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| Hpathy Ezine - December, 2008 | ||||
| Agrohomeopathy, Symbiotic Relationships -- V.D. Kaviraj Excerpt from V.D. Kaviraj’s upcoming epic work. |
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| Practical Applications CONCEPTS – QUINTESSENCES We know from the fact these cycles of four exist, that a fifth – the originating intelligence – needs to be added to the equation. However, this is not the type of quintessence we speak about here. Here we speak about quintessence’s that can be expressed easiest in five short, terse aphorisms, which by themselves depict truths about the scientific idea they convey and which together explain the entire concept in broad lines. We will meet many of them in these pages regarding diseases, elementary substances, elemental concepts and in the application of the Law of Similars. In this chapter we will give a few of them.
For practical application we have set up this section from the point of view that plant communities form close-knit relationships between all the members. These are the quintessential points this book hopes to explain with examples from practice and experience. Throughout these pages, the reader will come across more of these quintessential concepts and they form the basis on which the entire edifice is built. If we observe nature, we see that 5 elements form the engineering structure of all life and these are: 1. Helium, which is the male/female principle or Aether. This is exactly as the ancients saw it and confirmed by daily life. Elsewhere we have extended somewhat more on these principles and need not explain further here. Here also the quintessential is of prime importance in understanding the problems faced in agriculture, although to the superficial observer they have little or nothing to do with each other. Quintessentials have in common that they express the same type of principle in a concise and terse manner, which leaves little to the imagination and everything to careful observation. Another quintessence that comes up frequently is the one on the Law of Similars, on which this entire work is based. It follows the adage that what happens in nature must be imitated by man according to the following five Rules. 1. Like produces like. Monkeys don’t give birth to humans. Societies of plants seek each other, but they also seek man, because like attracts like – what is in the same vibration of consciousness will invariably seek each other and find them too. The domestication of plants is a logical outcome of man collecting himself around wild grains, which he then began to grow to feed ever-more mouths. Just as grains grow around man, man grows around grains. It is also often said that the weed that grows abundantly in the garden of a sick man will be his medicine, from which we can learn that plants are attracted by similarities in consciousness and mentality for their favourite places of growth. A little anecdote from my case-books will illustrate this perfectly. Sure, why not? Better than the priest who condemns the sinner,
the doctor treats friend and foe – he does not ask how one
make one’s income. He asks what type of work he does. When
the answer is import export, the doctor may know exactly what is
meant. On arrival at the man’s house I saw the yard was overgrown
with nettles. I said nothing, but went inside, where the roughneck
was drinking whiskey and trying to order his wife around. The living
room was huge and a fire burning in the open fireplace, to which
the host had stretched his feet and was busily scratching himself
voluptuously. The next day he called and even his voice was smoother. He had lost the desire to brag and swear and told me his skin was as smooth as a baby’s. If I could come by to get my pay. I told him I did not require to have my head blown off with a big sawn-off shotgun. He told me it was a joke and please come – he is embarrassed by his threat and needs to show his gratitude. Even his wife had asked me to come by. I told him I would be back in six weeks. When I came back, I visited him again. The garden was almost free of nettles. I asked him whether he had cut them down. “No” he says, they had gone by themselves. He had two more flogs by his wife and then by the second time they were almost gone. His wife told me he was much nicer and softer now and his business was booming. Even she had changed, and was much more relaxed. That consciousness left the man and the nettles left with it.
