What is the goto source for free-as-in-freedom information about growing plants and helpful diagnostics info?
What is the goto source for free-as-in-freedom information about growing plants and helpful diagnostics info?
I'm looking for a place to find any special info on soil nutrients, and simple image comparison type diagnostics. Something like the Wikipedia of a farmer's almanac or something. I'm looking for the best public commons type sources with no ulterior motives or influences; farm nerds for farm nerds.
I'm not looking for copy and paste articles, ads funded nonsense, or anyone that is influenced by sponsorships or product reviews of any kind.
If I have holes in the leaves of my tomato plants, or want to know the ideal lighting conditions, or soil pH, or hydroponics versus potted watering regimes, etc., I want to know where to look for info with everything from basic to advanced academic level depth.
The public library and your agriculture extension are the two easiest sources to find high quality sources.
LibGen's probably go digital stuff if he's into that
Your local county extension office and nearby universities with agricultural programs.
Example: https://extension.uga.edu/publications/series/detail.html/71/home-garden.html
It's all going to be copyrighted but CSU's extension is phenomenal:
As others have stated, you want to contact your local co-op extension if you're in the states.
https://extension.org/find-cooperative-extension-in-your-state/
The Cooperative Extension System is a non-formal educational program implemented in the United States designed to help people use research-based knowledge to improve their lives. The service is provided by the state's designated land-grant universities. In most states, the educational offerings are in the areas of agriculture and food, home and family, environment, community economic development, and youth and 4-H. (wiki)
They'll have free soil sample kits, articles and programs/classes for local agriculture, etc etc.
Anything else will be pirated, shitty ad filled ai knockoff apps, or finding a forum of like minded individuals you can ask. There are plenty of resources out there but a "one stop shop" I haven't found. The problem stems probably from location, information is vast and mostly irrelevant if you're not in the same growing zones. The local co-ops will have individuals, employees, and articles posted up, they're really helpful when it comes to reaching out to them in my experience.
trefle.io has data from various sources, though a lot of pages are rather empty.