How-To: Balancing Biodynamic Soils

Originally published 2024-03-01. By Stewart Kahn Lundy.

Taking Soil Renewal to the Next Level

This post is too long for email. Paid subscribers can read the complete piece based on fifteen years of farming experience, study, and book recommendations below. The value of these resources is incalculable.

“Life is a universal omnipresent principle, and nothing is without life. In some forms life acts slowly—for instance, in stones; in others (organized beings) it acts quickly. Each element has its own peculiar living existences, belonging to it exclusively.”1

In my experience, more than a few biodynamic practitioners almost completely ignore the mineral realm. Perhaps this is because they want to take care to “remain within the realms of life”2 as Steiner urges us. But if we are not conscious about balancing the mineral levels of the soil, we are often missing key elements that need to be present for life to thrive properly. What Steiner means is that we must keep our attention on the unfolding potential dynamics latent within everything. There is potential in compost and all organic matter, but there is also living potential in mineral amendments we might add to our soil.

Steiner says, “Nowadays we are wont to attach the greatest importance to the physical and chemical constituents. To-day, however, we will not take our start from these; we will take our start from something which lies behind the physical and chemical constituents…”3 While the macrocosmic view looks at the dynamics at work behind the veil of appearances. A hermetic maxim Steiner would refer to is: in this world, Spirit is never without matter. Matter is never without Spirit.

Even in the elements of the periodic table, we have the workings of the spiritual world. Each element has its own character, affinities, and behaviors. And if some of those qualities are missing in the soil, all life growing out of the soil suffers. We should keep in mind that we are not fertilizing with vast amounts of minerals. An acre of a few inches of topsoil weighs over 2,000,000 pounds — not counting the massive amount of soil below! Applying a few hundred pounds of minerals and a ton of dolomite does almost nothing to change the soil's parent material but rather informs the soil with new dynamics. As Steiner suggested, all nourishment is really homeopathic: we only absorb a minuscule fraction of what we eat. Likewise, when we apply lime to a field, plants only assimilate a tiny portion of what we spread. When we restore mineral balance to the soil, we are replenishing the dynamics of life.

If you were to suggest that the important part of a piano is its music, of course, you’d be completely correct. But if you were to remove the metal, merely because it’s a “dead” element, or the ivory keys because they appear immobile, or the wood, because it’s not a living tree anymore, you would soon have no piano or music at all. Biodynamics is the music we play on the instrument of the soil. A soil test is no more the “real” soil than sheet music is the “real” music. The reality of Hamlet is in its performance on stage. The reality of the archetypal plant is in its instantiation as this particular plant right here. The garden is all one beautiful performance.

Steiner warns us: “The truth is that Mother Nature will abandon us without mercy, if we do not pay proper regard to potash, limestone or phosphoric acid.”4 And yet, how often do we pay proper attention to potassium, calcium, and elemental phosphorus in the soil?

Steiner says:

“The root is rich in salts, the flower in light. People knew much more of this in the past. This is why they called the principle to be found in the flower ‘phosphorus’. Today, when everything has become material, phosphorus is merely a solid. Phosphorus means bearer of light; phosphorus originally was the principle that bears the light in the flower. The mineral came to be called phosphorus because if you set fire to it you can see the light come out. But the flower is the true bearer of light.”5

Here, we have two distinct uses of the term phosphorus. One is the periodic element with which we are familiar, but the other is an analogous process within the realm of plants. These are not entirely separate, but they perform a similar function, one in the physical world and one in the etheric. But inasmuch as both have this latent potential activity, both the dynamics of the flower and the mineral are alive.

