What is Biodynamic Agriculture?

Important note that I really appreciate the comments on this video as they pertain to Steiner the man, and I'm reading a lot that I did not know. I guess I personally have always thought of Steiner as an eccentric philosopher, somewhat caught up in the esoteric lecturing/writing popular at the time, but who had some thoughtful ideas about agriculture. What I was not aware of were his more troubling, racist comments. Obviously, I do not endorse that. I think, like many ideas (or tools or methods, etc) from an earlier time, biodynamics has a complicated history. But that context is important. I don't blame anyone for passing on this approach for those reasons. Thank you as always for the insight, y'all. You are great.

Jesse nooooooo.

Steiner was a complete grifting racist crackpot. He and Madame Blavatsky literally invented the occult underpinnings of Nazism, including the entire concept of the "Aryan" race and presented the idea that races other than white people were paying a karmic debt. I mean you can go on and on and on about how full of it Steiner was.

The Nazis had experimental biodynamic farms run by concentration camp slaves.

Steiner is not cool, biodynamic farming is not cool. It's complete nonsense and anything effective about it is an accident or incidental.

FASINATINg j just love this! Completely new info

Civilized minds, Civilized “inteligence”. ie: “Artificial Inteligence”.

All comes full circle dont it? Ai vs Nature. Civilized minds are slaves to Civilization, takes alot for that mind to quite and listen to the heart, our roots are organic, though the ideaology of Civilized minds is Metal.

Awesome!

Reading the comments made me rewatch this episode, where is all the mystaism "woo woo" mentioned in this video? I feel as ive missed something. I haven't researched Stinner, his questionable beliefs mentioned or more into biodynamics so where is the negativity in the peactices mentioned coming from? Just about to watch the preparation episode now.

Steiner was right about a lot.

In Romania in village where people make agriculture for them and other for sell make this for long time a go....but the people from city buy from market..because the products look better....

This was great, Jesse💯 Very accurate and informative like your content

Permaculture... hello!! Far superior to bio dynamics.

I hope you are OK with hurricane Helene today!

"Know" till. Such a simple change but completely changes the perspective on tilling that I have been hearing the past couple years.

GREAT video - thanks!

Did bro just say he is dry farming? Like for real?

Biodynamic people don’t know what they are doing. Manure is aggregate for growing fungus. Some fungus produces growing hormone. Sealed in horn makes great habitat to make spores. Spores mixed with water and sprayed over humus makes even more fungus producing growth hormones. So you get more food. But in the time Steiner didn’t know this. Just observations. Solution is to study fungus relations to plants.

Jeff Poppen (the Barefoot Farmer) is amazing as a grower and human being.. Jeff's farm in Red Boiling Springs is a testament to Biodyamics and trust in the relationships of all beings!

I never thought I’d be excited about a political ad, but this is amazing

I didnt even know that I was doing this. I grow food in the presence of the entire local species pool.. This is great, thank you for this video.

That was great! Thank you!

A biodynamic process can make food and livestock grow bigger, stronger. Use the living water ponds, rotate livestock, use other biodynamic methods to decrease pests.

I like his farming philosophy, but what he is describing sounds more like regenerative agriculture in general. I still don't really understand what makes it specifically "biodynamic".

Have been using biodynamic practices for 30 years. Love it. Useful tool for the box

This is way too vague. Many of this is around the same thing you do. Cover the earth with soil, manage fertility etc. no talk of moons and the underlying ideals of biodynamic teachings.

Jeff Poppen's (mis)understanding of sunlight and subsequently photosynthesis is kind of hilarious to hear coming from a successful farmer.

The sun does not send hydrogen to Earth - it sends light aka photons. Maybe he's confusing the word "photon" with "proton"? A hydrogen atom is composed of a single proton (usually with a single electron). As another commenter noted, the hydrogen that plants need for photosynthesis comes from water.

Biodynamics is cool, and it's a great reminder that plants are more complicated than the chemical equation for photosynthesis, but it's important to have the basic science correct as well :)

but where do you get that much compost to put on each acre? that's a lot.

