tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73675270726648811862024-03-24T00:10:22.405-07:00Mad BioneerScientists study the world to gather knowledge. Engineers utilize this knowledge to solve problems and create a better world. This blog is about using biological knowledge to engineer better gardens, more efficient systems, tastier foods, and, well, anything else I can think of.Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-55414589585649594152022-09-29T18:50:00.000-07:002022-09-29T18:50:54.801-07:00A LEHR Garden<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYP8AYTpOu7MGYGYx26P16b0Yd8V-4Og1dSWYtPcLqZimFVNfomi4whGea_4_Hee6RYRUmsLcyF5O0ukH54rFilbqiKPolE5KMcf5EDZ39AdPk1MFlQ8I8iryh1uWMd0cgv9DiudOkF7bXH9aSkzs41-cBVU6pAjr21wxXd5v6dT9l5LSJU5C2aPUQ/s4032/Traci%20Curtis%203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYP8AYTpOu7MGYGYx26P16b0Yd8V-4Og1dSWYtPcLqZimFVNfomi4whGea_4_Hee6RYRUmsLcyF5O0ukH54rFilbqiKPolE5KMcf5EDZ39AdPk1MFlQ8I8iryh1uWMd0cgv9DiudOkF7bXH9aSkzs41-cBVU6pAjr21wxXd5v6dT9l5LSJU5C2aPUQ/s320/Traci%20Curtis%203.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It has been a few years since I posted here. In that time, I have gotten a number of comments from people who expressed disappointment that I am no longer posting blogs here. For those of you who like the content here and want more, I have good news for you. I haven't gone away. I haven't stopped my work. In fact, my work has advanced in new and exciting directions. In fact, I stepped away from posting regularly on this blog because if I said too much, it would invalidate any potential patents I might seek. <p></p><p>So, you might ask, what have I been working on? As I covered the many principles on this blog, I started to see some connections, areas where inputs and outputs could be combined, and pieces that naturally just fit well together. I came to the conclusion that a hybrid system could be created by utilizing and combining twelve different principles and methods of growing food, creating soil, and repairing the environment. These twelve are:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Organic Gardening</li><li>Aquaponics</li><li>Hugelkultur</li><li>Composting</li><li>Mycotechnology</li><li>Technology</li><li>Integrated Pest Management</li><li>Systems Thinking</li><li>Environmental Engineering</li><li>Ecosystem Design</li><li>Intensive Agriculture</li><li>Regenerative Agriculture</li></ul><p>As you might have noticed from my previous blog posts, I originally thought of this as aquaponics with soil. As I refined and developed the method, I realized that it was more different than aquaponics than aquaponics is from hydroponics. At its core, this new method is a composting method. Over a period of years, I identified problems with the method and fixed them, I started to realize the immense potential of this new system. This new type of garden has several important features:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>It is highly productive</li><li>It is very water efficient</li><li>It needs NO daily maintenance. Honestly, it only takes a few hours a month to maintain.</li><li>It needs NO chemical inputs. No pesticides, no herbicides, no fungicides, no fertilizer.</li><li>It produces soil as an output.</li><li>It has an integrated, low-maintenance compost bin</li><li>It sequesters carbon</li><li>It can grow plants at about 3x the density of a square foot garden</li><li>And more...</li></ul><p></p><p>The most interesting thing about this new method is that this combination of very productive, very low maintenance, and very sustainable has some pretty amazing implications for urban agriculture, especially the idea of bringing urban agriculture to many more back yards. </p><p>I call this new method a LEHR Garden. LEHR is an acronym for Linking Ecosystem & Hardware for Regeneration. This is a pretty good description of what sets the LEHR Garden apart. There are many, many people who have realized that our current system of agriculture is unsustainable and unhealthy and have endeavored to come up with something new and better. The vast majority of those systems either focus on the ecosystem and try to reduce the use of technology, or they focus on the technology and try to reduce the use of ecosystem. A LEHR Garden uses both to a very high level. The big difference is that instead of using the technology to replace ecosystem function, a LEHR Garden uses the technology to enhance and accelerate ecosystem function. </p><p>In terms of my personal journey, the potential of this new system has driven my life in a completely different direction. I've (temporarily) left my civil engineering career behind to start my own business whose purpose is to transform the ways we feed our urban populations. </p><p>For this blog, this is officially my closing post. I'll leave this blog up and active for as long as Blogger lets me, but if you're looking for more information on what I'm working on, please come check me out at my <a href="https://lehrgarden.com/" target="_blank">LEHR Gardens website</a>. I have a <a href="https://lehrgarden.com/blog/" target="_blank">blog</a> there and will be continuing to post content.</p>Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-44125110703521939922019-01-09T15:47:00.000-07:002019-01-09T16:08:29.682-07:00Climate Change and Ecological Austerity<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8cQAW8ted3bg6EulsKy5iLihFmvQVOR8p99QzPS53nj1u3IwSVGd-5zio0PW5M0_zATaVb0yisxD8vyevI7tmfPy3YUTRTbFctcKFjnWwMweDuRCOToFInsRKMxO95khWIiGQOEGPZOI/s1600/20190103_154528.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8cQAW8ted3bg6EulsKy5iLihFmvQVOR8p99QzPS53nj1u3IwSVGd-5zio0PW5M0_zATaVb0yisxD8vyevI7tmfPy3YUTRTbFctcKFjnWwMweDuRCOToFInsRKMxO95khWIiGQOEGPZOI/s320/20190103_154528.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My ladies foraging and fertilizing my back yard</td></tr>
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I have been thinking a lot about the state of the current thinking on climate change lately, and an interesting parallel has occurred to me. Several years ago, the Greek economy hit a major downturn. Since they were tied into the European Union's economy, the rest of the EU had to step in and take a hand to keep the whole thing from crashing. Considering that the leaders of Greece at the time had been irresponsible with their spending, they decided that this needed to stop and imposed severe austerity measures. It didn't work. The economy crashed and times were really bad in Greece for quite a while. Why? The engine that drives an economy is the flow of money. This is a relatively simple concept that seems to be poorly understood by most. When Greece cut benefits, a significant flow of money just stopped. This rippled through the economy, slowing everything down.<br />
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In many ways, an ecosystem functions much like an economy. The currency is carbon. The bank is the soil. The income generators are plants. Carbon in the sky is a bit like debt. Plants take the energy from the sun and pull carbon from the atmosphere. They then use that to make sugars. They recombine those sugars with nutrients they pull from the soil to make absolutely everything else. The plants are a bit like small businesses. When a small business makes money, it doesn't really save much. Most of that money goes to employees. Plants do the same thing by providing liquid carbon exudates to soil organisms in turn for a direct supply of nutrients. Some of a small business' money goes to pay suppliers or consultants who provide services and then spend that money elsewhere. Animals are much like this, receiving their income in the form of fruit or vegetation that they eat, reconfigure and move to other sectors of the economy through the food web.<br />
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That carbon that originated in plants has a million possible pathways. Sometimes it travels from herbivore to the soil via scat. Sometimes it transfers from herbivore to predator to the soil. Sometime it travels from insect to predatory insect to other predatory insect to bird to snake to coyote to the soil. Sometimes it is just a branch or leaf that falls directly to the soil. No matter how it travels, carbon is removed at every stage and returned to the carbon dioxide in the air, while a portion of the original carbon is returned to the soil, along with the nutrients.<br />
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But when that organic matter is finally returned to the soil, the story is far from over. The soil organisms take over. They use up more of that carbon that is bound up. There is a whole soil food web that transfers nutrients from organism to organism, with each organism taking its cut of the carbon. In the process, the carbon gets distilled.<br />
