3 ms·
> produces consistently high yields Up until soil has been exhausted for that particular plant, at which point yield is maintained by a) temporarily turning it
by lloeki 3y ago
> produces consistently high yields
Up until soil has been exhausted for that particular plant, at which point yield is maintained by a) temporarily turning it back to fallow or b) artificially bringing in nutrients.
- jbotz 3y agoSoil exhaustion is mostly irrelevant to this industrial method... it just means adding a more complete nutrient mix. In much of the US or Europe they can get awawy with only adding NPK (until, as you say, the soil gets exhausted, meaning some of the other nutrients are no longer available in sufficient quantity), but in a lot of the tropics (where I've practiced agriculture) the soils are so poor that they go with a complete nutrient mix from the start, i.e. treat the soil as just a substrate to hold the roots and add everything else, both macro and micro nutrients (often in the irrigation water, so it's basically hydroponics in soil). The method remains the same.
- maxerickson 3y agoI've jokingly used sandponics to describe industrial agriculture, but apparently that's a real other thing.