What Exactly Is Organics?

Organics seems to be more of a sales word than an actual way of doing things. Even certified organic food using lime which is by nature inorganic. At what point does an item move from organic to inorganic and back?

Consider that the world started as one giant inorganic ball. Life started, but it was assembled from inorganics. It then fed on inorganics and died, and other plants and animals fed on it and so on. However, in the beginning is inorganics. Lime is a good example of these.

If I grow a plant using inorganic fertilizers and then I make fertilizers from that plant - does that make it then organic fertilizer?

I can understand why people would not want to use fertilizer that has horrible side effects or is dangerous, but your average hydroponic nutrient isn't radioactive waste.

Is 'organic' simply that you are trying to do it as close to nature as possible?

The reason I am on this topic is because I won the entire 8 pack of nutrients and supplements that general hydro makes. I am probably going to give them a try because they are free. This got me thinking about just what organics is.

Anyone have any experience with the GH organic nutes?

i think the main thing is using nutrients and additives that are derived naturally. read the labels on General Organic fertilizers. it says Derived from : alfala meal,cane sugar etc. stoned right now cant think of any other specifics but if you compare to a synthetic nutrient label youl see different weird names which i cant spell or name. I think one big difference is the availibilty to the plant. The synthetic ones are in more uptakeable forms, and dont require the plant to break them down as much. I started growing about a year ago with GO. i switched to the GH floradou, and the growth rates are obviously better. My stems are thicker and nugs are overall much bigger. However, i cant really validate how much the taste differs becuase i am always running tests and drying/curing things differently.

Organics started as a great idea and movement but was hijacked buy the commercial food industry after the FDA put an actual definition to it. Now its all about permacultures and being "beyond organic," Local, Sustainable, and Renewable. Today big farms and especially chicken ranches can bend the rules and push the limits while still maintaining an organic certification. Organic farms are still better than traditional farms but not by much. monocultures are horrible for the land and eventually all of the top soil will erode. And what will we do then? what we have been doing, keep throwing nutes at it. and guess what we use to make nutes....oil! this is a huge huge fucking problem too, the next oil crisis is set for 2013 and we are more dependent on oil than we have ever been. i predict that everyone that is under 30 right now will see a complete change in the way we produce food in the U.S. We just can't keep doing it the way we have, its way too dependent on oil.

Nobody ever seems to answer this sufficiently. Sustainable\renewable are words that may describe it but they're always taken without context, just shell-words beyond which nobody seems to understand. Being natural is important in organics; organics is endemic to nature. Still it seems understated and indeed undefined just what 'nature' is about and just how plants in nature are fed. Nobody ever fertilized an old-growth forest. They didn't have to. There is a finite amount of matter, that is a fact, so in order for new things to live the old things must be broken down; something has to take once living organic matter (carbon containing material, remains) and eventually revert it back into its basic constituents (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, minerals) and these all have to end up in plant available form. Plants mostly absorb nutrients in ionic form. Innumerable organisms are involved in the process of decaying organic matter, and many more are quite intimately involved in making sure the plant gets those nutrients. Most of these are microscopic organisms that you can't see very well (if at all): bacteria, archae, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and more so in nature earthworms and arthropods (which help shred organic matter, keep pest insect populations low).

The micro-organisms are responsible for the majority of the nutrition a plant receives. What they do, and they have various ways of doing it, results in ions\nutrients for the plant. Some organisms will even go the extra several miles to help plants acquire the nutrients they need. Of course, plants can only absorb nutrients in one place: the area immediately surrounding their roots, the rhizosphere. The plant realized eons ago that microbial activity nourishes it, and so produces and secretes an exudate of carbohydrates and other substances in order to attract and stimulate the microbes in the rhizosphere. The organisms do many things in terms of keeping nutrients localized, keeping pathogenic organisms at bay, producing various beneficial metabolites for the plant (antibiotics, growth hormones). Perhaps most important is that their presence ultimately results in plant available nutrients exactly where the plant needs them to be. This is in contrast to chemical fertilizers which are applied at high rates because proportionately smaller concentrations of them are actually going to reach the rhizosphere.

The point is that organic matter is recyclable, and necessarily so outdoors. Synthetic salts can decimate soil biota, essentially ripping out the foundation of the soil food web. Forget about the commercialization of the concept, don't let it blur the bigger picture. A person can potentially grow organically without purchasing anything overly expensive. You can compost/vermicompost to recycle your own organic matter (plenty of which you probably designate for the landfill each day), recycle the soil you grow in and generally put by-products to good use. That would be why it can be called sustainable.

Not exactly sure nowadays. I thought it was growing without using Miracle Grow or Bloom Booster, thing similar to that.
I use Garden Soil, Mixed with Guano, Worm Castings, Vermiculite, and Perlite.
I water with distilled water.

I pretty much thought I was growing organically...

well i believe growing organically is providing the food that the plant needs in form of manure and meas ( basically raw) then letting the micro organisms in the soil break it down and feed the plant, i have seen this method work better than some grows done with mg and or synthetic nutes, but its a lot harder and i think it leaves a lot of room for error but am trying to learn how to do it well my self cuz i think thats how i would like to grow.

Organics would suggest plural of organic so in that sence would cover a set of related things.

But in terms of Organic or Not organic well that would be things that come to be by the processes of life.
We are organic for example. A robot wouldn't be.

I think that is the simplest.


Now Wikipedia offers more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic

----------------------

Organic may refer to:

• Of or relating to an organism, a living entity
• Of or relating to an organ (anatomy)

Chemistry:

• Organic matter - matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or the product of decay, or is composed of organic compound.
• Organic chemistry, chemistry involving organic compounds
• Organic compound, a compound that contains carbon (although some carbon-containing compounds are excluded).

Farming, certification and products:

• Organic farming - agriculture conducted according to certain standards, especially the use of only naturally produced fertilizers and non-chemical means of pest control
• Organic certification, accreditation process for producers of organic products
• Organic clothing, clothing produced from organic fibers such as organic cotton.
• Organic food, food produced from organic farming methods and often certified organic according to organic farming standards
  • Organic milk
  • Organic beans
• Organic baby products, organic products intended for babies and toddlers
• Organic movement, movement of organizations and individuals promoting organic farming and organic food
• See also sustainable agriculture

Computing:

• Wetware computer (or organic computer), a computer built from living neurons and ganglions
• Organic computing, computing systems with properties of self-configuration, self-optimization, self-healing, and/or self-protection
• Organic search, search results through unpaid search engine listings, rather than through paid advertisements
• Organic search engine, search engine which uses a combination of human operators and computer algorithms
• Organic semiconductor, an organic compound that exhibits similar properties to inorganic semiconductors

Economics and business:

• Organic growth, business expansion through increasing output and sales as opposed to mergers, acquisitions and take-overs
• Organic Inc, original digital marketing & advertising agency
• Organic organisation, one which is flexible and has a flat structure
• Organic Records, a sub-label of Pamplin Music

Military:

• Organic (military), a military unit predominantly of one type (armour, infantry, artillery, etc.) may incorporate subunits of a different type, to improve combined arms capability e.g. organic artillery, organic armour

Law:

• Organic law, a fundamental law
• Organic statute
• Organic Articles, a French law presented in 1802

Music:

• Organic (album), a 2005 album by Freak Kitchen

Other:

• Organic (model), forms, methods and patterns found in living systems, often used as a metaphor for non-living things
• Organicism, the biological doctrine which stresses the organization, rather than the composition, of organisms
• Organic disease, involving or affecting physiology or bodily organs
• Biological process, or organic process
• Organic Realism, also known as Philosophy of Organism

Click to expand...