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Eventually, the last little bit, maybe one percent of the original, gets saved as stable soil carbon, as money in the bank. But like a bank, the soil doesn't just sit on that carbon. They put it to work. There is something magical that happens in this process. Those soil organisms each function as a part of that whole, all working to support the plants that make all soil life possible. They reconfigure the nutrients into a form that is usable by the plant. They form distribution networks to feed the plant the nutrients, its supply chain. And each uses a little of that carbon in the process. The soil carbon captures water that passes through. It is formed into glues that hold the soil particles together, reducing erosion. They manage and adjust soil pH, making sure that the plants can access the nutrients they need to grow. All terrestrial ecosystems seek to sequester soil carbon. It is a major driving force in the ecology, to the point that an ecosystem's health can usually be measured by how much carbon is in the soil.<br />
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But humans disrupt that process. Personally, I think that in our climatic calculations of how much carbon we have belched into the air, we are massively under-counting how much came from what was previously stored in the soil. A healthy woodland ecosystem can have several inches of topsoil. Even one inch is good. Historical records say that there was once ten feet of topsoil in the American midwest. That topsoil is all gone now. How? Where did it go?<br />
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Let's go back to our economic analogy. Industrial agriculture is like junk bonds. It creates the illusion of wealth in the short term, but eventually the bill comes due. Soil fertility is managed through the soil carbon and the organisms that make up a large part of that soil carbon. By tilling and using various toxic chemicals in large doses, you kill important parts of that life. By exposing all the layers of soil to oxygen and using synthetic fertilizers, you accelerate the action of certain soil bacteria, which use the opportunity to burn through stable soil carbon. The rotting corpses of the dead soil organisms and the using up of stable soil carbon create a boost in fertility, increasing yields. But next year, there are fewer organisms and less available soil carbon. Pretty soon you need to use more fertilizer. It can take decades to completely expend the soil carbon and kill all the soil life, but it does eventually happen. The productivity of the soil tapers off. The soil erodes and becomes lifeless. Eventually, it costs more to buy the inputs needed to keep the soil producing than you get out of it, and you have to abandon the field.<br />
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Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are similar. The manure of herbivores is a powerful fertilizer and can do amazing things to build soil carbon. But by concentrating them in a small space and preventing the manure from being spread on the soil, you are withholding important nutrients from the soil. I suppose that is more like the wealthy hoarding wealth in offshore accounts, effectively pulling it out of the economy.<br />
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That brings me back to the current state of environmental and food production policy. The cracks in the current system are showing, and many people are starting to worry that the whole system is in danger of coming down around us. At the same time, we, as a people, don't really understand how ecosystems work. We particularly don't really understand that we are obligate members of an ecosystem. We tell ourselves that we are separate and apart from the ecosystem. So when we realize that the whole system is coming apart around us, we don't realize that it is as simple as repairing those ecosystems. But that ecosystem is in fact a system. You can't attempt to fix a part of it while ignoring the other parts. They are all connected. Right now, through the efforts of a few individuals, we have discovered that cows raised in CAFOs produce huge amounts of greenhouse gasses. One documentary erroneously claimed that cows produce 51% of greenhouse gasses. Considering that the UN's own numbers show all of agriculture producing only 14%, this is unlikely. But the fact remains that a bad method is being used to blame an organism that evolved to work in concert with its environment to provide health to that environment. The combination of cows and their ideal impact on perennial grasses in grasslands might just be the most powerful carbon sequestration technology ever developed. There are those who have even theorized that it isn't accidental that the evolution of this relationship closely corresponds with the drop in carbon and the beginning of ice ages.<br />
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Right now, the weight of public opinion is pushing on a reduction in the production of meat as our best solution to getting out of the mess we are currently in. This is a bit like putting our ecosystem on extreme austerity measures to try to fix it. It won't fix the problem any better than the austerity measures fixed Greece's economy. If we eliminate animals without eliminating the rest of industrial agriculture, we are not closing the loops in a system that must loop. It is only through reconnecting the feedback loops in the ecosystem that supports us that we can generate the ecological activity that will lead to a thriving ecosystem that will support humankind into the foreseeable future. And we can only do that through regenerative agriculture.Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-51177898307973544412018-12-06T14:58:00.002-07:002018-12-06T15:03:27.151-07:00Building an Urban Homestead<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMop6XtfwtP7KsnPZqVKGjsjCkGqHe-djlBDJ2chFmngyaox3KNk9gMebzctTl_84ck2m_F2-N2Tf9f7njPnDkwN7P50ap-s5ezrjjQQh4AYtzsG3r4_vpnPRNbv1XW3hacKJuqiJxJ3o/s1600/LEHR+Garden+2018-12-03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMop6XtfwtP7KsnPZqVKGjsjCkGqHe-djlBDJ2chFmngyaox3KNk9gMebzctTl_84ck2m_F2-N2Tf9f7njPnDkwN7P50ap-s5ezrjjQQh4AYtzsG3r4_vpnPRNbv1XW3hacKJuqiJxJ3o/s320/LEHR+Garden+2018-12-03.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
For the last 5 years, I have been testing a new method of intensive gardening. At a mere 40 square feet of growing area and less than a foot deep, it produced a surprising amount of food. During the prime growing season, it produced up to 60% of the food I ate.What's more, it did so with very few inputs from me, including time. Through a combination of either biological processes or mechanical devices, I was able to automate just about everything but planting and harvest. The only thing that was missing was an ability to try it out on a larger scale.<br />
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In February, I got that ball rolling. I rented a new house in Tempe, AZ. It sits on a sixth of an acre. The landscape is grass and the owners are eager to keep it that way. They were fine with me planting fruit trees and I plan on being here long enough to make it worth my investment. As for my garden, there is a lovely spot in the back yard that is perfect for it. It takes up about three quarters of the back yard, in fact. It is about 1000 square feet and after laying it out, it looks like I should be able to fit in about 500 square feet of growing area. Everything will be in raised beds, so I needed to build them such that I will be able to disassemble them and haul the garden beds away when I am finished.<br />
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After finally settling on a design, I was finally able to start construction in late summer. There were a lot of details to work out and a busy life made for slow progress. However, I finally got the system fully constructed and connected in early November and planted it on November 10th. As of right now, everything I planted is coming up and looking really healthy. In Tempe, Arizona here, it is the season for cold weather crops. I have planted alfalfa (for the chickens), Romanesco broccoli, kale, kohlrabi, turnips, spinach, chard, beets, several varieties of lettuce, carrots, sugar snap peas, onions, garlic, chives, strawberries, several varieties of flowers and herbs, and more.<br />
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So let me talk you through a little about what is going on here. First let me talk about space. The planted area is made of 3 sections of garden structure, each of which is 3' wide and 8' long. The coop (I purchased that one, I didn't build it) is 6' by 2.5'. The bench between the garden and the coop is 2' by 4'. The tank in the background is 3' by 4'. The sump tank in the foreground is 3' by 4'. So adding all that together, my whole system currently has a footprint of about 120 square feet. Once I get the whole thing built out, it will take up a space of about 1000 square feet, which includes pathways. This first phase had to include all the necessary infrastructure so that the rest is just an expansion of what is already here.<br />
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In the interest of being space efficient, I have gone for as holistic an approach as possible. Anywhere something can do double duty or more, it has been worked into the system. There are several goals here:<br />
