>> Farmers haven't just been adding a bit more fertilizer and water every year, Nice to believe and it is certainly what growers should be doing, but the evide

>> Farmers haven't just been adding a bit more fertilizer and water every year, Nice to believe and it is certainly what growers should be doing, but the evidence clearly indicates that they really aren't. Nitrate levels in the Mississippi are directly correlated to nitrogen use in agriculture and in the upper Mississippi River and Missouri River, flow-normalized nitrate concentration and flux have increased steadily during 1980–2000 and is most measuring sites accelerated since 2000.[0] At the two most downstream sites on the Mississippi River, increasing trends in flow-normalized nitrate concentration are a relatively new development and at least partly reflect increases occurring in the Missouri River and the upper Mississippi River. Many believe this increase in nitrate concentration is directly responsible for the Gulf of Mexico dead zone – an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and other marine life – which for 2019 NOAA scientists are forecasting to be approximately 7,829 square miles or roughly the size of the land mass of Massachusetts.[1] I don't see how Ausubel's conclusion on decreased fertilizer use squares with the measured reality on the ground (or the water) in this case. [0]: https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2013/5169/pdf/sir20135169.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2013/5169/pdf/sir20135169.pdf [1]: https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-forecasts-very-large-dead-zone-for-gulf-of-mexico https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-forecasts-very-large...