Synthetic Vs. Organic: Not So Black And White

[stutter]

But there is so much more to growing than just yield and turnover.

I have seen the weed that mentality produces.

 

[shemshemet]

Pretty sure if anyone did side by side vegged a plant 2 weeks organic one 1 syn same strain the syn would be double the size and litterlly double in yield one person uses teas or what ever foilar spray on other hand one uses chems on foilar spray still chem would win growth , size and yield of the plant its a no brainer and anyone trying to compare the 2 is full of shit chem will win
If anyone was to compare conventional farming to organic farming pretty much one sided who wins every time this also means same for here
this becomes preference really like my self i grow organic rain water only no hand watering true organics no teas no amendments just compost but when indoor besides everyone wanting bug free environment how many organic indoor growers you know with out gnats , root aphids or any other pest we see it all the time hence for indoor growing chem is the way to go in my world
Again do whats best for your situation

I'll take the bait....I don't have fungus gnats or root aphids nor any other pest. I've eliminated spider mites and aphids. Through "organic methods". Neem oil and lady bugs did it both times. And a nice clean to the room.

Oh and Bti

 

[squiggly]

Much the same way that the bacteria covering your skin actually serve to protect you from skin infections by taking up the real estate that other pathogenic bugs want to use, having a rich population of microbial life in an organic grow can go a long way to preventing infestation in the first place.

 

[squiggly]

But there is so much more to growing than just yield and turnover.

I have seen the weed that mentality produces.

This is true but the science world is dominated by food. We suck at food (we waste a lot and there are eventually going to be too many of us even if we were efficient).

So we mostly worry about yield in science. For lack of a better way to put it, it's all a bunch of speculation in organic vs synthetic.

Personal experiences notwithstanding there's not a lot we can point to that says look, here, we can reproducibly show that this is the case every time.

The work just isn't don't because no one cares how good the fruit is in agriculture. They care what it weighs and how pretty it looks.

 

[shemshemet]

The work just isn't don't because no one cares how good the fruit is in agriculture. They care what it weighs and how pretty it looks.

Except maybe grapes, and cannabis...and a couple foodies....

Can we lead the way?

 

[Seamaiden]

So we mostly worry about yield in science. For lack of a better way to put it, it's all a bunch of speculation in organic vs synthetic.

In the field, the actual scientific field of human nutrition, that myth is being dispelled, quickly. One example of that is how we are learning that foods, and what foods, should be eaten in combination. Probiotics, anyone? Just go back to my very first post in this thread.

 

[Sativied]

The work just isn't don't because no one cares how good the fruit is in agriculture. They care what it weighs and how pretty it looks.

"To make wholesome, nutritious, tasty and safe foods, it is essential that food scientists pool their knowledge and resources together in a multidisciplinary approach. With approximately 15,000 scientists, employed by nearly 1,500 food related companies, the Netherlands is a center of the food formulating world. The Dutch government puts a high value on developing nutritious foods, as the country recognizes the impact that a poor diet has on health, and, as a consequence, public health care." .

"An estimate is that 70% of all the vegetables grown in the United States have Dutch genetics."

Excuse the nationalism... research into breeding and growing food is obviously a big thing here, and while I cannot derive any expertise from that myself, I do read a lot of research from said scientists and our agri uni and they never focus on yield alone. When it comes to yield the goal is always improving the yield without sacrificing quality in terms of nutrition value, looks, and taste. They measure kg/m2 (yield) but also things like sugar vitamin contents, and test for texture and taste rigorously. Whether it comes to using synth nutes or LED or alternative light schedules for example, they care about every aspect of the product, not just weight and looks.

 

[shemshemet]

"To make wholesome, nutritious, tasty and safe foods, it is essential that food scientists pool their knowledge and resources together in a multidisciplinary approach. With approximately 15,000 scientists, employed by nearly 1,500 food related companies, the Netherlands is a center of the food formulating world. The Dutch government puts a high value on developing nutritious foods, as the country recognizes the impact that a poor diet has on health, and, as a consequence, public health care." .

"An estimate is that 70% of all the vegetables grown in the United States have Dutch genetics."