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1) Produce as much food as possible in a portion of my urban back yard. I am looking to provide the bulk of the food my family needs as well as enough to provide additional income by selling the extra at a local farmer's market. Obviously what I have built so far won't give me extra to sell, though it very well might provide most of my family's dietary needs<br />
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2) Provide environmental benefit. This comes in the form of sequestered carbon, increased diversity and habitat for local wildlife, rainwater harvesting, composting of all organic matter from the household, water efficiency, and better air quality.<br />
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3) Do all this while making it aesthetically pleasing. This is meant to be a demonstration garden, with people coming over to view it and get ideas for how to do their own garden. I want average people to look at what I have built and say "yeah, I want that in my back yard too."<br />
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Let me conclude here with a quick list of what is going on in these pictures and I will go into further detail in upcoming posts. I would like to note, though, that once everything is up and running, the garden above will require surprisingly little maintenance. The only thing that will require daily maintenance is the chickens, and that is because they are not fully integrated into the overall system, just partially integrated. Still, I can fill their food container and leave them for a week or so at a time if need be. Here is a brief (though not exhaustive) list of what is going on in my garden:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Garden is watered from two tanks, a sump tank and an upper tank. Water is pumped from the sump tank to the upper tank where it drains through the garden and ends up back in the sump tank</li>
<li>Upper tank contains tilapia, which produce meat for household use</li>
<li>Lower tank produces guppies and duckweed, which provide food for the tilapia</li>
<li>Tilapia waste fertilizes the water for the garden</li>
<li>The garden soil and plants clean the water for the tilapia</li>
<li>The garden soil is made almost entirely from organic matter, meaning that it sequesters carbon in the form of stable soil carbon that is constantly maintained, refreshed, and used for the benefit of food production</li>
<li>The garden interfaces with food forest plantings around the yard, with nutrient-rich water used to water fruit trees and herbs and tree trimmings contributing to the garden soil</li>
<li>Plants provide a near constant stream of fresh herbs and produce for my family</li>
<li>Interplantings of flowers and other beneficial plants provide food and habitat for beneficial insects, completely eliminating the need for pesticides of any kind</li>
<li>Diversity of planting encourages a wide variety of insect and other animal life, creating habitat for local wildlife without reducing the amount of food I am able to provide for my family</li>
<li>The garden soil (no, it is not an aquaponic system) buffers, maintains, and balances the water chemistry and nutrient load for the whole system</li>
<li>In-line composting system captures and processes fish solid waste as well as quickly processing plant waste into rich soil, completely eliminating the need for fertilizers of any kind</li>
<li>Gutter above dumps rainwater directly into sump tank, where it is incorporated into the system</li>
<li>Float valve keeps sump tank topped off, meaning I don't need to add water manually as it is used up</li>
<li>Pump is on a timer, providing the optimal flood and drain timing needed to keep the soil moist, keep the nutrients cycling, and keeping the soil aerated so it doesn't become anaerobic</li>
<li>Chickens live underneath the garden and upper tank, keeping them sheltered and keeping their feed dry no matter what the weather</li>
<li>Chicken water is in-line with the drainage from the garden, keeping their water full and flushed so it doesn't get fouled from chicken waste</li>
<li>Chicken waste in the water is used as fertilizer for the garden as it dissolves in the water and flushes through the system</li>
<li>Recessed compost bin in the chicken area gives them a handy location to drop kitchen scraps where it will slowly decompose in place, allowing the chickens a place to dig through and find insects, and allowing me a central location to empty and clean it up as it gets full</li>
<li>Sump tank overflow is through the chicken water, cleansing the soil, processing chicken waste and watering the chicken compost bin while ensuring that guppies and duckweed growing in the sump tank aren't lost</li>
<li>Secondary chicken water is under the upper tank and is fed by an irrigation line from the upper tank</li>
<li>Alfalfa and greens, as well as kitchen scraps, are used to feed the chickens, producing as much of their feed locally as possible and reducing their need for crumble while providing excellent nutrient density for the eggs they produce</li>
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Let me know if there is some particular aspect of this garden that you are interested in hearing more about.<br />
<br />Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-84304189407674869852018-02-19T11:57:00.000-07:002018-02-19T11:57:10.088-07:00Building a Local Food Movement<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiweZCwjbOVNPA51Yq27opFEDJRcTIsgT1XkrC6CyUvxPMmyHI4B2NFljo_lmyNuHI5AD0ma7sebnDbi3OO7CktOGVbCgMrNyZJhyphenhyphenwAg7HzkLwI9bhBg17K8nwlLx6pEoOdfB2-FT8g2fI/s1600/MORE+Garden2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiweZCwjbOVNPA51Yq27opFEDJRcTIsgT1XkrC6CyUvxPMmyHI4B2NFljo_lmyNuHI5AD0ma7sebnDbi3OO7CktOGVbCgMrNyZJhyphenhyphenwAg7HzkLwI9bhBg17K8nwlLx6pEoOdfB2-FT8g2fI/s320/MORE+Garden2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Experimental prototype of my garden. Imagine the productivity<br />
of the upper part with the lower part being more architecturally<br />
pleasing. It could be built in stonework, brick, wood, gabions,<br />
etc. It also works well with water features.</td></tr>
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I have heard a lot of talk over the last several years about the need to completely overhaul our food system. In particular, the current model of industrial food, produced unsustainably and unhealthily, then shipped long distances to the final customer with no real transparency in how the food was produced is a fatally flawed system. We need a new model of local, regeneratively produced organic food made from a distributed system. There is great interest in changing to that model. In fact, I saw a <a href="https://youtu.be/iUU1BffGon0" target="_blank">TEDx talk by Kimbal Musk</a> saying that solving this very problem could be the next boom, possibly even equivalent to the internet boom of the 1990s. The question is, what would that look like? How do you beat an entrenched system with trillions of dollars behind it. Perhaps more importantly, how do you get there? There is considerable infrastructure that would be needed to make that happen.<br />
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The first thing to pay attention to is supply and demand. Right now the demand is higher than ever. Awareness of the flaws in the current system is high and people want a solution. They want a solution that helps their health, the health of their children, and the health of the planet. The tricky part is how to deliver the supply. Right now the producers are just not there, or are few enough that they don’t really stand out in the market and aren’t finding their customers. There are so many more producers needed, though. Where are we going to get them? And how are we going to encourage them to get started? I think that the answer to all this is in a complex of businesses operating in its own form of a circular economy. Each business works within the usual business model of that type of business, but changes its practices somewhat to be a part of the bigger whole. Allow me to explain, but first, let me suggest a piece of technology that will make the whole thing possible.<br />
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We are in a golden age of technology. Technological advances are automating processes that could never before be automated. The automation that has happened so far has largely been damaging to the ecosystem as machinery and chemicals are used to replace the functioning of natural systems. Technology needs to be used smarter to replace human labor and support and accelerate natural ecosystem functioning. I have seen strides recently showing that machines are advancing to the point where they can do some of the selective harvesting that could previously only be done by human labor. I have been working on the other side of the equation, though, making a system that automates the care of the plants and accelerates ecosystem processes, making a garden that is low effort but still highly productive. I will talk more about that later when I have filed the patent. For now let’s just assume that the technology will exist that will allow individual homeowners to make use of their back yards to produce huge amounts of organic, healthy food that has been produced very, very locally. Let’s also assume that this technology is effective enough that a garden only needs to be looked at and maintained once a week or less, something I have already achieved.<br />
