Landrace Gardening: Fertilizing Landraces

Reader Contribution by Joseph Lofthouse
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Landrace gardening allows us to minimize the cost and labor of adding fertilizer to our gardens by selecting for plants that thrive in the pre-existing soil.

Mega-agriculture generally takes the approach of growing highly inbred cultivars, and then conducting tests and applying fertilizers to modify the surface of the soil to provide the exact nutrients required by each clone. As a landrace gardener I have chosen a different path. I accept my soil as it is and do not try to modify it. Then I plant a wide variety of genetically diverse crops and select among them for those plants that thrive in my soil. I localize my plants to my garden. I do not modify my garden to fit the plants.

Here’s a photo of what my popcorn crop looked like about ten days ago. It was grown without fertilizer in a field that has not been fertilized in 5 years. It was just starting to tassel, and since that time it has shot up even taller. Many of the cobs are at eye level which makes them very resistant to pheasants, raccoons, skunks, and other corn eating animals.

It has been my experience that a well-adapted localized landrace grows better without fertilizer than a non-adapted off-the-shelf variety grows with fertilizer.

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