With homoeopathy, the taste of everything you grow will greatly improve, because the necessary balance underground is equally dependent on that remedy for its complete development. A remedy to control nematodes will act like it is supposed to, because the plant does that in its daily life. Nematicides, even from so-called biological sources, see the nematode as the problem that must be killed, while we (homeopaths) see the nematode as the result of an unbalanced pattern of life. It can be reinforced by the imitation of a natural pattern that is balanced and provides optimum control of all elements in the crop cycle, without adding poisons to the environment. Then the nematode will go its way without attacking our crops, because the remedy has put the plant in an invulnerable position. ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON! Four elements are needed by all living entities – earth, fire, water and air. Another way of explaining that the views of the Middle Ages were not as superstitious as most scientists want us to believe is found in the following: It is interesting and for practical purposes very important, that more than ninety-five percent of the universe consists of the following very few elements. Secondly, the same spectroscopy shows that helium is enormously prevalent and everywhere present, although it does not combine with anything and is almost the lightest of the elements. It does not even combine with itself. The earth has retained little of it. If you however look at the radioactive elements and the alpha particle given off by them, you discover it is nothing but helium. Therefore, it must have a particular prevalence, even on earth, for it is part of the structure of the heavy elements. Thirdly, Hydrogen is the next abundant element, which forms water with the next – oxygen. The spectral lines we see in the heavens are caused by hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Oxygen constitutes fifty-five percent of the earth's crust and it has about the same proportion in meteorites. Oxygen and nitrogen have nearly the same atomic weight. For the purpose of this explanation, we shall regard them as one. Between oxygen and helium, there are no abundant elements, and you should note this. True, carbon has some prevalence, but having almost the same atomic number, we could say it is a satellite to oxygen. Fourthly and lastly, we see that nearly all the meteorites consist
of oxygen, well over fifty percent; magnesium, at thirteen percent;
silicon, fifteen percent and iron, at thirteen percent. Three quarters
of the crust is composed of three elements – oxygen at fifty-five
percent, silicon at sixteen percent and aluminium at five percent.
The others do not have more than two percent each. Iron, supposedly
abundant in the core, has one and a half percent. Now from the point of view of an engineer, the universe is made up of positive and negative electrons; helium and four elements built out of them, oxygen, hydrogen, silicon and iron. Differently expressed, they are aether, air, water, earth and fire, exactly as the ancients described it and which we regard as superstition. Besides, the ancient Greeks knew all about those elements. Here is a quote. “And they allowed Apollonius to ask questions and he asked
them of what they thought the cosmos was composed. But they replied:
(Mahavisnu) Apollonius again asked which was the first of the
elements, and Iarchas answered: What is more, others also are of the same mind – as is due to great minds, according to the saying. 'For a truly joyful and auspicious human work to flourish, must
man have the capacity to climb from the depths of his attachment
at home up to the ether. Ether here stands for the high flight of
the high heavens, the open realm of the spirit.' 1. General Remedies In this Chapter we discuss the remedies that are important to all plants. In the plant world, some elemental substances are essential to all plants. First we discuss the essential components of these subsoil events. 1. Micronutrients and Macronutrients and their associated remedies,
all from the subsoil area. The relationship between these remedies is explained as producing similar phenomena, because they live under similar circumstances, although they may react to allelochemicals differently than our crop. What is related in nature always seeks each other and so we see that plant societies are formed, in which similar states of mind are grouped together. After all, similar plants grow on similar soils and have their friendships and enmities, just like humans. We have seen that certain plants growing on acidic soils have cravings for certain elements, which are moreover hard to get – those of the alkaline type. Hence these relationships between soils, elements, plant communities and allelochemicals is reflected by similarity in the relationship between remedies. These phenomena are important in more than one way. We see certain remedies with a very pronounced picture first, followed by their antidotes, and similars. This is reflected in nature, where we see the nettle and its antidote growing right next to each other. In