This roundtable was originally published October 2, 2015.
About the Upstart Farmers Roundtables
Upstart Farmers Roundtables are an informal, biweekly event. Using Google Hangouts video calling, a small group of Upstart Farmers comes together to share their experiences and learn from each other. Each week is guided by a discussion topic, with growers welcome to ask their own questions.
Roundtables are exclusively for Upstart Farmers, and recordings are only released to the Upstart Farmers Community.
Roundtable: Organic vs. Inorganic Systems and Solutions
Today’s discussion is about the different nutrient cycles, not so much about organic labels.
Defining organic vs. inorganic
Inorganic: non-carbon based solutions. I.e.- chemicals or ions that aren’t attached to carbon in any way, shape or form.
Organic: organic solids, carbon-based molecules that have to be degraded, torn apart, and metabolized in order to release the nutrients in the exact same form as the inorganic solutions so the plants can take it up. Aquaponic systems are organic by default because it’s all fish waste, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and compounds that have to be broken down or oxidized into inorganic salts in order to be absorbed by the plants.
How do organic nutrients work in a solution?
It’s almost always biological. Whether you’re in an aquaponics system where you have microbes that break down the fish poop, or your in a hydroponic solution in which you are using an organic solutions, it comes down to biological processes. Once it’s in there the microbes have to oxidize, mineralize and break it down into an inorganic form.
For example, protein in feed has a lot of nitrogen and other potentially useful minerals and elements. Microbes attack that protein, break it down to gain energy, and as a result you get an amino acid. Then an amino acid is broken down which leaves you with charged ammonia ions. Other microbes will take those and oxidze them to nitrite and nitrate which the plants take it up. Then the plants reverse the process and reduce it to build an amino acid, and build a protein.
Basically microbes break the organic nutrients down to a small pieces and then they are rebuilt inside the plant. It’s a pretty energy intensive process.
What are the productivity differences between organic and inorganic solutions/systems?
Aquaponics production can in some instances, match hydroponic production. However, any time you are using an unformulated solution in your system, you are increasing the number of unknown variables. This makes it much harder to manage for nutrient deficiencies and control your productivity like you would in an inorganic system.
In an aquaponics system, most producers just visually monitor their plants, and then do corrections as it makes sense. Often times, it is too late. So, if you are doing a big time aquaponcis system, it requires you to constantly send their organic solutions and leaf samples to labs and then proactively dose your system with make-up nutrients.This is time and labor consuming and expensive. Even worse, these test are generally tested in such a way that doesn’t actually measure or communicate what is actually plant available or on what time line it could be plant available.
Tip: Don’t use fish feed stock that contain feather-meal! Feather-meal bumps up listed protein levels, but it’s not digestible and ends up on the bottom of your tank. So, if you’re using something like AquaMax, you might consider something like Scretting instead that doesn’t use feather-meal. If it ends up in your solution, it will give you a false reading because the nitrogen is not in it’s elemental, plant-available form.
If you are growing with an organic hydroponic solution, you can get a lot closer to an ideal nutrient mix because they are formulated. There is nutrient testing done and you know the ratios of plant nutrients in the solution. However, there are still a lot of big question marks around organic hydroponic solutions, especially relating to microbial communities. As a result, converting those plant nutrients into usable elements in your system is a bit tricky. But, if you have experience running an aquaponic system, you will be well suited to be more successful with an organic hydroponic system than the average producer. At this point, Nate does not have an organic hydroponic solution that he would be confident recommending.
Overall, we tend to see depressed production in organic systems in comparison to inorganic systems.
What are the market and premium pricing opportunities? Are they still viable with depressed production?
There are a lot of great opportunities for successfully marketing your farm as organic. If you do the research, are fortunate enough to have a certifier who will certify your farm organic, and you have the market demand for organic, you are in a great position to go for this. There are a lot of market opportunities. Organic is recognized every where now, and even people who don’t care about organic will buy organic. The market has done an incredible job of convincing us that it is better and worth the extra cost.
Although as producers we may notice depressed production, the average consumer will not. And if they are in the market with the intent to shop organic, they will likely still chose your product and pay more for it, even if it is a slightly smaller head.
With all that being said, it’s important to remember that consumers have almost no brand loyalty within the produce category at the market. So, you’re still competing on pricing within your product category. That’s why we strongly recommend you go down to the store, focus on local, shake hands, invite peoples to your farm, give them samples, and so on to build that loyalty in the market. Then, they will be your customers for life.
So, look at your market carefully, do the math on the front end, and do not make any assumptions about what will work and what will not.
Question from Upstart Farmer Tom Deacon at Fable: Is using insect frass as a base fertilizer a good idea? And what about mixing mixing fish emulsion and liquid seaweed?
Nate says using insect frass is not a good idea for a bass. However, it is feasible as a supplement to your system. The same is true for fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. Keep in mind that fish emulsion is usually very salty, which is why it would not make a good base. For more detail on this question check out timestamp [20:40].
Tom also mentioned that he’s had several companies who were willing to offer beta versions of organic solution products, but they are either too expensive to test or are molasses-like which would cause problems in emitters and towers. Nate’s response to this is that while there are not any great solutions for the time being, there will be some in the near future. The hurdle is not the lack of inputs, but rather the lacking ability to do quality analysis. Soon there will be handle held mass spectrometers that will make it really easy to monitor your systems and dose them little by little to the exactly correct levels. As far as molasses-like solutions, this will inherently be the consistency of many of these solutions, but these are intended to be thinned out and diluted into a solution which will then run through the towers better than an aquaponic solution. But, they will be biologically active which means that there will be biofilms and bacteria, and you can’t use UV filters or clarifiers, ozone, or any of the traditional sterilants because you need that biologically active compounds.
Microbe Supplements
Lee with Pulaski Grow noted that she’s been adding some microbe supplements and is seeing better results already. She asked if there is a preference between dry, dehydrated microbe supplements or liquid supplements. Ultimately, most of the microbes in those supplements will be dead by the time you get them, but the ones that do survive will be helpful to some extent. We know people who had success with both so there is no clear preference. Nate suggests that if you are doing an organic system, these are definitely something to incorporate.