When Steiner speaks of “phosphorus,” he is often speaking not of the periodic element but of the phosphorus pole. In Paracelsian alchemy, this is normally referred to as alchemical Sulfur, but Steiner usually prefers the term “phosphorus” to describe the same activity. For example:

“Here then you have, in external nature, two states which are polar to one another; that which acts in a saline manner and that which acts in a phosphoric manner. And between them, there is a third group: that which acts Mercurially.”6

Generally speaking, alchemical sulfur is the aromatic oils that naturally go up, out, and away. Salt is what settles down and precipitates out of solution (e.g., salt crystals). What is called “mercury” in alchemy isn’t the metal, nor is it the planet in the sky, but rather a mercurial quality meditating between the salt and sulfur polarities. In Steinerspeak, the mercurial middle belongs to the rhythmic system, the sulfur (or phosphorus) pole to the metabolic-limb system, and the salt pole to the nervous system. I myself couldn’t understand the link between the metabolic system and limbs until I realized that the jaw is a limb whose primary biological task is metabolism.

Things belonging to the “Salt” pole are water-soluble. Virtually all of our fertilizers today would be classified as water-soluble. As a result, we are often overcharging the “Salt” polarity, which causes the plant to produce agitated, watery growth. Leaves get bigger, and the fruit gets larger, but if it is one-sided fertilizing, they mostly put on empty water weight. If I eat too much salt, I retain more water than normal in order to dilute the excess. Plants do the same.

This is why gentle applications of slow-release minerals like soft rock phosphate are beneficial: they do not “force feed” plants but rather gradually release into the complex life of the soil. As Steiner suggests, these minerals do not spontaneously balance themselves. We must remember to balance these invisible forces carried by the mineral world. If the mineral world were not important for our gardening, why would we spray crushed-up quartz on our plants?

For those familiar with Dr. Weston A. Price, the world-traveling dentist whose magnum opus centers around validating balanced indigenous diets over industrialized processed foods, Dr. William Albrecht wrote an appendix for Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration in which he suggests that as Dr. Price is to human health, Albrecht himself is to soil health. It is worth noting that Dr. Price did not advance eating a meat-heavy diet, nor did Rudolf Steiner. Instead, in an appendix to Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Price writes that the grown adult needs no more protein than a piece of meat the size of a hen’s egg per day. This is much closer to Steiner’s own indications in the Agriculture Course:

“It was taken as scientifically proved that a man weighing from 70 to 75 kilograms required about 120 grammes of protein a day. This was regarded as scientifically established. Today no man of science would give credence to such a proposition. Everyone knows nowadays that 120 grammes of protein are not only not necessary but would actually be harmful, and that man is at his healthiest when he is taking about 50 grammes a day. In this case, science has corrected itself. It is known today that if too much albumen or protein is consumed, it produces poisonous by-products in the intestines.”7

For plants, a similar kind of excess would be experienced in the overapplication of nitrogenous (soluble) fertilizers.

0. Establishing Flow

Before we start, we should observe. Permaculture guru Bill Mollison recommended planting nothing the first year but just watching the cycles of nature and how the land behaves in each season. With careful notes, you’ll see the land already has its own unique rhythm. If you are aware of this, you can direct its flow more artistically. In embryology, we learn that the developing human has an independent pulse before a heart. Likewise, the wild environment in which you find yourself already has a distinct pulse around which the heart of the farm can form itself.

As Alan Chadwick suggested, “Filthy, mucky tools: filthy, mucky work. Clean, beautiful tools: clean, beautiful work.” Elsewhere, he says, “We need to create the beauty and the quality first. The quantity will follow.” So, how do we approach this? Clean tools and organization are important. But where do we start? If we are serious about the farm as an organism, flow is essential to a healthy organism. If your blood does not flow easily, your body cannot operate healthily. If tools are not easily found, there is a lack of flow on the farm.

• Grow Biointensive by John Jeavons is a way to grow a complete annual diet in less than 2000 sq ft with the most efficient technology available: the human body. While not expressly biodynamic, there is nothing incompatible in this approach with biodynamics. I visited Jeavons’ operation in January 2024 (a post for another day). It is a remarkable success story. Countless people worldwide use the Grow Biointensive approach to eradicate hunger with minimal inputs and sourcing fertility from within the garden itself.

  

• The Lean Farm by Ben Hartmann is a book that takes broad principles, orients the farm according to your own particular values — which can easily include biodynamic aspirations — and then shows how to make it a discipline to optimize the flow of activities on the farm. Hartmann has several books in this series and is progressively reducing the size of his farm, producing more from less space and with less time cost. “If you shave 4 hours per week, you can take one year off every ten years.”