agriculture, we should imitate nature, with doses so small as to elicit a reaction and thus have the best manageable agriculture. Space age agriculture consists of the manageable use of poisonous substances as produced in the relationships discovered in nature, to imitate as much as possible that natural setting. Instead of unmanageable poisons and an external approach, as is wont in chemical agriculture, homoeopathy has made those and any other poison manageable, and because of its extensive knowledge about relationships in nature is capable of presenting the truly integrated approach to garden problems. Some plants are genuine companions while others are antagonistic. The same counts for elements, insects, fungi and allelochemicals, which all combine to provide a comprehensive picture of the normal environment. We proceed from the soil and the elements, next the companion plants, then come the insects, the soil fungi and the plant excretions. Each is discussed from the point of view as an individual remedy first, followed by a paragraph explaining its place and function within the community of plants. Thus the relations are explained and enable one to understand the role of each in connection with the remedy under discussion Climate Zone There are basically 4 main climate zones: Within these 4 zones, we have many further differences –
We then follow with the use of the soil below. We may have a tropical coastal river delta, a 4A< or a 2B*, a moderate inland hilly landscape. In the first case, we have long warm summers, with not too much rain and a landscape that is cool on the hilltops and warm in the valleys. Rivers may modify the moisture content of the air and soil. It is the latter which determines its use. If it is also forested it becomes 2B*!!. If there is a mixed culture it becomes 2B*!!& The landscape below determines the microclimate at local spots. A desert with its alkaline soil will not receive rain at all, or may have seasonal downpours. A highly acidic rainforest jungle receives abundant water; a neutral agricultural area receives sometimes too much and at others too little, but generally enough. Dependent on the soil pH below, the weather will adapt to the local circumstances, creating microclimates, all within its moderate, subtropical and tropical climate zones. We can therefore say that within the 3 climate zones under discussion here, we have 4further subdivisions and 5 more micro-climatological concomitants as enumerated above. That makes for 400 plus different climate and weather conditions we may be confronted with, within which landscape features may further influence microclimate. We can imagine to have a 2A* landscape or a 4B!! landscape and we discover also differences in microclimate, simply because a hilly coastal landscape has different soil conditions from a tropical rainforest and thus a different flora, fauna and above all climate. The tropical rainforest could never grow on those moderate coastal hills, while most of what grows on these hills would not long survive or even germinate in that rainforest. We see that each has particular constraints where it concerns the development of a plant community. These constraints begin of course with the climate and weather while also extending into the surrounding vegetation and the subsoil events, which are not of less importance, but simply less visible to us. Of course the soil determines the type of plant that will grow there, but the climate constraint takes care of details that man likes to forget. Hence we see that Australian plants all have a leathery feel and are tough, have waxy flowers and do not lose the leaves at the onset of winter – they are evergreen, while European deciduous trees have soft leaves, that wilt easily in the dry climate there, have flowers that stand no longer than two days in the climate zone and moreover lose their leaves at the moment they would need them the most – during the wet season, which is the deciduous tree’s rest period. Although it will grow and become large, it does not live under conditions that are entirely conducive to its survival. If shaded by native trees, the heat may be bearable, because also Australian forests are cooler than the surrounding land. Other plants become outright pests when transplanted to places they do not belong. The blackberry is such a plant in Australia, where one is obliged to remove it from one’s soil entirely, because it takes over vast tracts of land. It likes the soil and weather as if made for it and goes rampant wherever it is not checked. Lantana is such a pest and we shall meet this tree again when we discuss the allelochemicals. It fills up empty spaces, but does not compete with the other members in the forest. But wherever it has taken hold, it does not leave and slowly but surely takes over all the other empty spaces that fall into a forest over time, before any other member has that chance. We do not advocate such transplants from continent to continent, nor do we condemn it outright. We urge caution and to first try out how it grows in an artificial landscape set up in a greenhouse that resembles the climate and weather you want to transplant in. It is full of local plants and you simply plant the wanted tree or other plant in that landscape in the amount normal to make a living. Then leave it alone and see what happens. If after a few years your plant starts to take over, do not import the plant there. If it grows but suffocated, do not transplant this plant – it will give you no end of trouble. Only when the plant has been accepted as a normal member of the plant community and does not die out or take over, can we say we have a successful transplant candidate. Climate is therefore more than a simple placement within the three