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As I said before, the creation of a complex of businesses who act as their own circular economy could achieve the creation of local food production in urban areas. The core businesses in this model would be a landscaping business, a mushroom growing business, a professional office (containing at least a civil engineer, a landscape architect, and software engineers, though other professions could fit here as well), and a cafe/coffee shop/market.<br />
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The first to the plate is the landscaping business. At the start of the venture, these guys would operate like a regular landscaping business, with one small, but key modification. As they trimmed trees, they would separate the trimmings into a couple of categories and trim to specific sizes. I will get more into that in a minute. As the business grows and we begin to build gardens for people, the landscapers would be the team that builds and maintains those gardens. The landscaping team takes the trimmings that can’t be used elsewhere in the process and makes compost and biochar that could be used elsewhere. They could even seek out other innovative work. For example, here in Arizona, tamarisk trees are highly invasive along waterways. The landscaping team could seek out contracts to harvest this and use the wood as a part of the overall process.<br />
<br />
The second business that would be needed would be a professional firm. Landscape architecture would be the first and most important profession needed. Most aquaponic and hydroponic setups that are being built today are pretty industrial looking, being composed of lots of white PVC and wires and other such functional parts. This is fine for hobbyists who tend to prefer this sort of look, but if this venture is going to expand into the back yards of average middle class people, it is going to need to be much more aesthetically pleasing. Also, specific functionality would be needed for the technology to function correctly and that needs to be properly designed. Likewise, engineers might be needed for certain aspects of the design, especially as the systems improve in connectivity. I envision gardens with sensors measuring moisture levels, water levels, pH, Nitrogen levels, and more. These sensors could be connected up via Arduino or Raspberry Pi controllers and not only run the system, but also connect to the internet so malfunctions can be detected from afar and corrected quickly. Software engineers would be needed to write and maintain this software and could also create the interface that homeowners would use to plan out their gardens. The software would compile the needs of the various clients and give those numbers to the landscaping team so they could start the required number of plants in the greenhouse, getting them ready to go out at planting time. There are other opportunities here, like using the knowledge gained from experience repairing and building ecosystems to improve or even change wholesale the practices of civil engineering and maybe even architecture.<br />
<br />
The third business to the table would be a mushroom growing business. One of the principles that is important for this to work is the understanding that nature is so efficient that other forms of production can be added at various levels. For example, the woody debris collected from the landscaping business could be chipped and composted to make a rich soil. Or it could be used to grow mushrooms, then composted to make a rich soil. The end result is the same, but a new level of production is added in the middle. Growing mushrooms for sale is just the tip of the iceberg, though. A company called Ecovative is making innovative products using mushrooms, like an all-natural substitute for Styrofoam. It is a packing material grown on agricultural waste in any shape that is needed. It isn’t limited to packing material, though. It can be molded into any sort of shape. It could be used to insulate homes. Others are using mushrooms for other materials, like leather. A mushroom grower could also produce mushroom spawn for farmers so they could use mushrooms to process their own waste back into soil and give themselves an additional income. Even the garden system could benefit. A plug-and-play system could be developed and marketed to the DIY crowd to build in their own back yard. These could be packaged in an Ecovative-inspired packing material. With the addition of a couple of key additives, the packing material could be broken up and used as a major component of the starter soil for the new system.<br />
<br />
The fourth business for this to work would be a combination café and market. As more and more homes buy into the system, there will be more locally available produce. With the team of landscapers helping, excess produce that the homeowner doesn't need could be sold as local, organic produce. A whole market could develop around the gathering and delivery of produce to the local market. As people see the advantage of using this to offset costs of production and even make a modest second income, they are incentivised to put more land into production and encourage friends to participate. As demand is better understood, homes could look up market conditions when planning out their gardens. Items that are more in demand could be grown in greater quantity. Urban gleaning could even take hold, with local harvesters collecting wild foods from public lands and selling them to the market. The café would act as a gathering place and hangout for customers and those interested in the movement. As more native foods are grown, the café could use them in its dishes to develop demand and even hold classes to teach people how to cook with them. The menu could change daily based on what is available and seasonal. With a couple of classrooms added on the perimeter, the space could be used for open classes and community space. The architecture could be integrated with living systems and the diners and customers could be surrounded by greenery. <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/01/mycobacterium-vaccae.html" target="_blank">Mycobacterium vaccae</a> could be integrated into the soil and the air could be filtered through the soil. This could give cleaner air and help give customers and employees a sense of peace, making it a nice place to hang out. Coffee grounds from the coffee shop portion of the café could be delivered back to the mushroom growing portion for further use and food waste could go back to the landscapers for composting. The mushroom growing business could provide mushroom kits for sale in the market so people could grow their own at home.<br />
<br />
While those business form the core of this complex, there is plenty of room for other enterprises to fit in. For example, if the building had a garden on the roof, it could be an ideal place for a combined elderly/child daycare facility. The interaction between the age groups would be good for both and the interaction with gardens would also help the growth of the children and the mental health of the seniors. An artisan space would be welcome. Pottery could be made to create refillable mushroom kits. The list goes on and is only limited by the imagination and drive of those involved.<br />
<br />
The only thing stopping this getting started right now is partners and funding. There is SO much work to be done to make this happen, but I believe that the market is ripe for this right now. I just need to find the right people to make this happen. Anyone know how to get in touch with Kimbal Musk? I think an idea like this might be just what he is looking for.<br />
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Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-56688547325857064352018-02-01T08:00:00.000-07:002018-02-01T08:00:23.800-07:00Driving Social Change<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQ1hXq8AxrE-EbfVbfi7BoxnzyNRpsp8Tkn9-yjLx5StSGS8BeBlwRMa-0SGPED2tdG7_0faFSnHQIewFwmDNM8wysTS-CaoO4I6JSD45YuyHMG4yatnPvyIM2Xw8mDrLGkgEJDH41Ec/s1600/1.1977.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQ1hXq8AxrE-EbfVbfi7BoxnzyNRpsp8Tkn9-yjLx5StSGS8BeBlwRMa-0SGPED2tdG7_0faFSnHQIewFwmDNM8wysTS-CaoO4I6JSD45YuyHMG4yatnPvyIM2Xw8mDrLGkgEJDH41Ec/s320/1.1977.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rancho La Inmaculada in 1977. This is the "before" picture.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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As I have mentioned before, I have been reading a lot lately
about sustainability, particularly what a sustainable society would look like.
