Deep South Fruit and Vegetable Growers Conference, Day 2

Today I attended a few sessions from the “Organic Production” track. I actually was interested in the ones on organic certification, but I skipped those because it’s not exactly immediately relevant to my efforts as a home gardener.
As most people already know, there is a lot of controversy around organic standards (many feel that the standards have been watered down to the point of being useless, while at the same time including requirements that are prohibitively difficult for small growers to meet), and presenter Edwin Marty’s comment that the label “organic” is merely a marketing tool was met by many knowing smiles.
Marty’s overview of “Lessons Learned in Building Organic Soils” was full of information based on hands-on experience rather than science. He provided this link for a private soil testing company: “http://timberleafsoiltesting.com/”:http://timberleafsoiltesting.com/. While more expensive than testing from the state extension office (which I have always found a bit lacking), it is more tailored to small organic growers. He also directed people to ATTRA and to the University of California Davis’ “Agriculture and Natural Resources publications”:http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/.
Teresa Maurer of the National Center for Appropriate Technology and head of the ATTRA project, gave a guest presentation later on the wide variety of ATTRA resources, many of which are of general interest and not strictly for those involved with sustainable agriculture.