zones important for the subject under discussion. It requires taking
into account the soil pH and the flora and fauna that populate it,
as well as the particular use that is made of that climate condition. Climate is, after soil, the next great regulator of available crops in a particular area at a particular time. Climate is the regulation and occurrence of the weather over a long period of time. Within the climate we see the occurrence of extremes, and a cyclic appearance, as a confirmation of the rule. Climate is what regulates that cycle of life and carries it through to completion, or in a freak event destroys large portions of it. WEATHER TYPE The weather type is determined mostly by the type of plants that grow underneath and the proximity to the coast. Both make for a wet landscape, since trees attract rain like a magnet attracts iron. We must not forget that a 30 metre high tree processes about 3000 litres of water per day in the summer. Over a forest, millions of tons of water-vapour are released into the air, making it obviously cooler. When one passes portions of forest in the landscape on the road, that difference in temperature is enough to notice for a human – 5 to 7 degrees cooler in the forest. Cooler air is heavier than hot and sinks to the ground, making everything cool and thus of lower pressure. We all know that low pressure on the weather map means rain. Over river deltas and moors have a similar situation – massive
amounts of moving or stagnant water, which is cooler than anything
around it and spreading that cooling property along its banks by
osmosis and wind. This lowers the pressure and low pressure brings
rain. Here we have sometimes drought and sometimes floods, while generally
we hope for enough at the right time. The amount of water evaporation
from a crop is substantially less than that from a forest, a reason
to leave trees on pieces of land that are inaccessible and that
border the crop. They have, besides a function in weather conditions
such as forming windbreaks, also an influence on pests and predator
presence and may help to keep weeds off the land. Soil pH
Moreover, soils differ in their flora and fauna, microbes, fungi, roots, rhizomes and tubers or bulbs. If we understand everything that lives in the soil we can understand the needs of the plants that grow in and above the soil. This makes a piece of soil an individual piece that is different from all other pieces of soil. Roughly, we divide soil into acidic, alkaline and neutral pH. We shall explain how the soil acidity determines the available nutrients and how certain practices can change the pH of the soil. The soil pH is important for the plants that grow on it. It expresses the acidity or alkalinity of a soil. Acid soils have a pH<7 and alkaline soils have a pH>7. The pH of a mineral soil lies between 3.5 to 8.5. Organic soils may have a lower pH. It is evident that each requires a particular set of nutrients in a particular consistency. Certain nutrients are less available while others are more abundant. When the pH drops below 6, aluminium can occupy a significant portion of the cation exchange phase of soils, while exchangeable bases such as Ca2+ Mg2+ K+ Na+ are more dominant at higher soil pH. This is because the base saturation rate is greater. Soils with a pH between 8 and 8.5 typically contain calcite. Higher pH levels, such as >9 can occur in arid areas, where one finds high levels of salts of the sodium group. These soils are getting extended throughout the Australian outback, where short sighted people have cut down the large swathes of forest for gaining new agricultural lands, because the ones they had cut down already gave harvests only for a few years. There is a general trend of decreasing base saturation and increasing saturation with acidic ions such as Al3+ and H+ as the pH decreases. The sources of protons that contribute to the decline in soil pH and increasing soil acidity include atmospheric deposition of acids such as H2SO4 and NHO3 generated from atmospheric reactions between water and gaseous NOX and SOX from fossil fuel emissions, H2CO3 produced from aqueous dissolution of atmospheric CO2 or biologically produced CO2 and biological activity, such as respiration, production of organic acids, nitrification of mineralised N or ammonium fertilisers and imbalances in cation and anion uptake by plants. The rate of soil acidification is related to the rates of acid inputs versus the soil buffering capacity. Soil pH is mainly buffered by the dissolution