Field spray preparations

What are field spray preparations?

Field spray preparations are the group of biodynamic preparations that are stirred in water and sprayed over large areas of soil or plants. This sets them fundamentally apart from the compost preparations (502 to 507), which are not sprayed but worked into compost and farmyard manure. The term groups together the preparations that are applied by spraying.

In the biodynamic understanding, the two central field sprays "sensitise" soil and plant to cosmic and earthly forces. They form a polarity but are meant to be treated as a unit when used.

Which preparations belong to the group?

There are three field spray preparations:

Horn manure 500 (500): made from cow manure in a cow horn, the soil preparation. It works mainly through the soil and root system (also through the young leaf), promotes the forces of life and activates the plant's ability to connect more strongly with the mineral world through its root symbionts. It is sprayed onto the soil in the evening.

Horn silica 501 (501): made from quartz flour in a cow horn, the preparation of light and ripening. It strengthens the plant's ability to connect with cosmic forces, above all sunlight, and promotes processes of form and ripening. It is sprayed onto the plant in the morning.

Horsetail 508 (508): sprayed as a tea or decoction against fungal pressure. It has a special place: not a classic preparation matured in a casing, but a plant care remedy that is nonetheless applied by spraying.

The polarity of horn manure and horn silica

Horn manure and horn silica form the central pair of opposites in biodynamics. Steiner described it vividly in the Agriculture Course: "… then you would see how the cow-horn manure pushes up from below and the other draws from above, drawing neither too weakly nor too strongly." These are two different effects of forces that are meant to work together harmoniously.

This polarity already shapes how they are made and stored: horn manure is made over the dark, moist, cool winter, stored dark, moist and cool, and applied to the soil and the root zone. Horn silica is made over summer (also in the soil), stored light, dry and warm, and used in the region of leaf, flower and fruit. In the biodynamic understanding, only both together give the complete, harmonising effect; horn manure provides the basis on which horn silica can work properly.

How are they applied?

Before spraying, horn manure and horn silica are stirred rhythmically for an hour, the dynamisation, so that their forces pass to the water. Then they are applied promptly, because the effect of the stirred preparation fades after about a day. The times of day are deliberately opposite: horn manure in the evening onto the soil (in large drops), horn silica in the morning onto the plant (as a fine mist). In extreme drought, using them together has proved useful: horn manure in the evening, horn silica the next morning. Horsetail is sprayed as a boiled, diluted extract to prevent fungal disease, often together with horn silica to support the silica processes. More on technique, quantities and timing under applying the preparations.

Field spray preparations and Demeter

For Demeter farms, horn manure and horn silica are compulsory: they must be applied at least once a year (at the right time) for land to be recognised as "Demeter in conversion" or "Demeter"; the same applies to the compost preparations. Together with the compost preparations, the field sprays are therefore the core of the compulsory biodynamic work (see Demeter certification).