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From many examples I have seen of farms that have switched to regenerative practices it takes about 3 years to bring the soil back to life. Some of those had b

From many examples I have seen of farms that have switched to regenerative practices it takes about 3 years to bring the soil back to life. Some of those had been corn for generations. Living soil consumes rock minerals making them available to plants. It doesn't matter if all the previously released minerals all washed away. As long as there is sand, silt, clay and living soil the minerals are available for plants.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Aren’t those minerals depleted by higher and higher yield crops that are industrially farmed and then shipped all over (along with the water)? How does the regenerative practice add back an equivalent amount? Wouldn’t it need additives that are equal in mass to all the plants previously farmed?
- debacle 2y ago
  It doesn't. After a few years, the scant resources (phosphates, magnesium, manganese) run out again. Most small-scale regenerative ag farms are bringing in a lot of outside material to add those minerals back in. My farmland hasn't been farmed for 50 years. If I clear an area and put a veggie bed in, I get 1 year of great yield, 1 year of "okay" yield, and then it becomes impossible to grow anything due to nutrient deficiencies.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    Isaac Asimov once conducted a thought experiment: "If all the earth's crust was converted into bio-mass, what would be the limiting element?" Remember all those post WWII photos showing how fertilizing with phosphorous resulted in incredible crop yields? Guess what element China (which has some of the world's largest reserves) has quit exporting?
    - throwup238 2y ago
      > "If all the earth's crust was converted into bio-mass, what would be the limiting element?" I think selenium would run out long before phosphorus. The crust contains selenium at 0.05-0.09 ppm, but most plants require around 0.1-1 ppm. It's also one of the hardest nutrients to remediate because you can't just dump a bunch of selenium on the surface when 5-10 ppm starts to become toxic to lots of other organisms.
      - AStonesThrow 2y ago
        I was supplementing with selenium for various reasons, and it seemed clear that it's one of the minerals that used to be supplied via our diet, but is quite deficient now, due to exhaustion in the soil. Selenium, along with taurine, is one of the supplements which genuinely drove my physicians vehemently crazy, so I doubled up, and ensured that they were the focal point of my daily regimen.
        waldothedog 2y ago
        When you say it drove your physicians crazy, what do you mean?
        schmidtleonard 2y ago
        They wanted social validation for their fad diet from the doctor and didn't get it.
        AStonesThrow 2y ago
        No, they get pissed because the supplements can actually heal illnesses and support better health, which means they wouldn't be able to push drugs on me. Psychiatrist's parting shot was, "they're all bio-active!" Micronutrients are no fad, because guess what, they used to come in our fruits, vegetables, and meats.
        teruakohatu 2y ago
        > Selenium, along with taurine, is one of the supplements which genuinely drove my physicians vehemently crazy, so I doubled up, and ensured that they were the focal point of my daily regimen. Selenium is commonly recommended by doctors in New Zealand.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      Phosphate builds up in soil, converted to insoluble forms. Most applied phosphate isn't absorbed by plants. So "regenerative agriculture" could actually make sense if there are ways of tapping into this phosphate bank, say by encouraging the growth of phosphate mobilizing microorganisms. One issue with phosphate ore is contamination with undesirable elements, like cadmium and also uranium and its decay products, like radium. The waste stream from sulfuric acid treatment of the ores is radon-emitting gypsum. Sulfuric acid itself may become limiting once we're off fossil fuels, since almost all of it is currently produced by oxidation of sulfur extracted in the desulfurization of oil and gas.
  - chairmansteve 2y ago
    You need to return your waste to soil, maybe? Composting the food waste, and use composting toilets to create a "circular economy". That is apparently how it was done in the old days...