Excuse the nationalism... research into breeding and growing food is obviously a big thing here, and while I cannot derive any expertise from that myself, I do read a lot of research from said scientists and our agri uni and they never focus on yield alone. When it comes to yield the goal is always improving the yield without sacrificing quality in terms of nutrition value, looks, and taste. They measure kg/m2 (yield) but also things like sugar vitamin contents, and test for texture and taste rigorously. Whether it comes to using synth nutes or LED or alternative light schedules for example, they care about every aspect of the product, not just weight and looks.

I agree that yield is not the only thing being looked at. But I do believe yield is one of the most important factors. And you say the goal is improving the yield without sacrificing quality. Well I think what the argument to that is, and what the process should bear in mind: quality should be improved without sacrificing yield.

 

[Sativied]

I agree that yield is not the only thing being looked at. But I do believe yield is one of the most important factors. And you say the goal is improving the yield without sacrificing quality. Well I think what the argument to that is, and what the process should bear in mind: quality should be improved without sacrificing yield.

In an ideal world perhaps. The problem the world is facing, however, is not a lack of qualitative great food but needing an ever increasing amount of it. Like you said, yield is one of the most important factors. That's not a choice based solely on wanting to fill pockets but to fill more mouths with food of the highest quality. Above all, synth nutes do not force a trade off between quantity and quality.

 

[shemshemet]

Agreed, in an ideal world.

You are right that the problem is an ever increasing amount of food.

But to fix the problem, we should fix the cause. If the cause were low yielding crops, the fix would be to breed in higher yields.

Unfortunately the cause is not low yielding crops. The causes are improper utilization of farmland (ie govt subsidized corn and soy), outdated methods which yield to help only large conventional non food-crop farms, and many others.

So, while the busy bodies are at work improving yield, they must be sacrificing somewhere else. This could be taste, nutrition (which could be closely related to *gasp* taste), storage factors, disease resistance, etc.

As much as they might try, when quality is not a 100% perfect, objective, obtainable, tangible thing, some factors of quality might be pushed into the woodworks. And so the cycle repeats of needing more, and breeding for more.

And all in all, not for better.....

 

[Sativied]

If the cause were low yielding crops, the fix would be to breed in higher yields.

While breeding is the primary factor in improving yields over the past decades and more, and leaves a lot more room for improvement than nute types, breeding is not a cure-all for lower yields caused by organic growing.

I don't entirely agree with your other conclusions as well, especially the "must" part. Like I said, there's no forced trade off. If for example a method increases the quantity of tomatoes harvested per year but after, again rigorous testing, decreases the quality in any way, the method is not used. People would buy canadian or mexican tomatoes instead.

when quality is not a 100% perfect, objective, obtainable, tangible thing, some factors of quality might be pushed into the woodworks.

Not 100% but close enough. Taste is here is tested at the here well known CSO ("centre for taste research") with large panel of people and in general quality of food is lot better quantified and measured than we do with cannabis. Taste is not just a matter of taste, quality is not entirely subjective either, it's chemistry.

But... that said, if a method leads to improved quality but comes with a significant yield reduction it's not likely to be implemented either. An approach that would not care about yield but solely about quality would surely lead to better quality on the long run. That's however the extreme opposite of the point I was refuting (that agriculturists only care about increasing yield regardless of impact on quality).

EDIT: Just to give an impression of how far they go:


http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Exper...emes-1/Flavour-research-Fruits-Vegetables.htm

Food Chemistry Molecular flavour science


"Taste and smell properties are widely recognised as the most important aspects determining the choice of foods by the consumer [and any competitive farmer]"
"Modern food companies focus more and more on producing healthier food products (less salt, sugar and/or healthy/less fats, adding health-beneficial components, such as peptides) and most of these changes affect the overall perceived flavour quality in a negative manner, his means that we have to be able to compensate for this, in order to make the healthy choice the easy choice."

 

[Seamaiden]

I'm still reading an article by Andre Leu (sp? gotta go back and double check) discussing what benefits are to be reaped by going organic. Water sequestration and infiltration. Sequestration of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. Outperformance of conventional during drought, equivalent performance (in terms of yield) when weather is cooperative. Superior watershed characteristics.

