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I grew up on a farm in Canada and we would breathe ammonia when testing the ammonia nozzles on our air seeder. It didn't smell great, but we didn't die.
by troymc 6y ago
I grew up on a farm in Canada and we would breathe ammonia when testing the ammonia nozzles on our air seeder.
It didn't smell great, but we didn't die.
- userbinator 6y agoThe dose makes the poison. Everyone who has encountered the smell of urine has inhaled some ammonia fumes too.
- ncmncm 6y agoIt is so cool that you can just squirt it into the dirt behind the plow blade, and the soil bacteria take it up so fast you can't smell anything.
- andbberger 6y agoWhat soil bacteria? Modern agriculture tills soil microorganisms to death then is forced up to make up the difference in fertility with oil-derived nutrients. Oops. Okay I'm obviously being hyperbolic, there is still soil bacteria. But cool is not the word I would use to describe such a practice...
- ncmncm 6y agoRegardless of misgivings about American farm practices, it is undeniably cool that ammonia-saturated water can have its ammonia fixed so very quickly by bacteria that have not in thousands of generations encountered saturated ammonia solution. Use of ammonia fixed by local wind power should be less objectionable than numerous other common farm "inputs". In particular, injecting nitrogen deep under the surface should result in much less nitrate-saturated runoff to streams and thus, ultimately, algae blooms offshore, than we get with spraying. That said, the tragic loss of buckwheat from world diets is a direct consequence if it not yielding more in response to fertilizers. That is tragic because it has better protein than any other grain. A buckwheat that produces more when fertilized would be a great gift to the world.