The wiki
Look it up, the plain way.
Short, plain-English pages on the minerals, the ideas and the crops of this way of farming.
start with
59 pages: 19 minerals, 28 ideas, 11 crops and Steve’s sayings
The index
Nineteen minerals, twenty-eight ideas, eleven crops.
A short page for each, in plain English, pointing back to the episode it comes from where there is one. Search them, or start with the newest.
The whole wiki
In the order a program is built.
Start with why, build the soil, pour the foundation and keep the engine running. Then time it to the stage, mix it right, and read what the plant is telling you.
Start with why
What a crop is for, and what healthy looks like.
- Episode 1Two levers Recoveries Yield is what you grow. Recoveries are what gets through grading and paid for, and that’s where the profit is. Do your own sums.
- Episode 2The plant is the scorecard Soil health Balancing a soil test isn’t health. The plant is the scorecard, and what counts is what happens around the root.
Build the soil
Carbon and life first, then the minerals.
- Carbon carries it Kelp, fish, humic and fulvic In Steve’s programs, carbon goes on with every mineral: fulvic acid to carry it, humic acid to build, kelp’s signals, and fish to feed the soil’s life.
- The pantry, not the meal Reading a soil test A soil test shows what’s in the pantry, not what the plant eats. Read it for the big things, and let the plant keep the score.
- The soil’s bank Organic matter Everything in the soil that was once alive. Only a few parts in a hundred, it feeds the life, holds minerals, and builds the crumb.
- Roots in the gap Cover crops A crop grown for the soil, not to sell. Choose it for the job the next crop needs, and finish it in time.
- A millimetre or two The root zone The thin layer of soil right around each root, which the plant makes itself: where it trades sugar for minerals, and sets its own pH by what it takes up.
- Two kinds of calcium Lime and gypsum Both put calcium on the soil, for different jobs: lime for an acid soil, gypsum for a sodic one. And the pan that neither will fix.
- Two roads Changing over Two roads into this way of farming: a side-by-side trial the pack shed decides, or all in, with the sap test as the safety net.
Pour the foundation
The three amigos, then the lone wolf.
- Episode 4Concrete first The foundation Steve’s picture of quality: calcium, boron and silicon are the concrete. Build the house on it, then fill it with potassium.
- Episode 4One of the three amigos Calcium The glue between cells. It rides the water, then stays put, so fruit takes it in fastest while it’s young, and slower as it sizes.
- Episode 4One of the three amigos Boron Ties the cell walls together, and gets the pollen to the seed. A little goes a long way, and too much burns.
- Episode 4One of the three amigos Silicon Laid down as glass in the cell walls: armour against fungi and chewing insects, and backbone in the heat.
- Episode 4Earn the right Potassium Fills the house: water, sugar and fruit size. Earn the right to use it, once the foundation’s poured.
Keep the engine running
The leaf that pays for everything.
- Episode 3Under the bonnet Photosynthetic efficiency How much of the sun a crop turns into sugar. The engine that pays for everything, and what keeps it running.
- Episode 3The one to check Manganese Where the leaf splits water to start photosynthesis. Short of it, the engine runs rough before you can see it.
- Episode 3Old leaves first Magnesium The heart of every chlorophyll molecule, and the sugar mover. Short of it, old leaves yellow between the veins.
- Episode 3Needed early Phosphorus How the plant spends its energy: every cell does its work with it. Needed early, then wherever the crop builds its yield, and it barely moves in the soil.
- Episode 3In before the pollen Copper Tens of grams a hectare go into the plant’s wood and its pollen. Short of it as the heads form, a grain crop comes up empty.
- Episode 3Plenty, but locked up Iron A trace mineral, but a crop takes up more of it than of most. Almost every soil holds plenty, but locked up like rust, and on limy or wet ground the young leaves go yellow between green veins.
Nitrogen into protein
A liability until it’s built.
- Episode 5A liability until it’s a protein Nitrogen A liability until the plant builds it into protein. Total and free nitrogen, and why all nitrogen is not equal.
- Episode 5Works with nitrogen Sulfur Built into protein beside nitrogen, and the bite in an onion. Short of it, the young leaves go pale.
- Episode 5Grams, not kilograms Molybdenum Grams, not kilograms, but it runs the first step from nitrate to protein, and legumes’ nodules need it to fix nitrogen.
- Episode 5Little leaf Zinc A trace, but a busy one: it helps build protein and stretch new growth. Short of it, new leaves come out small and bunched.
The rest of the table
Smaller jobs, and the two that turn to salt.
- Slows the letting go Cobalt A trace that slows ethylene, the hormone of ripening and letting go, and that legumes’ nodules need to fix nitrogen.
- Sulfur’s cousin Selenium A trace that helps a crop put out the sparks stress makes. It follows sulfur in, and it’s in the food of the stock and people who eat the crop.
- From the sea Iodine Not yet settled as a plant nutrient, but a little seems to help a crop through stress. It comes from the sea, and kelp brings it.
