4 ms·

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 l

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.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    While all animals need selenium and many plants contain some variable amounts of selenium, because they take it from the soil instead of sulfur, all the sources that I have read say that it has not been proven that selenium is required by any plant. Selenium is one chemical element that, like nickel and cobalt, has been needed by all living beings already some billions of years ago, but nowadays there are many living beings which have lost their dependency of selenium, which has been a beneficial trait for them, due to the scarcity of selenium. The terrestrial plants, because of their environment which frequently lacks many minerals, have lost their dependencies of several chemical elements, e.g. of cobalt, of sodium, for most of them also of nickel, which is optional even in those which can use it, and apparently also of selenium. If you have seen any source which says that it has been discovered that some plant needs selenium, please indicate it. As I have said, many plants happen to contain selenium only because they are not selective enough in their sulfur intake, not because they need selenium for anything, unlike the animals, which would die without selenium.
  - psd1 2y ago
    The clue is in the name. We'll mine it on the moon!
- 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.

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.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- adrian_b 2y ago
  While all animals need selenium and many plants contain some variable amounts of selenium, because they take it from the soil instead of sulfur, all the sources that I have read say that it has not been proven that selenium is required by any plant. Selenium is one chemical element that, like nickel and cobalt, has been needed by all living beings already some billions of years ago, but nowadays there are many living beings which have lost their dependency of selenium, which has been a beneficial trait for them, due to the scarcity of selenium. The terrestrial plants, because of their environment which frequently lacks many minerals, have lost their dependencies of several chemical elements, e.g. of cobalt, of sodium, for most of them also of nickel, which is optional even in those which can use it, and apparently also of selenium. If you have seen any source which says that it has been discovered that some plant needs selenium, please indicate it. As I have said, many plants happen to contain selenium only because they are not selective enough in their sulfur intake, not because they need selenium for anything, unlike the animals, which would die without selenium.
- psd1 2y ago
  The clue is in the name. We'll mine it on the moon!
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.