There always seems to be a piece missing, though. How do we get there? Change
doesn’t start at the top. It has always started at the bottom, with a
groundswell of people who decide that the current way isn’t good enough and
have an idea of how to make it better. The top is populated with the people who
got their money or power (or both) from the current way of doing things. They
have no reason to change and every reason to prevent change. The onus for
change falls on the disaffected masses who know the life they have been given
isn’t good enough. Right now, millennials are making up the bulk of the
workforce and they are feeling the brunt of the economic crunch right now. This
means that the responsibility for this change will fall to the millennials. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There is a problem with that, though. If you are familiar
with my blog, you will know that I am a firm believer in the fact that the only
way to fix this mess we are in, and to fix nearly every aspect of it, is to
bring people back to the land and get them involved in regenerative
agriculture. The problem there is that, as a group, millennials aren’t buying
land. They just can’t afford the big house in the suburbs. So how do we get
them onto the land and working it in such a way that they build soil and
produce food? Let me propose two ideas, one for rural areas and one for urban
areas. <o:p></o:p></div>
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First, let me start with the rural solution. To be fair, I
think this solution will work best in the American west where land tends to be
drier and more sparsely populated. The problem out here is that the land is
<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management-concepts.html" target="_blank">brittle</a> and requires <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management-concepts-animal.html" target="_blank">animal impact</a> to regenerate. But the great herds of hoofed
animals are long gone. The grasses of the prairies need that animal impact grow
and build soil. As the grasses suffer, so does the soil. The remaining soil
organisms live off the carbon stored in the soil for many years, but in doing
so, they consume it. As the soil loses its carbon, it loses its ability to
capture and retain moisture. It becomes more erosive. The grassland turns into
a desert. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The tricky part is that plopping some cows on the desert and
letting them graze doesn’t help. It makes it worse, in fact. Taking the cows
off the land and letting it rest doesn’t work either. It also makes the problem
worse. It is only through either using the natural processes that created the
grasslands or closely mimicking the impact of those natural processes that the
desert can be returned to grassland. <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management.html" target="_blank">Holistic Management</a> is one process for
mimicking the natural processes, but there is considerable debate about whether
it works or if there would be something better. For this reason, I think that
it would be best to base the solution on results rather than method. Under this
program, the method that promotes the best results would quickly rise to the
top.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxZ3DQ-B-sToDk9johJNyfE-o_dm7UQN3Ubr3bUKdEeZuz1cic8hBZbDfzNIjeunYWZGXEMyf0hT7IVYi1He09BHLMVG71MAMkrncr_DIi8BvoNVVivZtphqXC7dYtl2oRPiuGLeo6gAc/s1600/3.2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxZ3DQ-B-sToDk9johJNyfE-o_dm7UQN3Ubr3bUKdEeZuz1cic8hBZbDfzNIjeunYWZGXEMyf0hT7IVYi1He09BHLMVG71MAMkrncr_DIi8BvoNVVivZtphqXC7dYtl2oRPiuGLeo6gAc/s320/3.2013.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rancho La Inmaculada in 2013. This is the "after" picture.</td></tr>
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So here is what I propose: In the American west, the vast
majority of rural land is owned by the government and it is turning to desert
as it is being subjected to either overgrazing or too much rest. I propose that
we institute a new version of the Homestead Act. Sell the land, at market
value, to families willing to work the land. Tie the land payment to soil
carbon. Before the land is sold, a baseline measurement is taken, just a simple
soil test. Every year, before the year’s land payment, retest the soil. If the
percentage of soil carbon has gone up from the previous year by some baseline
amount, say a half percent or one percent, no payment is due. This provides a
considerable financial incentive to improving the soil carbon, which is a
pretty good baseline for ecosystem regeneration. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now let me talk about a different solution for urban areas.
I think that most people would agree that neither tall grass prairie nor herds
of hoofed mammals would be particularly desirable in urban and suburban areas.
It would be possible to have a goat lawn mowing service, but the logistics would
be difficult. No, I think that a food forest and urban regenerative agriculture
would be a better solution. If done correctly, the increase in plant cover
would help with the urban heat island effect and air pollution. People
capturing rainwater for personal use would decrease flooding problems that are
common in urban areas. A diversity of food producing plants would help urban
wildlife, like birds and beneficial insects. Plus, there is a huge demand for
locally produced, organic produce. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For this solution, I would propose a private solution rather
than a governmental one. If someone were to create a market to collect and sell
locally produced, organic produce, they would be in a position to work with
homeowners to buy produce from them and sell it in their market. This would
create a demand and encourage people to grow their own food. Heck, even
harvesting all the fruit from trees that go to waste and selling that would
create a significant market. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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For the actual program, I would think that such a market
would struggle first with supply. The demand is already there. Where would they
get the produce they need to sell? In a changing market, companies need to
diversify services, maybe even creating their own <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/circular%20economy" target="_blank">circular economy</a> that is
internal to the company. For example, I worked with a developer many years ago
who had teamed up with a mining company. The city they were operating in had
many lots that were ideally located and in high demand, but couldn’t be
developed because they were too rocky. It was too pricey to get the rock
removed prior to construction. This developer would work out the design and
then send in the mining equipment. First they would collect all the boulders
and sell those to landscaping companies, even charging for placement onsite
where they were needed. Then they would grind down and remove the rock that was
in the way for development. They would sell this as aggregate for road beds or
other uses. This used an existing business model and had its own profit
sources. Then they would move in the builders and build the buildings and
whatever else was needed for the site. It was a pretty brilliant business
model.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I would propose a combination of a market selling local,
organic produce and a home remodeling, real estate, and mortgage company. The
realtors could find homes for sale that were in need of work and buy them at
low prices. While they are fixing them up, they plant the beginnings of a food
forest and do whatever else would be necessary to get food production set up.
