75% of the world's land is degraded

Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
SneekyNinja said:
You can hardly compare the scale between then and now.

Rotation isn't enough to compensate for the incredibly high rate of nutrient depletion.

Hence why fertiliser use is necessary, the fact it's necessary is fairly self evident and not even worthy of discussion.

We'll have 9 bill people on the planet by 2100, so it's only going to get worse too.
Click to expand...
fertilizer is indeed a necessary evil, but it is not a reason to not practice good land management at the same time. growing thousands of square miles of the same crop till you destroy the lands ability to produce more food is stupidity. using up the land, and never allowing it to lie fallow to regenerate is stupid. not bothering to plant cover crops and plow them under the next spring is stupid. destroying miles of rain forest that cannot be replaced, to grow crops on land that will be useless in less than 5 years is stupid, not rotating crops is stupid.
stupidity gets what it deserves. eventually.

there, see? i found some merit in discussing it.....you seem a little close minded to me....
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
SneekyNinja said:
You can hardly compare the scale between then and now.

Rotation isn't enough to compensate for the incredibly high rate of nutrient depletion.

Hence why fertiliser use is necessary, the fact it's necessary is fairly self evident and not even worthy of discussion.

We'll have 9 bill people on the planet by 2100, so it's only going to get worse too.
Click to expand...
Roger A. Shrubber said:
fertilizer is indeed a necessary evil, but it is not a reason to not practice good land management at the same time. growing thousands of square miles of the same crop till you destroy the lands ability to produce more food is stupidity. using up the land, and never allowing it to lie fallow to regenerate is stupid. not bothering to plant cover crops and plow them under the next spring is stupid. destroying miles of rain forest that cannot be replaced, to grow crops on land that will be useless in less than 5 years is stupid, not rotating crops is stupid.
stupidity gets what it deserves. eventually.

there, see? i found some merit in discussing it.....you seem a little close minded to me....
Click to expand...
We've gone so far off the rails when it comes to producing food that at this time, farmers are locked in to synthetic fertilizers.

Microbes -- both fungi and bacteria can replace many if not all synthetic fertilizers but it takes re-educating farmers and consumers for it to work.

Shrubber is right in that monoculture over hundreds if not thousands of acres isn't practical in this kind of setting. Eventually the pest-pressure becomes too great and without heavy application of pesticides the crops fail. Also, repeatedly growing one crop depletes the soil of nutrients. The farmer has the choice of not growing a profitable crop like corn and switch to a legume that might not be as profitable or they can spray and apply synthetic nutrients. Not hard to guess which direction they go.

Ninja is right in that soils that have been treated with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides can't produce food without synthetic fertilizers. Not because the soil always needed it but because synthetic fertilizers and pesticides kill off beneficial soil microbes that would otherwise help reduce the need for those chemicals.

The end result of unsustainable practices is desertification, a real problem around the world. Yet it need not be a gradual slide down to desertification. The following link takes one to a paper that shows promise in isolating strains of bacteria that are particularly effective at providing nutrients from soil and air. These strains can be isolated, grown in bulk and applied to depleted soils in order to begin the healing process for the land whole maintaining food production. To enable this shift , we would have to stop using salts and poisons. I think the problem is at the same order of importance and technical understanding as ending dependence on fossil fuels for energy.

REPLACEMENT OF THE TRADITIONAL FERTILIZER WITH MICROBIAL TECHNOLOGY: ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF BENEFICIAL NITROGEN FIXING RHIZOBACTERIA

http://adatbank.transindex.ro/vendeg/htmlk/pdf9889.pdf
 
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ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
then its about time for a real good one
Click to expand...
Be careful what you wish for.

We've been spending billions and decades building autonomous war machines that don't need humans in a decision making role.