• Earth, Plant, and Compost by William Brinton is a text that offers and overview of composting principles to gain truly transformed colloidal humus. If you want the garden to flow, this is the heart of collecting the energy you will add to the soil, which will flow forth as vibrant plant growth. One of the most ecological things you can do for the farm is produce your own compost. There are many good books on this subject.

  

Below here is my personal approach to soil balancing we use at Perennial Roots Farm.

1. Physical,
2. Mineral,
3. Biological, and
4. Energetic:

If what follows perhaps seems like too much, or calculating ratios of minerals isn’t your cup of tea, feel free to reach out to me directly: stewart@jpibiodynamics.org

1. Physical Loosening

As the Barefoot Farmer Jeff Poppen often remarks, deep ripping is the first step in no-till. Moreover, something will be mixing your soil, whether it’s earthworms or you. If soil is compacted, it cannot transmit water from below upwards. When Alan Chadwick was asked what he saw as the greatest problem in the world, he replied, “Compaction.”

John Jeavons’ Grow Biointensive approach works soil deep with “double digging” to give truly remarkable results. While these double-digging gardeners obviously disturb the soil enormously, it is always with an eye to adding back more than is taken.

The first steps in opening the soil involve a broadfork or a subsoiler. This breaks apart long-compressed layers of soil from erosion, neglect, or outright abuse. Much like touching a paper towel to a glass of water causes water to climb the towel, the same kind of “capillary action” allows water to rise naturally from the subsoil up to the topsoil. If this dynamism is not first restored, the entire garden is restricted to what little water the top few inches of soil can accumulate.

In some cases, double-digging is practically impossible, and other approaches need to be taken.

• For gardens that aren’t double-dug, I prefer the Meadow Creature Broadfork. There are several sizes, but the deeper you can loosen the soil, the better.

  

• If you are on a large scale (and have a big tractor) the Rehabilitator, which Alex Podolinsky helped design, might be for you.

  

• Also made in Australia, but with smaller versions suitable for midsize or small tractors is the Yeomans plow which is ideal for improving pasture. They also supply very large sizes. There is a distributor in the USA. who fabricates the frames domestically and only ships over the shanks and other parts from Australia.

  

• On a budget, a single shank subsoiler works well too.

  

Combining deep loosening with biodynamic preparations such as the 500 horn manure, the Podolinsky “prepared” 500, or the Pfeiffer Field and Garden Spray makes for excellent results.

2. Mineral Balancing

Some periodic table elements we need not think of at all. As Steiner says, “The heavens give us the silicic acid, lead, mercury and arsenic we need; they give them freely whenever the rain falls.”8 It is hardly a revolutionary notion that any application of mercury, arsenic, or lead is not only unnecessary but positively harmful. The trace amount in the atmosphere and soil is quiet enough to have a stimulating effect without needing to think about balancing these elements.

But this is not true for all our minerals. While he mentioned Hugh Lovel favorably, when I spoke with Gary Zimmer at the Virginia Biological Farmers Conference (VABF 2024), he shared with me that some of the poorest examples of fodder he had seen came from biodynamic farms that refused to address mineral balancing. Whether or not his assessment is correct is beside the point because he rightly identifies a trend. Neglecting the mineral realm is a temptation; failing to consider the mineral realm is not part of the biodynamic way of farming. After even just four years of careful balancing, combined with cover crops and biodynamic preparations, minerals can almost be forgotten except for trace amounts once a year.

Ehrenfried Pfeiffer recommended “total testing” which uses an aqua regia digest process. Not every soil testing service will want to do this for you, even if they offer a total mineral assay. Why is this important? It tells you the total values locked up in your parent material. If your total test shows high Phosphorus levels, but your plant available soil test shows low Phosphorus levels, you begin to glimpse where a biological process is broken down and needs to be reignited.

