Applied Biodynamics — Issue 062 (Fall 2008)

Applied Biodynamics Issue 062 (Fall 2008) joins Manfred Klett’s reflections on the farm organism and agricultural history with a practical Idaho preparation-making network and JPI’s report on institutional costs.

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Nature as teacher and biodynamics as conscious partnership

Christy Korrow opens the issue after a journey through the north-central United States to the Washington coast. Yellowstone’s grazing herds, thermophilic life in boiling springs, moving water, and the companionship of horsetail and yarrow become lessons in fertility and plant relationship; “elemental activity” belongs to the issue’s spiritual-scientific interpretation.

The editorial’s practical invitation is simple: step beyond the cultivated field, observe an undisturbed landscape, and bring its patterns back to the farm. Biodynamics works within nature’s wisdom while asking the farmer to become an awake, co-creative participant. The preparations are a central expression of that conscious partnership.

Manfred Klett: biodynamics and the future of agriculture

Hunter Francis’s interview with Dr. Manfred Klett traces a life shaped by agricultural practice, soil science, research, and education. Klett’s work moved from irrigation research in Syria to an apprenticeship at Dottenfelder Hof, doctoral study in soil science at the University of Hohenheim, research in Darmstadt, and a return to Dottenfelder Hof in 1968 to help establish a pioneering biodynamic farm community.

Klett presents biodynamics as an original impulse behind Germany’s organic movement and as a response to the fragmentation of agriculture. This is his historical interpretation. The modern farm often separates crops, animals, horticulture, processing, marketing, research, and community life; the biodynamic farm organism seeks to reunite them and become more self-supporting in fertility, seed, feed, knowledge, and economic relationships.

At Dottenfelder Hof this appears through integrated arable and livestock work, on-farm processing, plant breeding, apprenticeships, public education, and long-term research. The farm is simultaneously productive land, social organism, school, laboratory, and cultural center. Its vitality comes from the relationships among these parts, not from any single technique.

Holistic science and the role of the preparations

Klett calls for a science equal to living development. Agriculture unfolds through time, metamorphosis, rhythm, organism, and qualitative change; its study therefore joins precise measurement with sustained observation of the whole. This approach expands agricultural research from isolated factors to the farm’s evolving relationships.

Klett treats the biodynamic preparations as central to the farmer’s relationship with natural processes. Making, stirring, applying, and observing them creates a disciplined field of practitioner experience; testing effects still requires explicit controls, fixed measurements, full records, and replication. Their future depends on education and active research as well as informed personal engagement.

Northern Idaho grows biodynamic growers

Merla Barbarie documents a practical model for starting a regional biodynamic group. Forty people attended an initial library meeting and screening of Peter Proctor’s How to Save the World. The group created an email and phone list, identified shared interests in preparation making, the planting calendar, and Rudolf Steiner’s agricultural lectures, then scheduled hands-on workshops on local farms.

The sequence is readily repeatable:

• Convene an accessible introductory gathering and collect participant contacts.
• Name practical shared goals: preparations, calendar work, study, seed exchange, and farm tours.
• Rotate workshops among farms so knowledge and responsibility circulate.
• Share the cost of materials and divide finished preparations among participants.
• Send every participant home with material to apply and observe.
• Continue through the preparation calendar so the group develops skill season by season.

Tree paste, BD 500, and Equisetum workshop

At Mitch and Colleen Rifkin’s farm, participants toured the greenhouse and field plantings, prepared cow manure, clay, and sand for tree paste, and took turns stirring BD 500 Horn Manure for a full hour. They also stirred Biodynamic Compound Preparation and used Equisetum tea as an addition to the tree paste. Each participant filled a container to apply at home, turning one workshop into many local observations.

Making Biodynamic Compound Preparation together

At the Barbarie homestead, the group mixed cow manure, basalt powder, and ground eggshells in a snow sled, then moved the mixture to a kiln-brick-lined pit. Half was placed in the pit and treated with a set of BD 502–507; the second half and a second set of preparations followed. Burlap and a wooden cover protected the burial. Participants shared the preparation cost and planned to divide the finished material for autumn use.

The method demonstrates community-scale efficiency without sacrificing craftsmanship: defined ingredients, staged placement, complete preparation sets, protected burial, shared timing, and distribution for repeated field practice.

Stinging nettle and horn silica

At Will and Lisa Shock’s farm, the group harvested flowering nettles for BD 504 and buried them, with participants also taking nettles home for their own preparations. Quartz was crushed with a double-pipe crusher and iron mortar and pestle; approximately two-thirds of a cup of BD 501 Horn Silica was packed into a horn for burial and later distribution.

The group’s ongoing plans included pressing valerian flowers, gathering dried dandelion, making the autumn preparations, exchanging plants, touring farms, and continuing shared study. The account shows how a regional network becomes durable through real seasonal work.

Institutional continuity at JPI

“Fiscal Reality Revisited” records JPI’s 2008 price adjustments for preparations, shipping, publications, and its Associative Contract. The historical prices belong to their time; the enduring point is that excellent preparation making requires materials, skilled labor, storage, education, and responsible stewardship. Financial clarity allows JPI to maintain that quality and continue serving practitioners.

Key Topics Covered

Nature observation as a source of agricultural questions, with spiritual-scientific interpretations clearly labeled.

Manfred Klett’s path through farming, soil science, research, education, Dottenfelder Hof, and the German organic movement.

The farm organism as an ecological, economic, social, educational, and cultural unity.

Holistic science for agriculture’s time-based, metamorphic, and organismal processes, paired with controlled measurement.

A repeatable community model for tree paste, BD 500, Barrel Compound, BD 504, and BD 501 workshops in northern Idaho.

Shared preparation costs, distribution, seasonal continuity, and JPI’s 2008 explanation of the economics behind preparation quality.

Repeatable Practice

1. For a regional group, record participants, host farms, materials, preparation batches, costs, roles, methods, burial and lifting dates, and distribution quantities.
2. When testing a preparation or farm-system change, define matched or randomized comparisons and keep seed, soil, water, fertility, cultivation, and observation timing consistent.
3. Measure preparation quality, soil indicators, crop development, yield, storage, labor, costs, participation, and fixed photographic observations using the same schedule.
4. Repeat season by season, archive complete records for successors, publish null or adverse results, and separate Klett’s historical or spiritual interpretations from measured outcomes.

Explore Related Resources

• Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course
• BD 500 Horn Manure and instructions
• Biodynamic Tree Paste and instructions
• Biodynamic Compound Preparation and instructions
• BD 502–507 Compost Preparation Set and instructions
• BD 504 Stinging Nettle and guide
• BD 501 Horn Silica and instructions
• BD 508 Horsetail and instructions
• Stella Natura Planting Calendar and calendar guide

Articles

• Contemplating the Plant (excerpt from R. Hauschka) 
• Reflections on Biodynamics and Its Significance for the Future by Dr. Manfred Klett (H. Francis) 
• Northern Idaho Grows Biodynamic Growers (M. Barbarie) 
• Fiscal Reality Revisited 

Citation

Source: Applied Biodynamics, Issue No. 62, Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Bio-Dynamics, Fall 2008.