We're just a few tweaks of the rules of engagement away from Terminator.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
fertilizer is indeed a necessary evil, but it is not a reason to not practice good land management at the same time. growing thousands of square miles of the same crop till you destroy the lands ability to produce more food is stupidity. using up the land, and never allowing it to lie fallow to regenerate is stupid. not bothering to plant cover crops and plow them under the next spring is stupid. destroying miles of rain forest that cannot be replaced, to grow crops on land that will be useless in less than 5 years is stupid, not rotating crops is stupid.
stupidity gets what it deserves. eventually.

there, see? i found some merit in discussing it.....you seem a little close minded to me....
Click to expand...
Modern applications of organic farming techniques have shown that such practices can outperform 'modern' methods using chemical fertilisers, and can do it indefinitely.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
SneekyNinja said:
You can hardly compare the scale between then and now.

Rotation isn't enough to compensate for the incredibly high rate of nutrient depletion.

Hence why fertiliser use is necessary, the fact it's necessary is fairly self evident and not even worthy of discussion.

We'll have 9 bill people on the planet by 2100, so it's only going to get worse too.
Click to expand...
Fogdog said:
We've gone so far off the rails when it comes to producing food that at this time, farmers are locked in to synthetic fertilizers.

Microbes -- both fungi and bacteria can replace many if not all synthetic fertilizers but it takes re-educating farmers and consumers for it to work.

Shrubber is right in that monoculture over hundreds if not thousands of acres isn't practical in this kind of setting. Eventually the pest-pressure becomes too great and without heavy application of pesticides the crops fail. Also, repeatedly growing one crop depletes the soil of nutrients. The farmer has the choice of not growing a profitable crop like corn and switch to a legume that might not be as profitable or they can spray and apply synthetic nutrients. Not hard to guess which direction they go.

Ninja is right in that soils that have been treated with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides can't produce food without synthetic fertilizers. Not because the soil always needed it but because synthetic fertilizers and pesticides kill off beneficial soil microbes that would otherwise help reduce the need for those chemicals.

The end result of unsustainable practices is desertification, a real problem around the world. Yet it need not be a gradual slide down to desertification. The following link takes one to a paper that shows promise in isolating strains of bacteria that are particularly effective at providing nutrients from soil and air. These strains can be isolated, grown in bulk and applied to depleted soils in order to begin the healing process for the land whole maintaining food production. To enable this shift , we would have to stop using salts and poisons. I think the problem is at the same order of importance and technical understanding as ending dependence on fossil fuels for energy.

REPLACEMENT OF THE TRADITIONAL FERTILIZER WITH MICROBIAL TECHNOLOGY: ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF BENEFICIAL NITROGEN FIXING RHIZOBACTERIA

http://adatbank.transindex.ro/vendeg/htmlk/pdf9889.pdf
Click to expand...
Ending massive subsidies to pesticide and fertiliser manufacturers might help, too.
 
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Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
a lot of the N and Ammonia in fertilizers comes from natural gas. not oil, but still a fossil fuel.
i'll admit to using jack's. maybe that makes me a hypocrite, but i just honestly don't have a place to keep a compost heap. if i lived in a place where i had more room, i definitely would. and my use of Jack's, in containers, can hardly be compared to commercial scale farming, where they are covering square miles of ground, while my use covers square feet. i'm not saying scale = culpability, but i highly doubt all the synthetic fertilizer used on the entire planet by weed growers equals that used by one commercial farm growing tons of food
 
SneekyNinja

SneekyNinja

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
fertilizer is indeed a necessary evil, but it is not a reason to not practice good land management at the same time. growing thousands of square miles of the same crop till you destroy the lands ability to produce more food is stupidity. using up the land, and never allowing it to lie fallow to regenerate is stupid. not bothering to plant cover crops and plow them under the next spring is stupid. destroying miles of rain forest that cannot be replaced, to grow crops on land that will be useless in less than 5 years is stupid, not rotating crops is stupid.
stupidity gets what it deserves. eventually.

there, see? i found some merit in discussing it.....you seem a little close minded to me....
Click to expand...
I agree with you, I'm just saying it's a bit of a "no shit sherlock" that mechanized mass agriculture will deplete the land.

I'm all for the regeneration of land by the use of organics like mass compost spreading and such from bio-digested waste food/plant materials and allowing it to lay fallow.

The problem is we waste so much food but yet are vulnerable to any shortage causing price pressure to people at the bottom.
 
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