    - schiffern 2y ago
      See The Humanure Handbook. https://humanurehandbook.com/ https://humanurehandbook.com/ See also, Paul Wheaton criticism of The Humanure Handbook ("No, do fear your poop! Fear it!!"). Timecode link, but I recommend the whole video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vZPTPIHO8w&t=4980s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vZPTPIHO8w&t=4980s
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
        I too am a connoisseur of dysentery.
        schiffern 2y ago
        But seriously check out the links, especially the second one. That's precisely the point — to close the nutrient loop but still 100% interrupt the pathogen fecal-oral route.
        idunnoman1222 2y ago
        I watched the video and all he said is that if it smells bad, it is bad but I don’t see anything about closing the nutrient loop
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        Yes, let's put human waste containing a whole Walgreens' of drug residues onto a field growing our food crops. What could possibly go wrong?
        psd1 2y ago
        Good question. It's about unknown unknowns, right? But we could map out where those may be. I guess chemical toxicity, drugs with long half-lives that affect soil organisms, and antibiotics that promote resistance. (yeah yeah they are all chemicals.) For the chemical toxicity, it's chemicals that are harmful to plants but allowed for human consumption, or chemicals in sufficient quantity to disrupt soil balance. Doesn't seem like a real concern? With metabolic disruption to soil organisms, yes, there may be real danger there. That smells like previous environmental mistakes. Antibiotics, yeah, some danger. Livestock is exposed, and resistance-conferring genes might jump directly to human pathogens. It's worth studying. There are requirements for both sewage processing and fertilising soil, so the value of a solution would be high.
- Retric 2y ago
  Most of the matter in food comes from water H2O or Air CO2 + N2. Nitrogen fixing bacteria are literally getting that nitrogen from the air not the soil even if they live in the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation Modern agriculture uses fertilizer for extra nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Plants also need a few trace minerals from soil but it’s a tiny fraction of their mass Iron, Calcium, etc and can also be added back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_flour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_flour PS: There’s some really destructive agricultural like sod that’s literally shipping soil, but the premium pays to replace the soil.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Every unit of a crop has a specific amount of minerals forever taken away. Nitrogen comes from the air and to isn't an issue. but where are you going to get those tons of phospeous from? Farmers now have to add sulfur because while not much is needed some is taken away and needed - they used to get that from acid rain but we cleaned up that source (overall a good thing but one unexpected issue) i don't know how much iron crops need compared to what is in most soils. I know farmes are adding sulfar and other mineral.
    - schmidtleonard 2y ago
      > Nitrogen comes from the air and to isn't an issue I thought it was a huge issue because natural nitrogen fixation was slow and unreliable, and that's why Haber-Bosch was such a big deal.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        By not an issue I mean we have plenty and it is 'easy' to replace. Of course fixing is slow and so we need to add a lot but supplies won't run out.
        schmidtleonard 2y ago
        You sure? I vaguely remember that the Green Revolution was roughly a 10x in yield. That sounds pretty significant. What's the yield difference using modern techniques?
- tastyfreeze 2y ago
  Fungi digest rocks and make the minerals water soluble. It is the life in the soil the regenerates the fertility. Fungi are the first things to die with tilling and chemical application; breaking the nutrient cycle.
  - hwc 2y ago
    instead of mining rocks thousands of miles away, crushing them, and then spreading the result in your fields, convince local fungi to do all that work locally!
- analyte123 2y ago
  It’s more about keeping minerals on the field. A big one is reducing erosion, which practices like no-till and cover cropping help. Tons of soil being washed away is a lot of nutrients being lost. If you look at a regenerative certification program like [1] you’ll see that you’re allowed to apply synthetic fertilizer but it has to be no more than the rate removed by harvested crops. This means, hopefully, that you aren’t losing much to erosion, runoff, or volatization, and that good soil structure is keeping them available. [1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.regenified.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/18191226/Final-4-10-2024-2024-Revision-Regenified-6-3-4-Verification-Standard-1.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.regenified.com/wp-content/upl...
schiffern 2y ago
> Living soil consumes rock minerals making them available to plants. Thank you. This is one of those super-underappreciated biological facts. Industrial ag treats soil like it's a tank of fertility, and guess who sells the refills? Biologists know that healthy soil is a factory, making new fertility out of rock/air/rain/sun. Direct from soil microbiologist Dr Elaine Ingham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Aren’t those minerals depleted by higher and higher yield crops that are industrially farmed and then shipped all over (along with the water)? How does the regenerative practice add back an equivalent amount? Wouldn’t it need additives that are equal in mass to all the plants previously farmed?

