The Old & The New Plows – Even Soil Scientists Have Not Learned Our Farming Lesson Of Natural Fertility!

Our farmers – and agricultural scientists from Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao – have yet to learn how to farm so that the richness of the soil comes out naturally and welcomes the seeds/seedlings and grow them splendidly!

The old PH plow is gone; the new plow, called “rotavator” is here and now, and yet the new is being used as the old was – burying the fertility of the soil, out of reach of roots of crops!
(image sources: top, kahimyang.com; bottom, youtube.com)

No, farmers and farm scientists do not realize any of that! No, the farmers don’t read history; and no, the scientists don’t read old science either!

81 years ago, in 1943, American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner came out with his book Plowman’s Folly. I now quote history (undated, goodreads, goodreads.com):

It was on July 5, 1943, when Plowman’s Folly was first issued, that the author startled a lethargic public, long bemused by the apparently insoluble problem of soil depletion, by saying, simply, “The fact is that no one has ever advanced a scientific reason for plowing.”

I repeat: “The fact is that no one has ever advanced a scientific reason for plowing.” I am sure: There is no scientific reason for plowing!

“Soil depletion occurs when the components [that] contribute to fertility are removed and not replaced, and the conditions [that] support (the) soil's fertility are not maintained” (Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org).

Soil depletion = soil fertility depletion. Up to this date, we cultivate the soil so that its natural richness is buried: We plow the soil under (we think, “the deeper the better” – and of course, along with the weeds and/or crop refuse; that is, the deeper, the worse we bury the soil fertility! That is true in farms and gardens.

No Sir! The Australian inventor Arthur Clifford did not realize, and now the Japanese makers of the rotavator have not realized how much the rotavator can wake up the fertility of the soil if the machine is operated “knowledgeably.”

Almost 60 years ago, I came up with the best way to use the rotavator to automatically bring about that soil fertility that awaits the seeds or seedlings we plant on the field. This was proven by the experience of my beloved brother-in-law Ensor Casasos in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan.

On 09 April 2024, I wrote “Fertilizer Zero Yet, Yields Zoom Yes!” (Yaman Rotavator, blogspot.com):

Am I dreaming?

Yes! I’m dreaming of a rotavator design that cultivates the soil and simultaneously and in the same rotary motion mixes soil and weeds and/or crop refuse into a natural plant fertilizer. The best natural fertilizer you can make with a machine!

By the way, “Yaman” in Tagalog means “Wealth” while in Ilocano it means “Thankfulness.” Either language, you are rich with the rotavator used in the way I discovered it.

So then I have come up with a project proposal to propagate all over the Philippines my concept of the Yaman Rotavator. I am now looking for a funding agency.@517