of calcite and other carbonates at a pH >7, cation exchange of bases by H+ and Al3+ or their hydrolysis species at a pH 7 to 5, dissolution of Al-bearing minerals at a pH<4. Phytotoxicity of simple organic acids is most evident in acidic conditions when organic acids are protonated, meaning neutral in charge and this toxicity is lost when organic acids are partially dissociated under neutral and basic conditions or negatively charged. ACID SOILS These soils have a high pH, 7.5 or higher. The acidity is expressed as a scale that runs from 4.5 to 9, whereby 6.5-7 is considered neutral and the lower alkaline, while the higher depict acidic soils. They attract oxalate plants and those that like acidic soils, many of which are weeds. However, many of our crops also like a rather acidic soil, which is often made more so by the use of swine and chicken manure. This has an influence on the nutrients, of which the alkaline may have deficiencies. The nutrients that are alkaline in nature are harder to obtain than those that work through acids, such as Nitrogen. Potassium and Calcium salts may also be in short supply, while the phosphates are all plenty available. Manganese may be hard to get too, since the acidity hinders its uptake. Liming is a good method to make acidic soils more neutral in pH. This soil demands horse manure, for its alkaline qualities. This already tells us much about the above-ground plants – their shapes, their functions and their habitat within the plant community. The acids are all decomposers and destroyers, which does not mean they are necessarily bad. Many processes cannot take place without the use of acids, the most important of which is perhaps respiration, which runs on the Citric acid cycle and has 7 acids in that cycle to enable uptake of necessary nutrients and processing of carbohydrates to sugars and proteins. NEUTRAL PH A soil with a neutral pH will attract other plants and be better for different crops than the acidic or alkaline soils. They support plants that are in need of balanced diets of nutrients and whereby the excess of one or the other is mostly due to human failure. These excesses help in the build-up of pest populations. Excess Kali and Phosphorus always result in aphid population explosions. That what we do to one part, we do to all parts, is no more obvious than in this instance. Everything therefore depends on everything else and each part must be taken into account. Neutral Ph soils have all nutrients available, but not always at the right time. This can be manipulated by using the remedies from the nutrient class or some of the companion plants, which have great influence over nutrient availability, such as Chamomilla. Crops may have requirements at other times that can be manipulated to advantage. Neutral pH is often considered the best soil for growing crops, but this is also dependent on the consideration of the necessity for plants to have more acidic or alkaline soils to grow in. In general though, the notion stands with many crops. ALKALINE SOILS Alkaline soils have opposite characteristics to the acidic types. Here the trouble is not found in the uptake of Phosphorus, Calcium, Carbon and Kali. More, the acidic nutrients are difficult to get at and they must be supplied with swine and chicken manure. Horse manure will here be contraindicated, since it is an alkaline manure. Plants that like Carbon, Calcium and Kali thrive on these soils and their predators and pests will be of a different nature. Humidity may be a problem and so may excessive salts. Excessive salts are only formed in extremely alkaline soils, such as a desert biome. A desert biome can however easily be created by faulty farming practices. Denuding a soil of trees may seem to be a smart move, but by not adding any organic matter to the soil it will soon be depleted. A soil is always more than a medium to grow plants in and suspend nutrients in. A mineral soil has advantages over an acidic one in the availability of nutrients, but this can also be a disadvantage, attracting pests for instance. Acidic nutrients such as nitric acid and decomposition of ammonium
salts to nitrogen may sometimes be problematic. Too little acidity
may cause other problems and the defence against fungi is not well
established. On the other hand, fungi will be less of a problem
in non-acidic soils. Alkaline environments have more problems with
the sodium salts and here the remedies from the Natrium series can
do much to alleviate problems. Phosphorus and magnesium are other
elements that help antidote excessive salination. The problems associated
with salination may be more difficult to remove than those of acidity. Carbolic acid and many of the phenols and resins from plants and trees are powerful homoeopathic remedies in agriculture. They are all carbon based and all partake of construction and maintenance in the living systems. Carboneum and Carbon itself are also important remedies for these type of soils. We shall enumerate the different substances that can be used as remedies and which are derived from Elemental Carbon. Those we already use have been marked with an asterik *.