debacle 2y ago
It doesn't. After a few years, the scant resources (phosphates, magnesium, manganese) run out again. Most small-scale regenerative ag farms are bringing in a lot of outside material to add those minerals back in. My farmland hasn't been farmed for 50 years. If I clear an area and put a veggie bed in, I get 1 year of great yield, 1 year of "okay" yield, and then it becomes impossible to grow anything due to nutrient deficiencies.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  Isaac Asimov once conducted a thought experiment: "If all the earth's crust was converted into bio-mass, what would be the limiting element?" Remember all those post WWII photos showing how fertilizing with phosphorous resulted in incredible crop yields? Guess what element China (which has some of the world's largest reserves) has quit exporting?
  - throwup238 2y ago
    > "If all the earth's crust was converted into bio-mass, what would be the limiting element?" I think selenium would run out long before phosphorus. The crust contains selenium at 0.05-0.09 ppm, but most plants require around 0.1-1 ppm. It's also one of the hardest nutrients to remediate because you can't just dump a bunch of selenium on the surface when 5-10 ppm starts to become toxic to lots of other organisms.
    - AStonesThrow 2y ago
      I was supplementing with selenium for various reasons, and it seemed clear that it's one of the minerals that used to be supplied via our diet, but is quite deficient now, due to exhaustion in the soil. Selenium, along with taurine, is one of the supplements which genuinely drove my physicians vehemently crazy, so I doubled up, and ensured that they were the focal point of my daily regimen.
      - waldothedog 2y ago
        When you say it drove your physicians crazy, what do you mean?
        schmidtleonard 2y ago
        They wanted social validation for their fad diet from the doctor and didn't get it.
        AStonesThrow 2y ago
        No, they get pissed because the supplements can actually heal illnesses and support better health, which means they wouldn't be able to push drugs on me. Psychiatrist's parting shot was, "they're all bio-active!" Micronutrients are no fad, because guess what, they used to come in our fruits, vegetables, and meats.
      - teruakohatu 2y ago
        > Selenium, along with taurine, is one of the supplements which genuinely drove my physicians vehemently crazy, so I doubled up, and ensured that they were the focal point of my daily regimen. Selenium is commonly recommended by doctors in New Zealand.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    Phosphate builds up in soil, converted to insoluble forms. Most applied phosphate isn't absorbed by plants. So "regenerative agriculture" could actually make sense if there are ways of tapping into this phosphate bank, say by encouraging the growth of phosphate mobilizing microorganisms. One issue with phosphate ore is contamination with undesirable elements, like cadmium and also uranium and its decay products, like radium. The waste stream from sulfuric acid treatment of the ores is radon-emitting gypsum. Sulfuric acid itself may become limiting once we're off fossil fuels, since almost all of it is currently produced by oxidation of sulfur extracted in the desulfurization of oil and gas.
- chairmansteve 2y ago
  You need to return your waste to soil, maybe? Composting the food waste, and use composting toilets to create a "circular economy". That is apparently how it was done in the old days...
  - schiffern 2y ago
    See The Humanure Handbook. https://humanurehandbook.com/ https://humanurehandbook.com/ See also, Paul Wheaton criticism of The Humanure Handbook ("No, do fear your poop! Fear it!!"). Timecode link, but I recommend the whole video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vZPTPIHO8w&t=4980s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vZPTPIHO8w&t=4980s
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      I too am a connoisseur of dysentery.
