The author gives an introduction to 6 subjects of bio-dynamic farming: the soil,pests and sprays, the relation rock-plant-animal, sowing and the influence of the moon,bringing light in the soil by plowing, the influence of the planets and permanent pasture. pp. 173 illusts #0819 Farming

Biodynamic farming pioneer Alex Podolinsky had sceptics, but farmers still follow his methods.

Sorcery or science? How can a concoction made from manure buried in cow horns in the dead of winter and sprayed on tired dirt under a new moon reinvigorate soil?

Not even the founding father of Australian biodynamics Alex Podolinsky knew the answer.

But 50 years later, farmers who follow this practice are paid top dollar for their dairy products, beef, rice and almonds.

This week, the world’s first international conference on biodynamics will be held in China, a fitting tribute to Mr Podolinsky, who died in June, just shy of his 94th birthday.

A controversial pioneer. Mr Podolinsky inspired an unlikely army of loyal troops, who every autumn across Australia scoop up fresh cow manure from their fields.

Then they squeeze the pungent green stuff into cow horns — many thousands of them — collected from abattoirs across the country.

The horns are carefully stacked and buried in earthen pits over winter, then they’re dug up in spring and emptied of a dark organic matter called humus.

This is the crux of biodynamic farming and central to Mr Podolinsky’s pioneering version of it.

He named it Demeter-certified biodynamic farming, after the Greek goddess of grain and fertility.

He then developed machines to convert the humus into soluble fertiliser to spray onto crops and soil, and discovered optimal times and conditions for when to do it.

This could mean the right phase of the Moon or the dark of night.

Sceptics dismissed his methods as akin to witchcraft and biodynamic farmers as deluded cult members.

Science is still largely at a loss to explain why cow horns create the rich humus while porcelain vessels and wooden boxes filled with manure do not.

Those who practice biodynamic farming care little about how it works.

They are more focussed on the fact it does, applying it to soil as well as fruit and vegetable crops across Australia.

Mr Podolinsky didn’t invent biodynamic farming; it was devised in the 1920s by German philosopher Rudolf Steiner to counter the rise of synthetic fertilisers.

Alexei de Podolinsky, born in Germany of noble Russian heritage, with an imagination fired by Dr Steiner’s principles, emigrated to Australia in 1949.

He wanted to come to where there was light and light is an important part of a plant’s process,” Alex’s son Peter Podolinsky said.

“”He was very conscious of nature and he saw things long before anybody else saw them.””

“”In the 1960s