Words can’t quite do this justice but in my opinion this, by a great margin, the most valuable, absurdly important information someone could provide on this platform. Thank you Jesse and everyone involved! Beautiful work.

Loved that info, TY!

born in Donji Kraljevec, today Croatia, altough in that time part of Austrian-Hungarian -Croatian Empire - Habsburgs empire so called

Thanks for this video.

30 to 40 tonnes of compost is not vaguely possible for me. You'd need a truck. A big tip truck. Someone please explain how this is done? My farm was biodynamic in the 60s and 70s. I only realised recently why there were piles of horns in the shed.

You can’t get green sand anymore 😢

What a amazing wealth of knowledge from a OG

I dont feel like the question and title of the video has fully been addressed. Apart from a Heavy load of compost, his conservation tillage, and these biodynamic preps. Is that biodynamic agriculture is? Or are those his practices? Are there any biodynamic principles? that would encapsulate some of this? No discussion of the moon phases which I thought was a big thing. Tremendous production quality tho ❤️

Please have also look at the M Bruce, Quick return compost. This is also based on R. Steiner. The biodynamic compost preparation is still produced today.

If you don't understand basic photosynthesis there's not much hope. I for one won't be buying his book. Love the channel Jesse

Been speaking to a big timber farmer where I live and he's still using roundup to get rid of blackberries and other weeds..I explained to him the dangers of glyphosate and his response was how do you handle weeds without the chemicals?

A bit more woo woo than your typical video. I had to roll my eyes a hit when he mentioned they bring on 25-30 tons of compost per acre per year, thats ~1/2inch deep over an acre. Youre definitely getting a lot of biological activity with that addition every year.

No disagreements about soil biology being important, cover crops being useful tools, nor the use of mulches. But theres no need to invoke a deep mysticism alongside it.

And what a beautiful farm , wisdom, and knowledge !
Thank you!

Compost does not feed the soil microbiology. It is a fully digested material, only plants can use it. It has a somewhat good effect on soil structure in the short term though.
Only wood chips and/or agressive use of cover crops that produce a lot of biomass can really improve soil structure substantially and in the long term.

Looks like a beautiful farm with interesting practices though.

I’ll be honest and say it feels like a cult. Science/biology has come a long way since Rudolf Steiner. For instance he says that hydrogen comes to the earth via a sun. Nope. Nonetheless It’s hard to tell biodynamics from regenerative or any other practice that just utilizes understood natural processes to drive an ecosystem. Biodynamics just likes the ritualistic “bury the chicken bones” to balance the spirits type practices. Kinda witch-crafty. Haha! Go for it!

Just a note about solar radiation. My understanding is that hydrogen ions from solar wind bond with oxygen in the atmosphere to make water vapor. Plants use photons in photosynthesis for food. So plants do not directly use hydrogen ions from solar wind as stated in the video. Science rocks! Cheers!

Jeff's are so smart!

I got to see Jeff in person at the biodynamic conference in November 2023.
Good to hear him talk on biodynamics Steiner and so on.
He was walking around the hotel in coveralls and barefoot, gotta love it, that conference was eye opening and life changing.
Look forward to his part on the preparations.

Biodynamic is ridiculous because it's just organic sprinkled with mystical nonsense involving burying horns with shit oh certain moon cycles.

Not to mention, steiner and his acolytes were sympathetic to or out right nazis. Denying this to just romanticize "barefoot farmers" makes supporters of organics look so stupid.

Anyone who thinks organics starts with steiner, knows nothing about agriculture.

Thank you, Farmer Jesse.
More, please.

I took a biodynamic gardening class a little over a decade ago. I love that this is making a comeback! I attended UT Extension New Farmer Academy and was looked at like I had 3 heads when I requested biodynamic farming information.

Rudolph Steiner was a wt supremacist antisemitic proto-Nazi who believed he was the reincarnation of Plato and said that the heart doesn't circulate blood and that blond people are smarter because the nutrients went to their brains instead of their hair.

AND he never farmed a day in his life when he came up with biodynamic farming. Regenerative farming is better off without it. I'll just take a hard pass on his weird pseudoscience, thanks. ✌🏼