Archive for the ‘Sustainable living’ Category
DesignPlant respiration= evaporation cooling
Plant respiration = evaporation cooling.
Evaporation cooling = moist southern air moving north.
Water flows down hill… in ancient river beds under the sand.
Big Picture
Data from the Soil Conservation Research project at McCredie during the summer drought of 1953 showed the corn crop exhausting the soil moisture to a depth of 3.5 feet under the fertilized soils. The equivalent of only 1.04 inches of water was left in that entire depth. Where the soil was not fertilized, the crop dried out the soil to a lesser depth. It left the equivalent of 4.5 inches of water in the upper 3.5 feet.
On the unfertilized corn, which took 14 inches of water from the soil, the yield was only 18 bushels per acre. It required 26,000 gallons of water to make a bushel of corn. On the fertilized soil with a yield of 79 bushels, only 5,600 gallons of water per bushel were required.The drought was a case of plant hunger rather than thirst.
Or simply, 4 times the crop yeild with one fifth the amount of water on fertile soil.
Biosolids and grass seed: more crop less water.
Water Myth
Data from the Soil Conservation Research project at McCredie during the summer drought of 1953 showed the corn crop exhausting the soil moisture to a depth of 3.5 feet under the fertilized soils. The equivalent of only 1.04 inches of water was left in that entire depth. Where the soil was not fertilized, the crop dried out the soil to a lesser depth. It left the equivalent of 4.5 inches of water in the upper 3.5 feet.
On the unfertilized corn, which took 14 inches of water from the soil, the yield was only 18 bushels per acre. It required 26,000 gallons of water to make a bushel of corn. On the fertilized soil with a yield of 79 bushels, only 5,600 gallons of water per bushel were required.
The drought was a case of plant hunger rather than thirst.
Strategic Difference
The strategic difference in this plan is: Rather than addressing expanding desertification unsuccessfully at the margins of the Sahara ( symptoms ) this plan calls for addressing the root cause of desertification: failure of the Tibesti and Ahaggar fresh water function to be self sustaining due to soil depletion, savanna and forest loss, or more simply, insufficient ground nutrients to self sustain a stronger water cycle.
Over grazing = desert
Grass and Biosolid – We may want to consider the possibility that converting savanna grass lands to desert over the past 6,000 years of agricultural empire building is responsible for climate change effects rather than the reverse view that climate change causes deserts.
