The secret is in the soil
Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people.
At our all-organic farm we never use plastic mulches or chemical fertilizers.
Preserving our soil from pollutants is the key to intergenerational health.
Suggestion
We invest in green technology for the quality of our organic products, as well as the future and well-being of our ecosystem.
Preserving our soil from pollutants is the key to intergenerational health, so at our all-organic farm we focus on naturally enriching our soil and never use plastic mulches or chemical fertilizers.
This top section will set the tone for the rest of the page. The new version gets rid of intro on green tech for quality products and the future of our ecosystem, and replaces it with a blurb about plastic mulch. Mulch is one unglamorous part of focus on eco-responsibility, so I’ve tried adding it as a bullet point afterwards rather than replacing the main point of the page.
Quality Over Quantity
v2 (new)
Farmers who sell ingredients to extract companies often make money by the pound, so they grow as many pounds as possible at the expense of quality. We harvest at the right time according to research on optimum chemical potency because we only care about the potency of the final product.
A plant's chemical properties can change tremendously over the course of its lifecycle as it puts energy toward leaf development, flowering, and finally seed. The key advantage to farming our own herbal extract ingredients is that we only harvest at peak potency.
For example, Qing Hao (Artemisia Annua) plants can grow very large, but they lose potency as they get large and flower, so we harvest them early at peak potency when they are smaller.
Focusing on the chemical life-cycle of each crop is essential to optimum potency, and this is why our extracts consistently show superior potency.
v1 (original)
A plant's chemical properties can change tremendously over the course of its lifecycle as it puts energy toward leaf development, flowering, and finally seed. Familiarity with the chemical properties of each crop over the course of its lifecycle is essential to proper harvesting and optimum potency.
One key advantage of farming our own ingredients is harvesting at peak potency. For example, Qing Hao (Artemisia Annua) plants can grow very large, but they lose potency.
Farmers who sell ingredients to extract companies often make money by the pound, so they grow as many pounds as possible at the expense of quality. We harvest at the right time according to the research on optimum chemical potency. Even if this means lower yield on our farm, it still makes for a far more potent extract in our final product.
v2 (new)
We make the highest quality all-organic compost on our farm because composts also vary widely in their quality and cleanliness. We feed our plants with sustainable compost nutrients without the use of chemical inputs or mined additives.
This not only makes ecological sense. All of our trials showed that herbs nourished with our myceliated compost had more aromatic essential oils and higher potency.
Feeding our soil with robust organic nutrients builds a healthy soil ecosystem and gives our plants the nutrients they need to produce more of the compounds we want in our extracts.
In short, healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people.
From the Ground Up
Soil health through myceliated compost
v1 (original)
Making the highest quality all-organic compost on our farm to nourish our fields allows us to feed our plants with sustainable nutrients without the use of chemical inputs or mined additives.
It doesn’t just make ecological sense; all of our trials also showed that plants nourished with our actively aerated myceliated compost have more aromatic essential oils and higher potency.
Feeding our soil with robust organic nutrients builds a healthy soil ecosystem and gives our plants the support that their root systems need to produce more of the compounds that we want in our extracts.
In short, healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people.
SS doesn’t allow adding a link within a Learn More section, so I put it in the main body for now. Kelsey can move it later, since she will likely have more control over editing.
How Organic Should Be
When you buy Nokomis products, you’re not just getting a better product, you are saying no to monoculture and other harmful agricultural practices. Nokomis Herbal Extracts is the only botanical supplement brand whose products are certified by the Real Organic Project LLC.
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The Real Organic Project LLC is an important voice against the dilution of organic standards as the agriculture industry lobbies for more permissive organic regulations. Our Certified Real Organic Products are not only grown in compliance with USDA organic standards, the Real Organic Project certifies that they are grown using sustainable and ecological practices that go above an beyond diluted USDA standards to ensure that our farming practices nurture and support the soil and the environment.
The Art of Seed-Saving
Giving crops an intergenerational home
The therapeutic compounds found in plants are often stimulated responses to their ecosystems. Plants are ingenious chemists able to produce hundreds of different compounds to support their health. Humankind has benefited immeasurably from our passed-down knowledge of how to use these plants to support our own health.
By meticulously saving seed at our farm, we cultivate resilience in our herbs, which thrive in the same ecosystem as their parents, and we maintain the consistent potency of our products because we don’t have to worry about purchasing inferior seed from year to year.
Farming Pollinator-Friendly Fields
Our farm is 75% old growth woodlands, and it preserves an abundance of biodiversity. These forests offer nesting locations to everything from insect pollinators to birds and mammals. We also maintain our own honey-bee hives and promote a non-toxic safe environment at our farm where they can thrive. A big part of our field maintenance is working to offer a diversity of flowering plants in the same field. Different plants flower at different times of the year and by planting multiple crops on the same field, we provide a reliable and diverse food source for our pollinators.
The Truth about Geo-Authenticity
A common misconception has emerged that herbs grown outside of their native habitat are somehow less potent than those grown in their native habitat. This over simplification has been disproven by scientific studies. Potency depends more on the soil and environmental conditions of the field where the plants were grown and its immediate surroundings. Potency has little to do with the continent where they were grown. If a crop is grown on its native continent, but it is grown with chemical fertilizers in degraded or contaminated soils or if it is over-irrigated to boost yield, this will produce inferior herbs just as it will anywhere.
A study on Huang Qin (Scutellaria baicalensis), for example, showed that Huang Qin grown in Crystal Springs, Mississippi had higher levels of key chemicals, baicalin and baicalein, when compared with a sample imported from the plant’s native region (1). The truth is that how herbs are grown (i.e. soil conditions, irrigation, harvesting and drying etc…) determines the herbs’ chemical potency far more than the continent where the herbs are grown.
(1) V.D. Zheljazkov et al. (2007) “Quality and Yield of Baikal Skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis) Grown at Multiple Locations” in HortScience 42(5): 1183-1187.
gluten free
nut free
GMO free
soy free
vegan