that when things dry up and little moisture is available we cannot put out biodynamic preparations—as if these were delicate microbial cultures that must have moist conditions to establish and thrive. This is so far from true it seems impossible that it ever got started. Yet it did.
Essential Oils in Plants using Biodynamic Preparations
Dear Hugh and Shabari, Trust you enjoyed your trip to SA and will return with more of your wisdom. I heard talk that we could receive the recording but this did not happen?? Please could you help me understand the biology or process of oil production in plants. Rosemary or Rose petals for instance…. I…
Ending Global Warming
“You can’t be free when you depend on someone else for your food.” –Wendell Berry News Flash: Man-made warming may have begun earlier than we thought Gayathri Vaidyanathan, E&E reporter ClimateWire: Thursday, August 25, 2016 Before gasoline-powered cars crowded roads, before even the first coal-fired power plant was built in the United States, humans had…
Humus Flywheel Effect
There is a common belief that humus is the result of the breakdown of organic materials in the soil. While this is true it is less than true because the organic materials do need to break down into simple organic compounds—and from there they need to be built back up again into large, complex carbon…
Biodynamic Preps for Drought
BD Preparations and Drought By Hugh Lovel How certain notions arise and become entrenched is a bit of a mystery, especially when they are wrong. Yet they do get started and entrenched. One of these is the belief that when things dry up and little moisture is available we cannot put out biodynamic preparations—as if…
Quantum Agriculture 