Those are just a few.

 

[squiggly]

"To make wholesome, nutritious, tasty and safe foods, it is essential that food scientists pool their knowledge and resources together in a multidisciplinary approach. With approximately 15,000 scientists, employed by nearly 1,500 food related companies, the Netherlands is a center of the food formulating world. The Dutch government puts a high value on developing nutritious foods, as the country recognizes the impact that a poor diet has on health, and, as a consequence, public health care." .

"An estimate is that 70% of all the vegetables grown in the United States have Dutch genetics."

Excuse the nationalism... research into breeding and growing food is obviously a big thing here, and while I cannot derive any expertise from that myself, I do read a lot of research from said scientists and our agri uni and they never focus on yield alone. When it comes to yield the goal is always improving the yield without sacrificing quality in terms of nutrition value, looks, and taste. They measure kg/m2 (yield) but also things like sugar vitamin contents, and test for texture and taste rigorously. Whether it comes to using synth nutes or LED or alternative light schedules for example, they care about every aspect of the product, not just weight and looks.

The research delves into this, but industry does not generally.

There are no nutrition facts reporting requirements for most of this stuff the world over. IE, there is no quality control. The industry is paid by weight. If it's free they will make it better. If it costs a penny they'd rather make it weigh more. That's just capitalism doing it's thing.

 

[nazarbattu]

The research delves into this, but industry does not generally.

There are no nutrition facts reporting requirements for most of this stuff the world over. IE, there is no quality control. The industry is paid by weight. If it's free they will make it better. If it costs a penny they'd rather make it weigh more. That's just capitalism doing it's thing.

Capitalism puts a cap on quality....

 

[DrFever]

but the truth is what keeping a open mind a vitamin is vitamin many thing influence plant growth most importantly nutrients organics is not readily available in large forms it needs to be broken down where as chemical nutrients are readily available taste tests after taste tests have shown de hard organic consumers couldn;t pick the organic grown in taste test
they fell into well that banana is bigger or apple there fore its chem fed BS but wait a min here
if you eat a small apple vs large apple would this not mean your getting more vitamins per size of the fruit
i tend to say yes you do
so there from my conclusion is bigger fruits tested will have more vitamins per

 

[nazarbattu]

but the truth is what keeping a open mind a vitamin is vitamin many thing influence plant growth most importantly nutrients organics is not readily available in large forms it needs to be broken down where as chemical nutrients are readily available taste tests after taste tests have shown de hard organic consumers couldn;t pick the organic grown in taste test
they fell into well that banana is bigger or apple there fore its chem fed BS but wait a min here
if you eat a small apple vs large apple would this not mean your getting more vitamins per size of the fruit
i tend to say yes you do
so there from my conclusion is bigger fruits tested will have more vitamins per

Are you from Texas? Just playing but seriously, bigger is not always better.

 

[DrFever]

lets put it this way if you poured 3/4 of a cup of apple juice you would have 87 calories , 2 units of vit A and 2 units of Vit C

If you were to drink 1 1/2 cups of same juice would you would it be the same 87 calories 2 and 2 or
174 calories and 4 and 4 ???
whats your guess

 

[SpitXFire]

I don't get how capitalism as a whole puts a cap on quality.... What's better unit A with x Amt for say 100? Or unit B with x+1 Amt for 100, everything else being equal? That's capitalism.. What's better brand name drugs or generics? Also capitalism... It's easy to blame a system for its faults, but it seems a bunch of people never stop to see its benefits... Capitalism is like synthetics it's a vehicle, don't blame the vehicle for the operators faults

 

[SpitXFire]

In fact I would wager the opposite, capitalism is more often the driving force behind innovation, behind the updrive in quality...

 

[ken dog]

lets put it this way if you poured 3/4 of a cup of apple juice you would have 87 calories , 2 units of vit A and 2 units of Vit C

If you were to drink 1 1/2 cups of same juice would you would it be the same 87 calories 2 and 2 or
174 calories and 4 and 4 ???
whats your guess

It's not a guess... Double is delivered.