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They claim the current wheat yield is 3.3 tons/hectare while the new variety has yield 10 tons/hectare, about a 3x difference. What impact does this have on th

They claim the current wheat yield is 3.3 tons/hectare while the new variety has yield 10 tons/hectare, about a 3x difference. What impact does this have on the micronutrient profile of the harvested crop? And does this result in faster depletion of those micronutrients from the soil, i.e. is it sustainable to harvest this crop?

scythe 3y ago
Yields of most plants are higher in the tropics: there is more sunlight, more water, and no frost. Wheat, historically, hasn't been able to benefit from this as it wasn't adapted to the climate. Most minor minerals are present in plants to the tune of 0.001% by weight or less. We extract many times as much manganese, chromium, copper etc as the metal as we would from the soil. Selenium is generally postulated as the limiting element for life on Earth, but we're not yet at the point of needing to supplement it in soil. Brazil nuts are supposedly a particularly Se-avid crop, yet they haven't destroyed the ecosystem of Brazil so far. Soil depletion more generally consists of changes in texture (less water holding) and reduced ability to slow-release the nutrients we already add (NPK). It has been addressed by adding clays — chiefly aluminosilicates — which are predominantly composed of elements not utilized by living things (mostly). In other words, it's usually not the nutrients themselves being removed from a "depleted" soil, at least in the modern day.
- blacksqr 3y ago
  The bottleneck on large-scale farming is always nitrogen fertilizer. The only adequate source of nitrogen is ammonia manufactured from petroleum. So Brazil's chief challenge will be obtaining adequate ammonium fertilizers.
  - namaria 3y ago
    Brazilian soils are phosphate poor. I believe that's typical of tropical soils. So they have a mineral bottleneck, that can't be solved by pumping energy into the supply chain.
- wil421 3y ago
  Total yields may be higher in the tropics but Alaska gets 20 hours of summer sun and can grow freakishly huge vegetables. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/20/341884706/why-vegetables-get-freakish-in-the-land-of-the-midnight-sun https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/20/341884706/wh...
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
Of course it’s not sustainable. No modern farming is. They’ve probably come up with some stupid technique like diverting the entire amazon river in order to pull this off. And then a few years down the line they’ll be asking where all the water went and why the forest is gone.

scythe 3y ago

Yields of most plants are higher in the tropics: there is more sunlight, more water, and no frost. Wheat, historically, hasn't been able to benefit from this as it wasn't adapted to the climate. Most minor minerals are present in plants to the tune of 0.001% by weight or less. We extract many times as much manganese, chromium, copper etc as the metal as we would from the soil. Selenium is generally postulated as the limiting element for life on Earth, but we're not yet at the point of needing to supplement it in soil. Brazil nuts are supposedly a particularly Se-avid crop, yet they haven't destroyed the ecosystem of Brazil so far. Soil depletion more generally consists of changes in texture (less water holding) and reduced ability to slow-release the nutrients we already add (NPK). It has been addressed by adding clays — chiefly aluminosilicates — which are predominantly composed of elements not utilized by living things (mostly). In other words, it's usually not the nutrients themselves being removed from a "depleted" soil, at least in the modern day.

blacksqr 3y ago
The bottleneck on large-scale farming is always nitrogen fertilizer. The only adequate source of nitrogen is ammonia manufactured from petroleum. So Brazil's chief challenge will be obtaining adequate ammonium fertilizers.
- namaria 3y ago
  Brazilian soils are phosphate poor. I believe that's typical of tropical soils. So they have a mineral bottleneck, that can't be solved by pumping energy into the supply chain.
wil421 3y ago
Total yields may be higher in the tropics but Alaska gets 20 hours of summer sun and can grow freakishly huge vegetables. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/20/341884706/why-vegetables-get-freakish-in-the-land-of-the-midnight-sun https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/20/341884706/wh...

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

Of course it’s not sustainable. No modern farming is. They’ve probably come up with some stupid technique like diverting the entire amazon river in order to pull this off. And then a few years down the line they’ll be asking where all the water went and why the forest is gone.