Then they sell the homes, at market prices, to families looking to start a new
life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I am a big believer that when someone owns their own
property, it is theirs to do with as they please, and indeed most people would
find a way to do just that. Again, as in the rural example, incentives for
proper behavior would need to be brought to bear. If you sell the houses for
below market value, there would be people who would buy it cheap, tear out the
food production methods, and sell it at market value. So it would need to be
sold at market value. The selection process would be a bit different, though.
Instead of looking at credit and income, buyers could be selected on the basis
of gardening knowledge, personal situation, and willingness to participate.
Rather than going through a banking institution, the company could carry the
mortgage and write some interesting terms. First of all, there would be the
interest rate. As long as the homeowner agrees to participate in the local,
organic produce program and sell (not give, mind you, all produce is sold at a
rate based on the market) a minimum of a certain amount of produce monthly, the
interest on the mortgage is either significantly reduced or eliminated
altogether from the payments due on the home. The proceeds of the produce could
either be applied to the mortgage or given as cash to the homeowner. This would
give the homeowner significant leeway regarding how they want to handle their
finances. They could up production and offset their entire mortgage payment
with produce. They could give themselves a second income, they could even seek
to pay off their mortgage early. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
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Right now we are in a tough spot, environmentally and
economically. Most methods being suggested today tell people what they have to
give up in order to make the changes we need. I really don’t think this is
necessary. With some creative thinking and problem solving, I believe that
there are ways to help people get pointed in the right direction towards making
a real difference while still making the world a better place.<o:p></o:p></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-80734755623599259102018-01-15T22:08:00.000-07:002018-01-15T22:08:39.569-07:00Solving the Big Problems<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg96rKkZkytZMc2e7aMomw2v0p92qPXhc-A5_CcPSnbgpQxNQXiNh6BAi981dHIH_K29XJ8WTU7DmosNSESNUxSihTMYTabXS0VX4eMnJX46fXs9d_Dj8H9KZ8VWa0HR635Rlc13v7gUHQ/s1600/Sunnyslope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg96rKkZkytZMc2e7aMomw2v0p92qPXhc-A5_CcPSnbgpQxNQXiNh6BAi981dHIH_K29XJ8WTU7DmosNSESNUxSihTMYTabXS0VX4eMnJX46fXs9d_Dj8H9KZ8VWa0HR635Rlc13v7gUHQ/s320/Sunnyslope.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This right here. We need to find a way to sustain this.</td></tr>
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A couple of years ago I joined the Sustainability Committee of the local chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA). I have been interested in sustainability and following it for some time, but joining this group made me really look deep at what it means for a society to be sustainable, what makes us unsustainable, what the core problems are, and how we might solve them. Naturally, my perspective is that the only way to really be sustainable is to make full use of ecological cycles. With this perspective, I started to notice some interesting patterns. If you look critically at our current society, with an understanding of what actually helps things, you notice that in many cases, our problems pair up nicely and sort of solve each other. By looking at it in this way, the solutions become pretty thoroughly evident, even if the application of those solutions is a little trickier. What do I mean? Allow me to explain.<br />
<br />
Problem #1: Industrial agriculture is damaging our soil to the point that we currently rely on heavy inputs of damaging chemicals just to produce any food at all, and we are looking at losing the ability to produce food at all in the next 60 years, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-food-soil-farming-idUSKCN0JJ1R920141205" target="_blank">according to some estimates</a>. Problem #2: Improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) over the next 20 years promise to automate enough jobs that some people anticipate up to 60% unemployment in that time frame. The problem with industrial agriculture is that we rely increasingly on monocultures so that we can efficiently harvest larger and larger areas with fewer and fewer people. The needs of automation are fundamentally incompatible with the needs of a natural system, which relies on diversity for health. At the same time, the best plan anyone has come up with for preventing disaster in the wake of massive technological unemployment is a Universal Basic Income (UBI). A UBI basically pays people just to exist so they will have money to live and use to buy products from industry that no longer pays them to produce those products. What if we put these people to work? Let’s put them back on the land to have them repair the land while producing the food we are going to need to feed a growing population.<br />
<br />
Let’s try the next pair: Problem #3: The grasslands of the world are rapidly turning into desert, causing increasing droughts and floods, releasing carbon previously stored in the soil into the atmosphere, and causing world-wide erosion problems. Problem #4: A growing population needs ever more space to live. We are actively cutting down forests to build more houses. Plus, (bringing in problem #2 from above) technological unemployment will leave urban and suburban populations unemployed and people who have nothing to do tend to cause problems. <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/Holistic%20Management" target="_blank">Holistic Management</a> helps with the solution for this one. The natural grassland ecosystems all over the world rely heavily on impact from massive herds of hoofed herbivores reacting to pack hunting predators over huge areas of land, at the least thousands of square miles. And they need us pesky humans to butt out and not get involved. The problem is, something as simple as a fence or a road can disturb those interactions, effectively managing them. Time and experience has shown that every unintentional management technique, and even most of the intentional ones, break the cycle and cause desertification. Livestock is capable of providing the animal impact needed if managed properly. By breaking up the land into manageable blocks and reengaging humans with livestock, we can restore the proper impact and repair deserts back into grasslands. But there are hundreds of millions of square miles that need to be fixed in this manner. Maybe we need to offer people a better life on the land than the one they have in cities.<br />
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On to the third pair: Problem #5: The current economic system is the biggest threat to any real change. People will always stick with what they know and cling to the little bit of security they have. Problem #6: The current system is unsustainable and is beginning to crush under its own weight. Well, this one is easy. The two pretty much cancel each other out. The trick is to let the old system fail while gently sliding a new system into place to minimize the impact on individual families.<br />
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Here is the fourth pair: Problem #7: Animals raised for meat are predominantly raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) lots, creating a concentrated source of animal waste, which pollutes the land and waterways, releasing a huge amount of carbon dioxide and methane, which are both greenhouse gasses. Problem #8: Land degradation due to industrial agriculture has led to increased need for synthetic fertilizers, which are typically manufactured from fossil resources and applied to the land at a cost to the farmer. These fertilizers don’t bond very well to the soils and are prone to running off and polluting the rivers and the oceans they feed into. The problem here is not having the fertilizer necessary, but rather a problem of location. We have all the resources we need to solve both problems, but they don’t work well with industrial agriculture. If we put the animals back on the land, the fertilizer they produce will be distributed evenly exactly where it is needed and will have a regenerative effect on the land.<br />
