Fit plants key to large scale organics

摘要

Ensuring that plants "feel good" which comes from having a good soil structure and the right quantity of available nutrients will boost a plant's natural resistance and lead to successful organic production. Try growing a few organic carrots and cabbage in your garden and you'll soon see carrot fly, white fly and caterpillars. Grow them in a big open field and these pests are hardly a problem according to one of the largest growers of organic crops in the Netherlands. It's possibly the wind, sun andabsence of other plants which keeps them at bay. But that is not to say that growing fresh organic produce is easy. For example, for two years running Kees van Woerden had to plough in his Brussel sprouts. "They were too difficult. We didn't have the right varieties at the time," he says.