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True Profit Comes From The Soil—Or Does It?

It depends how you look at it.  You could say that true profit actually comes from the sun.  Profit comes when plants harness solar energy.  Without sunlight plants cannot function.  Consider this, sunlight is:

Thus we could say that true profit ultimately comes from the sun—not soil.

Wait a minute!  I hear many saying.  If all it takes to make a profit is sunlight what about all the deserts?  They have plenty of sunlight and virtually no profitability.  This, of course, is absolutely correct.  Without proper moisture, biology, and fertility in the soil solar energy cannot be harnessed.  Here we see that the condition of our soil governs the efficiency of how plants utilize solar energy.  To put it more succinctly: Soil Health Governs the Flow of “Solar Dollars.”

Healthy soil is created when the soil has the right levels and ratios of nutrients along with soil biology and humus.  Fertilizers and soil amendments are another form of energy that must be present to grow a healthy crop.  Since the energy in sunlight is a given, the most return or profit comes when we optimize soil health.  In this sense true profit does come from the soil.

The final form of energy needed to grow a quality crop is human energy / intervention.  This is best illustrated with a story. 

One day a preacher was visiting one of the members of his church.  The member was a farmer and gardener.  Through many long years he had cultivated an exquisite garden filled with many beautiful landscapes.  The preacher was overwhelmed with all its beauty and quickly remarked: “Wow—the Lord sure has given you a beautiful place.”  After a short pause the farmer replied “Well you should have this place when the Lord had the land all to himself.”

In short, profitable farming is all about using human energy and geological resources to optimize soil health in order to utilize “free” solar energy.  This can be illustrated by a sailboat.  If we have specific destination (sustainable profit) and need to get there with a sailboat (our farming operation) it will not happen without wind (solar energy).  The likelihood of arriving at a specific destination with only a sailboat and wind is virtually zero.  The course of direction must be guided by the rudder (mineral energy / soil health).  For the rudder to be properly positioned it requires somebody at the helm guiding the steering wheel (human energy / intervention).

The question we have for you today is: How well are you capturing solar energy?

In our upcoming class we help growers and consultants understand how to create healthy soil in order to increase sustainable profit.

We invite your participation,

Dan, Wendell, Jon

P.S.  Mark you calendars for January 28 and 29.  We expect this class to sell out before the pre-registration date, which is January 11th 2008.  This year we will only be offering this class one time—in family-friendly Branson Missouri.  For more information on the itinerary, speakers, offline registration, and hotel reservation see the brochure linked below.

Itinerary -- True Profit Comes From The Soil

High Brix Gardens Web Site

The high brix method of growning fruits and vegetables is proven to be the best way to obtain the highest nutrition from the soil. We've launced a new High Brix Gardens web site just to focus on how to make the method work in your garden. We've added a mailing list to stay current with the latest high brix news. Please check it out at www.highbrixgardens.com.