Bio-dynamic farms and horn manure
wineandfoodtube | 05/29/2008
Bio-dynamic agriculture, an enhanced organic method, was founded on a series of eight lectures given by Dr Rudolf Steiner in 1924 at Schloss Koberwitz in what was then Silesia, Germany. It has developed most successfully in Australia, in the 1950’s Alex Podolinsky took over to fulfill Steiner's wish that it become the agricultural method for farmers in the future. In Australia, over two million acres 0.8 million hectares) are farmed Bio-dynamically, more than the rest of the world put together! Australian professional Bio-dynamic agriculture, as developed by Alex and the farmer members of the Bio-dynamic Agricultural Association of Australia, has been adopted by hundreds of farmers in Europe with the same exceptional results as have been demonstrated in Australia.
Field preparations, for stimulating humus formation:
* 500: (horn-manure) a humus mixture prepared by filling the horn of a cow with cow manure and burying it in the ground (40–60 cm below the surface) in the autumn. It is left to decompose during the winter and recovered for use the following spring.
* 501: Crushed powdered quartz prepared by stuffing it into a horn of a cow and buried into the ground in spring and taken out in autumn. It can be mixed with 500 but usually prepared on its own (mixture of 1 tablespoon of quartz powder to 250 litres of water) the mixture is sprayed under very low pressure over the crop during the wet season to prevent fungal diseases. It should be sprayed on an overcast day or early in the morning to prevent burning of the leaves.
Both 500 and 501 are used on fields by stirring about one teaspoon of the contents of a horn in 40–60 litres of water for an hour and whirling it in different directions every second minute.
View video of a bio-dynamic farm in Australia
