Biodynamics

I was curious about biodynamics and looked it up... it is more stringent than an organic label, and appears to be used mostly for wine though you'd think it'd work for farmed food as well. I guess that for groceries the premium is too high... sounds like it's time for fancy marketing...

Anyways, most of the work appears to have been done by an Austrian philosopher named Rudolf Steiner. Besides crop rotation and composting, stuff that organic farmers tend to use, biodynamic farmers use special plant, animal and mineral preparations as well as the influences of the sun, moon, planets and stars. It believes that the farm is an organic unit and tries to keep it in harmony. Seeds are used from last years harvest, composting utilizing parts that are not used.

Supposedly it's affects on crops is tremendous, but some of the rituals, especially with the lunar calendar seems rather hocus-pocus.