- Breaks down urea Nickel The newest mineral on the list, needed in one of the smallest amounts: it runs urease, which breaks urea down so its nitrogen can become protein.
- Fills, doesn’t build Chlorine A little chloride is a nutrient, and the crop nearly always has it. Too much is salt, and early on it fills cells with water before they’re built.
- Potassium’s look-alike Sodium Salt’s other half. To a root it looks like potassium, and in the soil it pulls the clay’s crumbs apart. Calcium is the cure.
Time it to the stage
Stage, not calendar.
- Episode 4Quality from density Cell division windows Fruit makes most of its cells early, in days for beans and weeks for avocados. Quality is set in that window.
- Episode 4, 6Fill the house Sizing and bulking Once the cells are made, the crop fills them. That’s where the tonnes come from, and it’s potassium’s time, once it’s earned it.
- Episode 6, 8Push or pull Maturity The finish: the stage that decides what gets paid for, and a crop can be pushed or pulled a few days to meet the harvester.
- Episode 6The flight plan Critical stages of influence Giving the plant what it needs at each part of the season. Steve builds every program on its stages: a plan to pin on the wall.
- Episode 6Four ways in Foliar or soil At planting, onto the soil, through the water or onto the leaf. What each way in is for, and why the foliars follow the stages.
- Steady when it counts Water by stage Water has a stage, like every input: moist at the start, never short while the cells are made, plenty and steady while they fill.
Mix it right
What sits together in the tank, and what doesn’t.
- A jar before a tankful Jar and bucket tests Some products don’t mix. A jar test finds out in half an hour, and a bucket test shows more of what the tank and its filters will do.
- A claw, not a magnet Chelators A chelator holds a mineral so it’s much less likely to react on the way. The natural ones hand it over and become food. The synthetic ones hold on like magnets.
Read the plant
What it’s telling you, and where to look.
- Episode 3A moving picture Sap testing One test is a snapshot. A run of them shows which way the plant is heading, often early enough to act.
- Episode 3Old leaves or new? Mobile & immobile minerals Some minerals move around the plant and some stay put. Where a shortage shows tells you which to look for.
- Episode 4Look along the lines Mulder’s chart A ring of minerals with lines between them: too much of one holds another back, and more of one makes the plant want more of another. Read it a few lines at a time.
- Start with where it shows What am I seeing? Something’s wrong in the crop. Where on the plant it shows is the first clue to what it is.
- A reading on the spot Brix and meters A refractometer and a few handheld meters read the sap in the paddock, in minutes, between the lab’s reports.
- The answer below ground Dig a plant The leaves show what’s happened; the roots and the soil around them show why. A spade and a glass of water tell you a lot.
- Episode 7Why is that pest there? Pests & plant health A pest is a message about plant health. Ask why it’s there before you reach for the spray.
- What’s eating the pests? Insects on your side Most insects in a crop aren’t pests. Many of them hunt pests, and every one you keep is one less job for the sprayer.
- Episode 2Three degrees hotter Stress & salt Heat, frost, dry, wet and salt. What a stressed plant does to save itself, why it costs most in a critical stage, and how to have the crop ready.
Crop by crop
Different crops, same fundamentals.
- Episode 8What does your market want? Potatoes Start with the bag. How many potatoes set, and how evenly, is decided at stolon set, weeks before there’s one worth digging.
- Episode 8Paid by the capsule Poppies Paid for the capsule: its weight, and what’s in it. Two jobs, and a plan on the shed wall for both.
- Episode 8Days, not weeks Beans Ten weeks from sowing to picking, and the pods make their cells in days. There’s no time to catch up.
- Episode 8The root is the crop Carrots What’s underground is what you sell, and every root is graded. Whether a carrot forks is settled in its first weeks.
- Episode 8Every ring was a leaf Onions An onion bulb is made of its leaves. Grow them before the days lengthen, then fill the rings, finish the necks, and it keeps.
- Episode 8Flowers as it fruits Tomatoes and capsicums A plant that flowers as it fruits. Set each truss through the heat, keep the water steady so calcium reaches the fruit, and colour it with potassium once it’s earned.
- Episode 8Built in steps Wheat A wheat yield is heads, times grains, times the weight of each, and each is set at its own stage. The grade is settled long before the silo.
- Episode 8Hold the fruit Cotton Every square held is a boll to be, and every fibre is a single cell: long first, then thick. Hold the fruit, then fill it.
- Episode 8The flush and the fruit Avocados The fruit sets just as the spring flush grows out past it, and both want the calcium. What reaches the box was settled weeks before.
- Episode 8The first six weeks Apples An apple makes its cells in the six weeks after bloom. Thin early, keep the calcium coming and earn the potassium, or meet bitter pit in the cool store.
- Episode 8Two seasons at once Tree crops A tree carries one season into the next: it wakes on what it stored, and this year’s fruit and next year’s flowers grow at once.