Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration with Rockdust by Moira Thomson
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Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration with Rockdust by Moira Thomson ROCKDUST IS CATCHING THE IMAGINATION Cameron & Moira share how they achieved this of gardeners and farmers and its use is spreading and why they are so enthusiastic about spreading the ben- © SEER in the UK and beyond. Consumer demand is bring- efi ts of Rockdust. ing Rockdust’s miracle effects into our gardens and Moira points to her daughter holding a huge farms and into the environmental, farming and freshly cut calabrese head weighing 1.75 kg, saying, “this food debates. kind of food contains all the nutrients, energy and natural forces The SEER Centre Trust was established as a that nature intended our food should bestow to us - all food sold Recognised Scottish Charity in 1997, following 13 years pio- in all markets and shops should be grown with rockdust! neering work by co-founders Cameron & Moira Thomson, Mineral Replacement Therapy (MRT) with Rock- advocating Rockdust as The Solution to achieving Sustain- dust is natural fertility treatment. NPK chemical fertilisers, able Ecological Earth Regeneration. The SEER Centre which cause ecological imbalances and soil erosion, are not. If is a working model for conversion to sustainable organic we humans can manage to cover the Earth’s soils with various “remineralised” agriculture by application of rockdusts and chemicals several times a year to chemically grow our crops, we recycled municipal composts for soil creation, maximum can surely cover Earth’s soils with Rockdust! soil fertility, minimal soil erosion and maximum protection We believe that using Rockdust on a global scale for from climate-change weather extremes. The charity aims to sustainable organic gardening, agriculture, forestry and compost- attract scientifi c research into the benefi ts of Rockdust. ing can boost fertility and regenerate natural ecosystems which, Since 1997, on the foothills of the Grampian in turn, can nourish our increasing populations with nutrient-rich mountains in Strathardle, Perthshire, the infertile, acidic, organic foods for current and future generations”. upland grassland site, although exposed to severe weather at 1000 feet, has been transformed into an ecologically diverse SUSTAINABLE SOILS environment by the Thomson’s soil creation with rockdusts Soil is our most important and fragile resource. The fertile and municipal composts. (This growing medium is called soils in volcanic areas like Lanzorotti are productive and “SEER Rocksoil”). Remarkable terraced gardens have high yielding due to the abundance of minerals and trace been created. Deep fertile soils produce convincing heavy elements in volcanic soils. BBC Horizon, “The Blue Nile” mineral-rich crops of tasty organic vegetables, fruit and in 2004, traced the Blue Nile to its origins in the highlands bright fl owers. of Ethiopia where the weathering of volcanic rock fl ow- 20 Star & Furrow Issue 109 Summer 2008 ing down the river is deposited on the Nile delta making it the fi rst-sown juicy crops. By 2000, the young remineralised famously highly fertile. The Blue Nile is called so because it trees were beginning to grow profusely, providing shelter is coloured with blue-grey rockdust. and wildlife habitats around the perimeter. It is possible to create such mineral-rich soils in your very own garden by spreading a dressing of SEER ROCKDUST EXPERIMENTS Rockdust. Quarried from ancient 420 million year old Scot- The large spruce trees that towered above the house shaded tish volcanic rock, it is rich in the minerals and trace elements and impoverished the soil and were cut down in 2001. We that are defi cient or missing from the majority of our soils spread 2 inches of “SEER Rockmix” (the SEER top dress- globally, having been used up by vegetation and eroded by ing) on the surface of the poor soil and grew impressive weather over the last 10,000 years since the last ice age ended. potatoes. The soil was transformed in one growing season. Soil is the mineral-rich sponge that enables the Earth to sus- We made the fourth terrace, the soil terrace, with tain life and absorb carbon. Without fertility, this sponginess topsoil we’d saved from the car park construction. Plants disintegrates and erodes. in this poor acidic soil got smaller, going blue and yellow, so Glaciers crush rocks during the 90,000 year long ice we added a 2 year dose of Rockdust on the southern half of ages. Their advancing and retreating action releases enough the terrace. The following year brassicas were gown in both minerals and trace elements from the crushed rocks to grow halves and were noticeably bigger and higher-yielding on the and sustain soils which life uses and depletes during the 10 rockdusted half. A year later, potatoes on the rockdusted half - 12,000 year long interglacial periods between the ice ages. showed an obvious effect yielding twice as many potatoes The exact length of each interglacial is determined by the and they were twice the size than those on the untreated amount of rock that was crushed by the glaciers and the half. We’d quadrupled the yield! There were also bigger minerals and trace elements released. There have been 25 of plants and yields on the “soil only” half, directly next to these Earth fertility cycles in 2.5 million years resulting in 25 the rockdusted half – the worms had been taking rockdust fertile interglacials. The present interglacial is 10,800 years old. to the poor half and doing their own remineralising! This We can simulate the benefi cial effects of glaciers proved that rockdust does boost fertility without the addi- when we spread Rockdust to “remineralise” our soils. tion of compost. Earthworms digest rock particles in the soil and decompos- We erected a Greenhouse in 2001. We made a path ing vegetation and deposit “remineralised” organic matter using bricks and cement and deep rubble infi ll between the in their wormcasts which contain nitrogen, carbon, minerals two borders to ensure worms couldn’t travel from side to and thousands of micro-organisms which ultimately become side to mix the two treatments and skew the results. Com- organic, mineral-rich plant food. The more worms in your post and Rockdust (Rocksoil) fi lls the east side. Poor soil and soil, the better the rockdust will be worked into the soil. rockdust fi lls the west side. We grew equally giant organic Many of today’s medical conditions are attributed tomatoes in both sides! The rockdust achieved equal results to mineral and trace element defi ciencies in our bodies and on both sides in one growing season. our diets which result from eating food grown in mineral- In 2003 we ploughed some fl at land that hasn’t defi cient soil. We would need to eat fi ve apples to get the been ploughed in living memory. We spread 8 inches of nutrition we would have got from one fi fty years ago! We can “Rocksoil” on top of the ploughed bed and planted pota- take mineral supplements to address some of these defi cien- toes. Seven weeks of drought followed but we didn’t irrigate cies in the food chain. For those of us who grow our own because we’ve observed that remineralised soil can retain food, spreading Rockdust puts minerals and trace elements moisture in the particles of stone. We grew the biggest pota- back into our soil, increasing microbial activity which makes toes ever and they stored with perfect shelf-life, lasting until our soil grow gradually darker and the crops more vigor- the following June. ous, mineral-rich, fl avoursome and heavier yielding. We can The fi rst two terraces are now in their 12th grow- really feed the world this way, promoting health and well- ing season and are still producing bumper nutritious organic being, reducing disease and costs of disease management. crops, year after year! Everything is healthy, lacking nothing, no pest damage or disease. We really don’t know when these CREATING THE OASIS IN THE GLEN deep terraces will run out of minerals! Deep fertile soils and dense forests once covered this poor Perthshire grazing land. The soils have been used up by veg- THE EARTH’S FERTILITY CYCLES etation and eroded, leaving the glacial moraine, dumped by Cameron explains that Planet Earth’s natural soil history, the last ice-age, covered by shallow soil with a PH of 4.5 - a soil creation and soil demineralisation patterns during the challenging site offering the perfect opportunity to demon- present interglacial are part of Earth’s natural fertility cycles strate soil remineralisation and soil creation. that cause climate changes and how our species responded In April 1997, with our two shovels and a wheel- to these changes in the past or may respond to the present barrow, we built dry stone walls then started making the fi rst climate change chaos. two terraces with 200 tons of recycled resources donated by “Soil erosion and climate change threaten the survival Dundee Council’s Discovery Compost and Tayside Con- of civilisation. The world’s weather becomes extreme and tracts Collace quarry. unpredictable when Earth’s soils become severely demineralised. We fi lled the terraces with “SEER Rocksoil” a Climate change is pre-glacial tension. We’re convinced that strip at a time so we could start planting right away and keep spreading Rockdust on a global scale could enable Earth’s soils to up with the growing season. We fi nished a few months later absorb suffi cient amounts of excess atmospheric carbon to stabilise in July 1997. By this time the fi ve children were tucking into global climate change!” Star & Furrow Issue 109 Summer 2008 21 Record cold temperatures, such as -9°C in Greece in January ’04 with 1 foot of snow and the lemon crop frosted, are becoming the norm.