      - schiffern 2y ago
        But seriously check out the links, especially the second one. That's precisely the point — to close the nutrient loop but still 100% interrupt the pathogen fecal-oral route.
        idunnoman1222 2y ago
        I watched the video and all he said is that if it smells bad, it is bad but I don’t see anything about closing the nutrient loop
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      Yes, let's put human waste containing a whole Walgreens' of drug residues onto a field growing our food crops. What could possibly go wrong?
      - psd1 2y ago
        Good question. It's about unknown unknowns, right? But we could map out where those may be. I guess chemical toxicity, drugs with long half-lives that affect soil organisms, and antibiotics that promote resistance. (yeah yeah they are all chemicals.) For the chemical toxicity, it's chemicals that are harmful to plants but allowed for human consumption, or chemicals in sufficient quantity to disrupt soil balance. Doesn't seem like a real concern? With metabolic disruption to soil organisms, yes, there may be real danger there. That smells like previous environmental mistakes. Antibiotics, yeah, some danger. Livestock is exposed, and resistance-conferring genes might jump directly to human pathogens. It's worth studying. There are requirements for both sewage processing and fertilising soil, so the value of a solution would be high.
Retric 2y ago
Most of the matter in food comes from water H2O or Air CO2 + N2. Nitrogen fixing bacteria are literally getting that nitrogen from the air not the soil even if they live in the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation Modern agriculture uses fertilizer for extra nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Plants also need a few trace minerals from soil but it’s a tiny fraction of their mass Iron, Calcium, etc and can also be added back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_flour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_flour PS: There’s some really destructive agricultural like sod that’s literally shipping soil, but the premium pays to replace the soil.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Every unit of a crop has a specific amount of minerals forever taken away. Nitrogen comes from the air and to isn't an issue. but where are you going to get those tons of phospeous from? Farmers now have to add sulfur because while not much is needed some is taken away and needed - they used to get that from acid rain but we cleaned up that source (overall a good thing but one unexpected issue) i don't know how much iron crops need compared to what is in most soils. I know farmes are adding sulfar and other mineral.
  - schmidtleonard 2y ago
    > Nitrogen comes from the air and to isn't an issue I thought it was a huge issue because natural nitrogen fixation was slow and unreliable, and that's why Haber-Bosch was such a big deal.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      By not an issue I mean we have plenty and it is 'easy' to replace. Of course fixing is slow and so we need to add a lot but supplies won't run out.
      - schmidtleonard 2y ago
        You sure? I vaguely remember that the Green Revolution was roughly a 10x in yield. That sounds pretty significant. What's the yield difference using modern techniques?
tastyfreeze 2y ago
Fungi digest rocks and make the minerals water soluble. It is the life in the soil the regenerates the fertility. Fungi are the first things to die with tilling and chemical application; breaking the nutrient cycle.
- hwc 2y ago
  instead of mining rocks thousands of miles away, crushing them, and then spreading the result in your fields, convince local fungi to do all that work locally!
analyte123 2y ago
It’s more about keeping minerals on the field. A big one is reducing erosion, which practices like no-till and cover cropping help. Tons of soil being washed away is a lot of nutrients being lost. If you look at a regenerative certification program like [1] you’ll see that you’re allowed to apply synthetic fertilizer but it has to be no more than the rate removed by harvested crops. This means, hopefully, that you aren’t losing much to erosion, runoff, or volatization, and that good soil structure is keeping them available. [1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.regenified.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/18191226/Final-4-10-2024-2024-Revision-Regenified-6-3-4-Verification-Standard-1.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.regenified.com/wp-content/upl...

schiffern 2y ago

> Living soil consumes rock minerals making them available to plants. Thank you. This is one of those super-underappreciated biological facts. Industrial ag treats soil like it's a tank of fertility, and guess who sells the refills? Biologists know that healthy soil is a factory, making new fertility out of rock/air/rain/sun. Direct from soil microbiologist Dr Elaine Ingham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]