https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Albrechthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Albrecht
Albrecht was a pioneering American scientist who surmised and proved that mineral balancing the soil so that it could support an entire ecosystem rather than just the crop being grown would lead to healthier crops, healthier animals and healthier humans. In the long run, healthy mineral balanced soil supports a multitude of grass species with a good root system and so doesn’t get washed away, supports varied species including microbiota, flora and fauna, and can remain healthy in homeostasis ad infinitum. His writings are freely available and make really interesting reading.
Oner of the perpetual joys of the barefoot journey is the voyage of discovery towards scepticism and self-sufficiency. Once you take the leap of faith and pull the shoes from your first barefoot horse, with the vet and the farrier and half your friends telling you it will never work and that you must be mad, you have to do a lot of reading, experimenting and research to understand enough about barefoot to deal with the initial difficulties and transition successfully. For Paddy, I had to learn about diet and exercise, then ulcers, with Cal it has been Insulin Resistance, Cushings, thrush, COPD and finally tidying hooves a bit in between trimmer visits to keep his toes in check. With buying our own land came the concept of naked ponies through a working winter, track and hard standing design (ongoing) and now learning about mineral balance in soil.
Why do I need to know about soil? Because soil influences grass, and horses eat a lot of grass, so the healthier the grass, the better their feet, coats, breathing, itching, you name it, nearly every horse ailment under the sun could theoretically be improved by correct diet. And I need to know it because the agronomist, let’s call him Dick, has never heard of Albrecht, barefoot horses, or healthy soils.
Humans disturb natural balance. Humans want yield, we grow single species grass selected out for quick nutrition for animals destined for quick slaughter. In Cheshire we grow ryegrass for fattening and milking cows. Cows are ruminants, horses are not. Horses are not food or milk providers but animals evolved to survive in the desert and the steppes; poor, arid, varied grasslands.
So when we got our soil analysis done, according to Albrecht principles, there were certain recommendations. We needed Calcined magnesite (for the magnesium), Potassium sulphate (for the sulphur) and DAP (for the Phosphate not the Nitrogen). I rang up our local supplier, they very helpfully said I would need to talk to Dick the agronomist who would work out the best products to give us what we needed.
Dick had never heard of Albrecht. He looked at the soil analysis report and suggested Paddock Royale, a common fertiliser suitable for pony paddocks and readily available at reasonable cost. It would give us the elements we needed, albeit not in the perfect ratios.
Great, I thought, good land, doesn’t need much, winner.
Then Stacey (of Forest Holiday Cottages fame) got him to look at her soil report. Now I happen to know hers is completely different to mine, with very different issues and mineral requirements to balance her soil.
Dick recommended exactly the same product for Stacey as he had for us… at which point alarm bells rang.
Then followed two weeks of wrangling. I had to brush up my A level Chemistry to check my organic chemistry in order to effectively argue the toss with Dick the misogynist agronomist who eventually said “I’ll sell you whatever you like” (THANK YOU). Eventually he has mixed our product as instructed and delivered it to the guy who will do the spreading, covered in labels warning of risk of laminitis if he spreads it at our required coverage!!
Obviously Dick didn’t listen to any of the stuff about ratios, mineral balance rather than fertilising, or in fact the idea that the horses will be on a track system not on the grass in the traditional sense at all over summer. He didn’t look up Albrecht because obviously he already knows everything he needs to know for the rest of his life.
Oh well, another learning opportunity missed for Dick, embraced fully by the Nelipot team.
I’ll let you know how it all goes, we are waiting for the weather now to spread, after which once the stuff has gone in, we can finally put our summer track up and get the boys moving more every day.
In between all this, schooling homework has been done and is paying off 🙂 Cal came second at Southview Competition Centre Combined Training today- 2 lovely tests and a pole down at 70 and 80 but no stops and very little hesitation- hurrah.
http://www.southviewarena.com/events.asp
And Rocky had a Birthday : here is the baby photo, see above for recent picture.