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The fifth grouping is actually a trio: Problem #9: For the last 30 years, the wages of lower and middle class workers have stagnated, leading to a reduced standard of living for the majority of the population. Problem #10: Urban areas have a number of environmental challenges. Concentrated burning of fossil fuels lead to an increase in air pollution. The increase of paved areas causes increased runoff, which increases flooding, as well as increased absorption of the sun’s energy, causing Urban Heat Island Effect. Problem #11: Food security is increasingly a worry in populated areas. Food is shipped from far off and grown on land that is rapidly degrading and doused with toxic chemicals. The solution for these two is truly local food, produced right in the cities. Have you ever had that one neighbor who is always trying to give away extra zucchini or tomatoes? How would life be different if there those people were living every couple of houses? Maybe we could set up a new system that allows them to sell that produce at a local market and earn additional income. With advances in food production methods, such as garden/mechanical hybrids such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and automated systems such as FarmBot, people could produce fruits and veggies enough to feed their families with extra to sell, all on a quarter acre suburban lot. With advances in technology, they can do that without even having to spend that much additional effort. As systems get put in place to encourage this sort of behavior, like friendly zoning and markets for additional produce, people will put more area into production. Roofs become prime real estate for growing produce. Denver even requires green roofs on new buildings. Imagine that area producing food. Yard area not in production for annual vegetable crops can be planted in a food forest and allowed to be natural. With hard spaces minimized, rainwater captured, additions of photosynthesizing plants, and food production abounding, every one of these problems gets significantly minimized.<br />
<br />
Let’s look at one last pair: Problem #12: As the soils that produce our food degrade, they have fewer nutrients to put into our food. By some estimates, our food has 60-70% fewer nutrients today than it had a hundred years ago. The impact on our health is undeniable, but hard to accurately estimate. Increases in mental disorders, cancer, allergies, and possibly even obesity could all be related to reduced nutrition in our food supply, and also likely even increased amounts of toxic agricultural chemicals. Problem #13: Municipalities are spending ever more money on maintenance and construction due to increased flooding and erosion. The problem is, drainage solutions are being designed in an attempt to solve a soils problem. As natural cycles that build soil organic matter are disturbed or broken entirely, the soil loses its organic matter and thus its ability to absorb water. As rains hit, more water runs off and faster, taking soil with it. When that water hits roads, it closes the road, first because of the running water, then because of the sediment it drops as the floodwaters recede. City and county governments spend tens of thousands of dollars either cleaning up after every single rain storm or tens of millions of dollars designing catchment structures to mitigate the problem. That money could instead be allocated to help people engage with the land in regenerative practices. By growing vegetation in a way that regenerates soils, the water would better infiltrate the soil, the soil would be less erosive, and the plants would bring more nutrients up from the deep soil, increasing the nutrition of any food crops grown there. The best part is that with an investment of three hundred thousand dollars, a family can be set up to manage 200 acres and be financed for a couple of years until they become profitable on their own. For the cost of a regional detention basin, which can run in excess of $12 million, you can do that for 8000 acres. With careful placement of these homesteads along critical washes, this solution can be used to permanently solve drainage problems at several stream crossings rather than just one while providing employment and economic growth.<br />
<br />
Of the big problems, the only one that doesn’t have a convenient pairing with its solution, or at least a common solution that solves the two together is the increasing levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the air. But the rest of these solutions hit this problem as well. As a society, we tend to look primarily at the source of all that carbon in the atmosphere, such as our energy consumption. But it runs like a budget. When your household is overdrawn, you can work on curtailing your rampant expenditure of money all you want, but until you begin to pay down the debt, the problem will never get any better. Soil is our best and least used carbon sink. Until we start storing all that carbon safely in the soil, we’ll never truly get a handle on climate change.<br />
<br />
The problem with our current system is that we are actively using things up. Put differently, we are extracting the wealth with little regard to what is left behind. We are extracting it from the land, from the soil, from the biosphere of the world, and from our fellow human beings. There is a whole lot of momentum behind this system. It is the only one we know. More importantly, the people who are currently doing very well for themselves off of this system of exploitation and destruction are actively throwing a portion of those profits at the effort of making sure it doesn’t change. That makes actual, lasting change very difficult. The only real way to do that is to show regular people that there really is a better way to live. There is a way to live that will give more satisfaction, put money in their pocket (or at least allow them to spend less of what they have), and give their children better nutrition so they can grow strong and healthy.<br />
<br />
It is possible to do all this through one seemingly simple, but very important medium: soil. Soil is the basis of all terrestrial life and the single most important substance for human life on earth. As Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, “A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself. Or, as I always, say, my job as a gardener is not to take care of my plants. I take care of the soil and the soil takes care of the plants. The soil is alive. It plays a very active role in the cycling of nutrients and keeping plants healthy. Those plants, in turn, perform nearly every function we need performed. They make the oxygen we breathe, pull carbon dioxide out of the air, shade and cool the ground, turn the sun’s energy into something usable, produce the food we eat, produce the food our food eats, make medicines, make the materials we build our homes out of, and the list goes on. All that depends on healthy soil. While some of those functions can be performed without healthy soil, as they are now, they function at a much lower efficiency. By simply focusing on the soil, we can improve so many things.<br />
<br />
Growing up, my father always told me that Mother Nature takes thousands of years to produce one inch of healthy topsoil. I know he meant it to point out that it is a precious resource and we should treat it as one, I guess I always took it as a challenge. By carefully applying a range of techniques I have covered previously on this blog, you can make that inch of topsoil in anywhere from a couple of years to just a couple of months, depending on the scale of your operation and your dedication to the task. I will note that hydroponics and aquaponics do not actually produce soil, though the remnants of the plants can be used to do so. Instead, I focus on these techniques because they offer options for urban dwellers that might not necessarily be available otherwise.<br />
<br />
More importantly, careful use of the set of these techniques that is appropriate to each individual’s situation can help them personally while helping the world at large. There is nothing quite so effective for solving big problems as showing people how meeting their rational self-interests can make a significant difference on the big problems.Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-24610549336683000552018-01-01T21:15:00.000-07:002018-01-01T21:15:07.353-07:00Moving Towards a Sustainable Culture<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-c3gXKDCSDERYERhBNnfE09bmWLmctEHC7F7hR6Y3HJl6dcOs064odZWn1ZyotGlVbm_IfGHhGQqqzez5IlnujiabGn2kuM82k70e44tgi42zUN_TvyRjZx2YqFK4C9dapO8Tjm88Yo/s1600/Greens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-c3gXKDCSDERYERhBNnfE09bmWLmctEHC7F7hR6Y3HJl6dcOs064odZWn1ZyotGlVbm_IfGHhGQqqzez5IlnujiabGn2kuM82k70e44tgi42zUN_TvyRjZx2YqFK4C9dapO8Tjm88Yo/s320/Greens.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the South, they say eating greens on New Year's Day<br />will bring you wealth in the new year. I say do it every day.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Happy New Year, everyone! 2017 was an interesting year for me. In June, I left my job to pursue intellectual property, but I will talk more about that in the coming months. I still need to finish and file the patent. But I also did a lot of reading, research, and ruminations on the subject of sustainability. Through that process, several things became very clear to me. One of those is that, despite the fact that there are more people passionate about sustainability than ever, the availability of information on what they can do to make a difference is pretty slim. It is even harder to find ways to make a difference while making your life better, not worse. The dominant narrative is that of what we all need to give up.<br />