Getting a Mehlich III soil test performed is strongly advisable to see what major plant available deficiencies exist. This is more thorough than a normal plant available soil test which uses something close to the pH of seltzer water to examine your soil sample. But healthy plants produce much stronger acids. If you want to see more than what is rainwater-soluble, a Mehlich III test is for you. If a farm were only to balance the ratio between Calcium and Magnesium and repair trace mineral deficiencies, they would see a great improvement. The results can be balanced easily with Steve Solomon’s Acid Soil Worksheet.

After a few years of balancing soil, most of the work is done, and only periodically will it need minor amounts of amendments — but in amounts that, considered in the scheme of things, are merely stimulants.

20lbs of KMag on one acre is 20 lbs of substance on 2,000,000 lbs of topsoil, which is barely 10ppm, not even counting all the soil beneath your topsoil, in which case it quickly drops to parts per billion (ppb). A D6 homeopathic dilution is 10ppm. What is applied when we use mineral balancing is a virtually homeopathic stimulant on the soil, but with very real and measurable effects.

It is the forces or activities of these elements we are working with, not really their bulk quantities. As Steiner says, “any manures or the like which you bring into the farm from outside should be regarded as a remedy for a sick farm.”9 We cannot assume our farms begin healthy, or we will not apply the expedient measures to restore them to health.

These numbers are much in line with Dr. William Albrecht’s wonderful work, which Gary Zimmer (The Biological Farmer), Hugh Lovel (Quantum Agriculture), Steve Solomon (The Intelligent Gardener), and Michael Astera (The Ideal Soil) all follow closely, albeit with their own modifications based on individual experiences.

According to Steve Solomon, if you balance your calcium-magnesium ratio (Ca:Mg) properly, you should be able to drive a truck over your beds without them being compacted. While this might be a bit of an exaggeration, there’s an element of truth to this. Maintaining a proper mineral balance changes the structure of the soil and provides a more suitable habitat for plants, microbes, and bioavailable nutrients.

One of my favorite amendments is gypsum (popularly known as “selenite”), which was called by peasants “Mary’s glass” — it provides calcium and sulfur but does not alter your pH level because Mary is never excessive.

Another special element is Boron, but Boron is not so mild. Boron is a key element that can easily be excessive but at proper levels drives wonderful photosynthesis. Hugh Lovel recommends levels 2-3x what most soil scientists even consider. But because it is a trace mineral, very little is needed to increase from 1ppm to 3ppm on an acre. Boron should ideally be composted before being applied. Dr. Elaine Ingham said somewhere that when minerals are composted, a mere fraction of what a soil test says is needed because they are rendered far more bioavailable.

If you produce wood ash (0-1-3), this is a source of potassium and calcium. Care should be taken, but this is a ready source of calcium produced within the limits of the farm.

Some useful resources for balancing minerals in the manner of Dr. William Albrecht can be found here:

• Acid Soil Worksheet by Steve Solomon

• Acid Soil Worksheet Autofill (plus Calcareous Soil Worksheet) by Stewart Lundy

• The Biological Farmer by Gary Zimmer

• The Intelligent Gardener by Steve Solomon

  

• Quantum Agriculture by Hugh Lovel

  

• The Ideal Soil by Michael Astera

  

3. Biological Filling

The loosened soil must be filled with life. Having cracked the soil open, roots can fill the cracks and can chase water deep into the soil. I myself tried so-called “tillage radishes” on a compacted plot. They grew sideways in great L-shapes, making a ninety-degree turn when they hit the plowpan we had inherited. Whether it’s mixing in compost or cover crops, what has been loosened must quickly be filled with new life.

Alex Podolinsky would opt for as many species as he could fit into a cover crop blend, and I like this idea for several reasons. If you apply 20 lbs of a single species to an acre, the variations in soil conditions may give patchy germination. But if you sow out 1lb each of twenty different species on the same acre, you guarantee virtually 100% ground cover, and you immediately maximize the diversity of soil biology.

