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I think the article's theory on why people plow is wrong: it is not to let the soil hold more water, but to get rid of weeds. I know someone who did no-till for
by prewett 7mo ago
I think the article's theory on why people plow is wrong: it is not to let the soil hold more water, but to get rid of weeds. I know someone who did no-till for a while, and he found that you have to spray with glyphosate to keep the weeds down. Eventually the weeds that had evolved to be glyphosate-resistent spread to his area, and he had to go back to regular plowing. He said that the no-till really improved the soil, though.
- Saline9515 7mo agoNo-till requires to have different crop patterns, where you plant again right after harvesting to avoid weeds overgrowth.
- erikerikson 7mo agoAnd/or tarp to occultate the weeds and dormant seedstock
- modo_mario 7mo agoI think no till makes most/only sense for intensive market gardening. Where you're weeding by hand or in greenhouses and maybe applying a recurring layer of compost and maybe cover crops to prevent the soil from being bare.
- tbossanova 7mo agoSounds great, let’s have more of that!
- ErroneousBosh 7mo agoYou're already complaining about the price of food, when farmers are barely breaking even on it. You won't pay ten quid for a sustainably-farmed chicken, and I bet you're really really not going to pay ten quid for one single hand-grown ecologically-neutral farmed carrot. And if you are, I've got some carrots for you right here. Discount if you order them in multiples of ten.
- bluGill 7mo agoSpraying a little glyphosate emits a lot less CO2 than plowing.
- dyauspitr 7mo agoWeeding actually seems like a fantastic usecase for those humanoid robots like figure, unitree, atlas etc. it’s easy and accurate plant recognition is mostly a solved problem.
- qup 7mo agoThey've got some robots that do it already, targeting weeds with lasers.
- dyauspitr 7mo agoYeah but they’re never going to be as versatile as a humanoid that can identify one, move the crop gently aside and rip it out of the ground. I’m sure the lasers fail pretty quickly after the plants are a few inches tall due to lack of visibility.