Good day.

It feels like a typical April day here in Pennsylvania. Wet, with temps in the 50′s. 

If this continues it could nudge perennials and trees out of their winter slumber to put out new, fresh growth. That would be disastrous as a following winter blast would lead to certain ‘vegetation termination’. We seldom call for cold weather but we need it now. In addition, we can do with some snow for the holiday season, right?

The desk is loaded, the ‘to-do’ tray full. Product to be shipped, both national and internationally.    We welcome our new clients based in Cameroon and look forward to receiving their experiences regarding Cambrian’s products applied to coconut groves in the near future.

Take care, SP

G’evening.

Its good, nay, necessary, to get out and about. It widens the vision and illuminates who and where we are.

During the past few years, a new day has dawned regarding food production and it’s about 10 am right now.   We are facing multiple new challenges and associated opportunities as this century matures.  No longer are our bodily nutrient requirements soley produced by regular applications of refined chemical compounds that produce bumper crops while slowly strangling soils.

In grandad’s day, plants obtained their nutrition solely from microbial activity present in healthy soils.    Cow dung and other locally obtained organic materials were regularly applied to fields; crops were healthy, displayed natural resistance and yielded nutritional crops. Very few allergies in those days, I’ve been told.

We know that plants cannot dine directly on cow patties; these require to be ’worked over’ by millions of tiny soil microbes. Soil microbial activity not only converts the nutrients locked up in this package into plant assimilable forms but, in the process of doing so, greatly adds microbial metabolic compounds to the soil.  Some ‘free’ plant food!

This practise was followed by the ‘new age’ concept of creating and using ‘plant foods’ rather than ‘soil foods’.  Plant foods are refined forms of plant nutrition that are directly available to plants for assimilation.   The results of solely feeding crops with such refined plant foods have now become clear.

The cycle is turning. With understanding and knowledge, we are regaining what we have lost. It’s going to be a sunny day.

Thanks for stopping by. SP

Thanks to great team work, Cambrian Biotech had a successful presence at the ACRES Conference in St Louis last week.

FEDEX delivered on time, our booth looked sharp and Bruce & I looked totally irresistible in our yellow Cambrian logo’d shirts.  The bowl of candy on the table assured that we got the attention of every next generation organic grower visiting this prestigeous international event. In fact, some even visited multiple times. Ever watch the faces of grown-ups when kids move in to take over? They all light up with broad grins – so did we!

An interesting comment was made as we departed the Hyatt Regency Station Hotel by the heavily over coated doorman. Not a youngster, he commented that he had never experienced such a pleasant group of people visiting his hotel - friendly, courteous and cooperative. It sure was a pleasure mingling with thousands of folks indiscriminately smiling and nodding ‘good morning’ at each other.

We met old friends and made a whole lot of new ones. Too many to recount but memories were made and bonds were established with growers, distributors and formulators alike. We look forward to contributing to the organic movement by being of service both on a technical level and as dependable bulk material suppliers.

We remained at our post until the last moment. When the lights flashed to signal the end of the enjoyable event, we dismantled and packed at a furious speed. It was not fast enough however; the result was that a connecting flight was missed and I had the pleasure of enjoying the home comforts of Atlanta airport from 8 pm to 9 am the following morning. Made friends with a number of the early morning cleaning crew. The benches however, were no match for my hard but comfortable mattress back home! All in the line of duty.

Our thanks go to all who visited, too many to mention; a few deserve a special word though –  Jim, Leonel, Terry, Nate, and Paula (of ACRES). We look forward to meeting you all again at next year ACRES event.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if we could be of service.

Home, sweet home..

Regards, SP

Well folks, the bags are stuffed and boxes heavy; all packing off to St Louis, MO tomorrow to attend and mingle with the organic like minded at the ACRES Conference. 

This a premier event, drawing visitors from around the globe. So different from just 5 years ago, there is no doubting the ‘power of going organics’ anymore!

The Cambrian Biotech team has burned late oil for this event; our thanks in particular go to Jack and his professional team at Black Out Design, Scranton, PA. for pulling through.

Bruce Keltner and I are exited and eagerly looking forward to meeting good friends such as Jim Anderson, of Seagrass Recovery Inc.  – Jim has got some real interesting ‘growing organic underwater’ experiences – and Leonel Fernandes, – Cambrians materials resource associate just back from South Africa  – at Cambrian Biotech booth, #12B

 An adventure is about to begin. Hope to see you there at the Hyatt Regency Converance Center, St Louis; anytime from Thurday 4th to Saterday 6th December. Please stop by for some candy and Ecklonia kelp talk. 

Back here Monday 8th to drop a blog note & mind the store with Julie.

Keep warm, SP.

Going back to the late 70′s. seaweed products were considered plant growth mineral supplements and used by growers as such..

Plant hormones were, at that time, only recently discovered and their function in plant growth not yet fully understood.  It is therefore understandable that the seaweed processes in existence back then did not consider hormonal presence in seaweed and the potential significance of these natural compounds.     

It was clearly obvious, after foliar spraying beans and roses with mechanically processsed cytoplasm of freshly harvested & processed Ecklonia kelp, that the resulting growth & flowering ‘explosion’ could not be ascribed to a fertilizer growth reaction as Ecklonia’s  N, P & K levels are rather insignificant.  It had to be a hormonal growth response.

So, where to find a hormonal analytical expert?

It turned out that a world leading expert in this field was a couple of hundred miles away, based at The University of Natal.  

Prof. Hannes van Staden was gracious and receptive to our appeal and initiated a research study which, it turned out, led to the elevation of Ecklonia kelp from being a micronutrient source to an organic hormonally active, valuable plant growth stimulant with the capabilities to significantly increase and improve crop yields. The stage was set & the course clear.

 Today, 28 years later, we know with absolute certainty that Ecklonia kelp contains high levels of natural auxin-like and cytokinin-like compounds. These natural compounds, based in a kelp-sourced micro nutrient soup, have the proven capabilities to increase and improve food production around the globe.

G’night. SP