Dr. Christine Jones notes that we only need four functional groups in a cover crop for total nutrient cycling. This is a remarkable claim: “One case study mix that Christine mentions is of four species – radish (brassica), oats (grass family), sunflower (aster family) and phacelia (borage family). The key here is that each of these plants belongs to different functional groups, allowing for maximum benefit in the soil sociobiome.” And this is without a legume in the mix!

As Alex Podolinsky notes, his favorite way to compost is not to compost but rather to use cover crops. His results are as follows:

“In the early days we ran trials. Depleted soil was deep ripped. We sowed the right species and applied 500 and had the well known results. In six years we raised the organic matter levels from 0.9% in the top 4” to approximately 12% and, varyingly, to 2.4% at 40” depth. Ripping exactly the same way etc, but without 500, the soil biology developed to 20 cm depth, no further. In modern farming the right soil treatment and the Bio-Dynamic preparations must be applied together.”10

Alan Chadwick recommended having a full third of your garden in cover crops throughout the year. The logic behind this is that if you have one year of cover cropping, you are only adding to the soil, and then you extract as you grow. But with a rotation like this, you no longer have to worry about rotations the way you might otherwise have to consider them. An important point is to cut down cover crops when they are at 20% blossom. When they start to go to seed, not only can they become weedy, but they consume the resources they put into the soil. While Gary Zimmer doesn’t quite do this, his approach rhymes with Chadwick’s suggestions. Zimmer now farms more profitably every other year: one year of cover crops, one year of planting and harvesting.

• Soil Fertility, Renewal and Preservation by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer is a great text of Pfeiffer’s experiments, recommendations, and useful diagrams.

• For the Love of Soil by Nicole Masters

  

• The Regenerative Grower’s Guide to Garden Amendments: Using Locally Sourced Materials to Make Mineral and Biological Extracts and Ferments by Nigel Palmer

  

• Secrets of Fertile Soils by Erhard Henning is an exploration of hidden qualities in the soil and plants’ abilities to exude strong acids like hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid.

  

4. Energetic Tuning

After all this, other subtle approaches may be employed. But I think of this level as the conductor of a great orchestra. It doesn’t matter if you have Leonard Bernstein as your maestro if you’re missing half the instruments! Biodynamics is the orchestra of the symphony in the soil.

Some people use paramagnetic rock in their soil and compost — I do. Others built paramagnetic towards or use agnihotra to consecrate a space. All of this is well and good, but it will work all the better if the fundamental elements are in place already.

Biodynamics provides direction and orchestration for what is going on in the soil. That influence can’t be underestimated, but it is only one aspect of responsible farming.

Biodynamics is not merely physical substance but rather the organizing activities behind the scenes. If we could “see” what the preparations really are, we would see lines of light in a vibrant pattern all around the nondescript humus.

• Agriculture of Tomorrow by Lili Kolisko is a remarkable collection of experiments of tiny amounts of substances along with pictures of “capillary dynamolysis” which, like paper chromatography, allows capillary action to draw up samples and give vivid pictures:

  

  

• Paramagnetism by Philip Callahan is a book by a self-described “Shinto Catholic” in which the relationship between weak magnetism (paramagnetism) and vigorous plant growth is established, as well as using frequencies to lure pests.

  

• The Findhorn Garden explores a surprising success story where people create a bountiful garden out of little more than sand, hard work, intention — and elemental beings. In my visit with John Jeans in January 2024, he referenced this book specifically as an example of why biodynamics works but also why “scientific” double-blind trials with biodynamics seem to fail. Without the grateful participation of the conscious human being, it is all for naught.

  

• Stone Age Farming by Alanna Moore is a book exploring stone structures and towers and the benefit of these to the surrounding areas — and much more.

  

5. Summary

Once the physical breaking of compacted (deadened) soil has been undone, new forces are liberated. This is much like crushing quartz to liberate the forces contained in it. Cultivating soil helps unlock its potential, but once it has collapsed and grown compacted, its life is stifled. Alchemically, air is not merely gaseousness but surface area. Cultivation, rightly done, introduces the quality of lightness into the soil — both in its sense of levity and in its sense of illumination. May we all bring new life to Mother Earth so that she becomes a bounteous garden of peace.