3 ms·

I am at best a home gardener, but have always been interested in the subject. I did go down the route of "Fragile Earth Theory" stuff, but have now come full c

I am at best a home gardener, but have always been interested in the subject. I did go down the route of "Fragile Earth Theory" stuff, but have now come full circle to understand how powerful modern farming is. Modern farmers know exactly what is going on with their crops, concerns about top soil are moot from what I've seen. You can grow plants in air, as long as you give them what they need, they don't need or want a more "natural" biological landscape. A lack of "black gold" is no problemo, plants love a sandy loam of sorts with nothing in it, everything else can be top fed.

AstralStorm 3y ago
There are two Achilles heel of modern farming. One is that it's water intensive, which will come to a head real soon due to climate change. The other is that it depends on mined and processed fertilizer a lot, especially for potassium and phosphorus. These can go down in availability due to various geopolitics. Nitrogen en masse is not free either. Making these from scratch in large amounts literally requires fossil fuels, in particular syngas.
- Phileosopher 3y ago
  I'm not convinced those are legitimate problems, since we're great at detecting future problems but terrible at imagining future solutions. In the late 19th century for example, people were afraid NYC would cease to function because it'd be covered in pony poop. Nitrogen exists in the air, meaning it's a question of filtering it. I've heard rumor of carbon capture devices, so yanking nitrogen out of the air seems trivial once someone gets the engineering down. Water is mostly the same issue, with desalination being the final end to that scarcity. Before that, we'd likely be able to filter plenty of less-than-usable water for our plants' purposes, which may even include wicking it out of the air. Not to say I know what the answer is, but that I know with absolute certitude that I don't know enough to project current geopolitical trends onto future circumstances.
myshpa 3y ago
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/soil-has-microbiome-too-180960088/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/soil-has-micro... Soil Has a Microbiome, Too https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/07/secret-world-beneath-our-feet-mind-blowing-key-to-planets-future https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/07/secret-w... The secret world beneath our feet is mind-blowing – and the key to our planet’s future Don’t dismiss soil: its unknowable wonders could ensure the survival of our species https://phys.org/news/2023-02-microbes-earth-rock-to-life.html https://phys.org/news/2023-02-microbes-earth-rock-to-life.ht... Microbes are 'active engineers' in Earth's rock-to-life cycle https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/04/improving-farming-soil-carbon-store-global-heating-target https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/04/improvin... Better farming techniques across the world could lead to storage of 31 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide a year, data shows https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1033824/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1033... The soil microbiome contributes to several ecosystem processes. It plays a key role in sustainable agriculture, horticulture and forestry. In contrast to the vast number of studies focusing on soil bacteria, the amount of research concerning soil fungal communities is limited. This is despite the fact that fungi play a crucial role in the cycling of matter and energy on Earth. Fungi constitute a significant part of the pathobiome of plants. Moreover, many of them are indispensable to plant health. This group includes mycorrhizal fungi, superparasites of pathogens, and generalists; they stabilize the soil mycobiome and play a key role in biogeochemical cycles. Several fungal species also contribute to soil bioremediation through their uptake of high amounts of contaminants from the environment. Moreover, fungal mycelia stretch below the ground like blood vessels in the human body, transferring water and nutrients to and from various plants. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00366-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00366-w Soil microbiomes drive key functions in agroecosystems, determining soil fertility, crop productivity and stress tolerance. ... System-level agricultural management practices can induce structural alterations to the soil, thereby changing the microbial processes occurring at the microscale. These changes have large-scale consequences, such as soil erosion, reduced soil fertility and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

AstralStorm 3y ago

There are two Achilles heel of modern farming. One is that it's water intensive, which will come to a head real soon due to climate change. The other is that it depends on mined and processed fertilizer a lot, especially for potassium and phosphorus. These can go down in availability due to various geopolitics. Nitrogen en masse is not free either. Making these from scratch in large amounts literally requires fossil fuels, in particular syngas.

Phileosopher 3y ago
I'm not convinced those are legitimate problems, since we're great at detecting future problems but terrible at imagining future solutions. In the late 19th century for example, people were afraid NYC would cease to function because it'd be covered in pony poop. Nitrogen exists in the air, meaning it's a question of filtering it. I've heard rumor of carbon capture devices, so yanking nitrogen out of the air seems trivial once someone gets the engineering down. Water is mostly the same issue, with desalination being the final end to that scarcity. Before that, we'd likely be able to filter plenty of less-than-usable water for our plants' purposes, which may even include wicking it out of the air. Not to say I know what the answer is, but that I know with absolute certitude that I don't know enough to project current geopolitical trends onto future circumstances.

myshpa 3y ago

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/soil-has-microbiome-too-180960088/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/soil-has-micro... Soil Has a Microbiome, Too https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/07/secret-world-beneath-our-feet-mind-blowing-key-to-planets-future https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/07/secret-w... The secret world beneath our feet is mind-blowing – and the key to our planet’s future Don’t dismiss soil: its unknowable wonders could ensure the survival of our species https://phys.org/news/2023-02-microbes-earth-rock-to-life.html https://phys.org/news/2023-02-microbes-earth-rock-to-life.ht... Microbes are 'active engineers' in Earth's rock-to-life cycle https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/04/improving-farming-soil-carbon-store-global-heating-target https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/04/improvin... Better farming techniques across the world could lead to storage of 31 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide a year, data shows https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1033824/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1033... The soil microbiome contributes to several ecosystem processes. It plays a key role in sustainable agriculture, horticulture and forestry. In contrast to the vast number of studies focusing on soil bacteria, the amount of research concerning soil fungal communities is limited. This is despite the fact that fungi play a crucial role in the cycling of matter and energy on Earth. Fungi constitute a significant part of the pathobiome of plants. Moreover, many of them are indispensable to plant health. This group includes mycorrhizal fungi, superparasites of pathogens, and generalists; they stabilize the soil mycobiome and play a key role in biogeochemical cycles. Several fungal species also contribute to soil bioremediation through their uptake of high amounts of contaminants from the environment. Moreover, fungal mycelia stretch below the ground like blood vessels in the human body, transferring water and nutrients to and from various plants. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00366-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00366-w Soil microbiomes drive key functions in agroecosystems, determining soil fertility, crop productivity and stress tolerance. ... System-level agricultural management practices can induce structural alterations to the soil, thereby changing the microbial processes occurring at the microscale. These changes have large-scale consequences, such as soil erosion, reduced soil fertility and increased greenhouse gas emissions.