From this list we can derive 35 new remedies that are useful in the treatment of plants, without even considering their intrinsic qualities and characteristics, because these remedies all are carbon-based and as such important parts of the structure of the living universe. They can help us solve the problems associated with growing crops, although some are fossil-fuel based. Even if we leave those out, we still have sufficient remedies to choose from. If we consider these form but a fifth at most of the compounds listed in the homoeopathic literature, we understand we have many more remedies to choose from. Although at present little or nothing is known about them for plants, from the family relationship we can make some predictions, especially if the individual parts of the compound have been known to homoeopathy before. While anthropomorphising helps at times, it is not an important part of the entire picture. We rely more on an alchemical viewpoint of signature, which is a valid means to arrive at conclusions, because these conclusions have invariably been confirmed and verified in practise. |
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All
concepts stand or fall with their ease of understanding and consequent
adherence to laws and principles, because events follow cyclical
patterns. Many cycles consist of four or six units, such as seasons
in the four climate bands that circle the earth or the seasons that
may prevail in some of them. 
1.
It begins above the surface, with the climate and the weather. Below
the surface in the soil we have a fauna and flora, consisting of
many billions of living entities which all influence plant life.
5.
From the material medica we can learn about relationships in communities
of plants and the elements they partake of during their life, known
from agricultural literature, while from research in allelochemicals
and their actions on plant life, much can be learned and deduced
about how everything is connected. Even a simple herbal can teach
much about relationships between remedies in the garden and in material
medica. 
I
once had a Scottish friend, who had relations with one of the biggest
dope dealers in the vicinity. This man was a rough type, who drank
whiskey like water and smoked joints like a chimney. He was rough
in the mouth and had the raspiest voice I ever heard. He had a problem
– he had an eczema that itched him no end. Could I help him?
His
wife asked what I could do for him. So I told her he should get
a flogging with nettles, to get rid of his itch. At that he pulled
out a gun and told me he’d shoot off my head if I so much
as even thought about it. I told him I had a present for him and
handed him a few bottles of Glenfiddich, his favourite malt. So
we fed him so drunk, he passed out and slid from his crapaud on
the floor and was unconscious. Then we went into the garden wearing
rubber gloves and cut many bunches of nettles. These we brought
inside, then stripped the fellow and flogged him with the nettles
till he was swollen and red. We covered him with a blanket and let
him get out of his booze. Then I left for the night with my friend
to his place and the next day back home.
Our hunger for food keeps our relationship with the plants reasonably
intact, insofar as we respond to its need for nutrients in one form
or another. The preferred method is to apply a massive dose of nutrients
at once, in a form that is but slowly dissolved in water, thus appearing
to keep nutrient levels fairly constant. In nature this never happens,
because natural systems are always in flux. Soil is moreover more
than a medium to support plants and to suspend nutrients in, it
has to be adequate to the degree of development, which is also in
constant flux. To favour one type or even a mix of nutrients over
others to enhance development, comes at the cost of many drawbacks,
such as pest and disease susceptibility or pest and disease-promoting
circumstances. Such one-sided junk food may seem to promote health,
but produces instead weak obese plants prone to all kinds of problems
such as diseases, retarded or accelerated blooming and fruit setting,
without taking into account the ultimate readiness of the crop.
The result is a watery taste, without the necessary aromas and subtle
sensations that organically grown food gives to the palate.
First
of all, the spectroscopy of the universe shows that helium is exceptionally
abundant. It is widely distributed. Helium is nothing more than
the primordial positive and negative electrons tied together, or
in the process of being tied. 
Another
quintessential relation has been established and the consequences
are equally far reaching. For they indicate a quintessential set
of influences, which may consist of many different species and in
very large numbers, which can be controlled by these very same substances.
To
further work out how these remedies are related we have to consider
the fact that nearly all plants require microelements of a particular
class as well as macronutrients of a particular class. As we saw
at the description of the functions of the elemental component,
some are related to growth and others are related to flowering and
fruit setting. These same relations are found in the macronutrients.
Recent research has shown that plants chatter and communicate with
their community when attacked by a disease or pest. We have read
in the introduction about these phenomena and seen that there are
some differences and many similarities with human and animal societies.
Soils
are extremely diverse in their acidity and composition. The minerals
and particles of their construction, organic matter content and
other components, are particular to each type of soil and hence
their behaviour differs as much. 