<br />
We have reached a point where mere sustainability isn't enough. We don't want to sustain what we have. We need to be regenerative. They tell us things to do, but most of them are either not regenerative or make such a tiny impact that they are all but inconsequential. Recycling your trash? That's sustainable, but not regenerative. Reducing carbon emissions? Sustainable, but we need to sequester them if we want to be regenerative. Turning off the water while brushing your teeth? Well, that's a good idea, but just about inconsequential in the bigger picture.<br />
<br />
I also noticed that there are some really great books out there on sustainability, but all the ones I have found so far fall into one or both of two traps. The first is that they are written by academics for academics. I am an engineer by profession and an avowed autodidact. I had trouble slogging through a couple of the books. The second is that they have a wonderful vision for what a sustainable society would look like, but offer no real plan on how to get there. They often offer some vague governmental policy changes as the impetus to move us in the right direction. Personally, I think this is the wrong way to go. All change starts at the bottom, with the people. The status quo is maintained by the people who made vast sums of money on the status quo and have no interest in changing it. The people in charge have an economic base that is sustained by keeping things as they are and will always be resistant to changing it. So the real question is how do we get average, middle class people to truly adopt a sustainable lifestyle?<br />
<br />
The important thing to remember is that a person who is prospering on the current system will resist changing it. What about the people who aren't prospering? What about the millions of Millennials who are in their 30s and still can't afford to buy a home? What about all the people who have seen their wages stagnate while prices rise, watching as their standard of living slowly erodes? What about the estimated 60% of people who will see their jobs evaporate to automation in the next 20 years? One of the constants of the human condition is that we are always looking for a way to improve our lot. We need to find a way to use the regenerative and productive aspects of nature to improve the lives of people who are struggling. If you bring prosperity to those who have found it elusive, others will want a part of that.<br />
<br />
The thing is, nature is regenerative. Every single natural system knows how to regenerate itself from damage to return to health and prosperity. If they didn't they'd have never survived all of the natural disasters that every single environment is subjected to somewhat frequently. These environments do this while providing bounty for all who live in them and they do it because every organism has a role to play. If you haven't already seen it, I strongly recommend checking out the video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q" target="_blank">how wolves change rivers</a> for a beautiful example on how all of the organisms interact in an ecosystem. And this video only shows the interactions among animals and some plants. When diversity is increased and the full contribution of plants, fungi, and microorganisms in the soil is understood, the results can be <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/beyond-the-animal-brain-plants-have-cognitive-capacities-too" target="_blank">mind</a>-<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/exploring_how_and_why_trees_talk_to_each_other" target="_blank">blowing</a>.<br />
<br />
How, then, are ecosystems degrading across the entire world simultaneously? It's quite simple, really. They are being managed incorrectly by people. It doesn't have to be this way, though. There are numerous examples from tropical areas of food forests that have been managed by the people who live in them for thousands of years. The problem is, to the uneducated, the food forest and the forest are indistinguishable and we tend to label people living in these food forests as "savages" and the areas they live in as "third world countries."<br />
<br />
So here we are, living largely in urban and suburban sprawl. A friend once told me that suburbia is the most unsustainable thing ever and asked me how we'd change it. That's easy. Let me offer an analogy. When white people came to North America the bison herds were massive. Some estimates put them at 60 million strong. Most people think that it was over hunting, with millions of animals killed every year, that decimated their population. I read recently that this likely had little effect on the population. In a herd of 60 million, a couple of million lost every year aren't going to even offset the birth rate. It was habitat loss that did it. They depended on the grasses of the prairies for their food source. By fencing and burning that food source, then tilling it up to grow our own grains, we deprived them of their livelihoods and the great herds dwindled and disappeared.<br />
<br />
That is exactly how we are going to get rid of suburbia. It is only through the loss of the habitat that supports the suburban sprawl that we are going to get rid of it. The problem is, nobody wants that. Well, nobody with a heart anyway. Do we really want hundreds of millions of people to lose everything and die or move on? I don't. I really think there is a better way, and suburbia may be just the place to start it.<br />
<br />
Let me ask you a question, for those of you who grew up in suburbia. You remember that crazy lady down the street with the big garden? Remember how she kept knocking on your door to try to give you zucchini? Why was she giving it away? Simple, she had more than she could eat. Let that sink in a minute. She. Had. More. Than. She. Could. Eat. And she grew it in her yard, in suburbia. She was likely using some version of conventional or organic agriculture, with crops in the ground grown with loving care and fertile soil. That, there, is our new model. You want to reduce your footprint? Make it as big as your yard.<br />
<br />
Now, granted, she spent an ungodly number of hours a week out in that garden, and she did it because there was no place she'd rather be. The problem is, not everyone wants to be like her. We have this amazing technological life. We have culture and theater and reality TV that we'd so much rather be participating in than mucking around in the dirt. So how do you transition from that one person in every neighborhood to nearly everyone? Technology.<br />
<br />
Yeah, I know. Technology is bad. We all know that's what ruined the environment in the first place. I learned an important lesson from <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change" target="_blank">Allan Savory</a> on this point. A resource and the management of that resource are two very different things. To be fair, he'd probably bristle at the thought of my applying his maxim to technology, as he does tend to view technology as bad. But I really think that technology applies as another resource that can be part of the solution if managed properly.<br />
<br />
Over the last several decades, there have been many new innovations in the realm of growing food and repairing ecosystems that have a huge amount of potential. These include the understanding of tropical food forests and the development of temperate food forests, <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/mushrooms" target="_blank">mushroom growing</a>, <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/05/biochar.html" target="_blank">biochar</a>, and garden/mechanical hybrids (like hydroponics and <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/Aquaponics" target="_blank">aquaponics</a>). We have developed effective frameworks for managing natural systems like <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/Holistic%20Management" target="_blank">Holistic Management</a> and Permaculture. These are all really great innovations, but I really think that we are just scratching the surface. There is another leap in understanding that we need to take before we can really make the magic happen.<br />
<br />
Most technology is used as a replacement. I don't want to water my garden, so I install an irrigation system. I don't like paying workers on my assembly line, so I install robots to assemble the cars I sell. Often the thing being replaced is human labor or natural systems. Industrial agriculture has taken this replacement model to new heights and the destruction has been vast, with the UN estimating that we have a mere <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-food-soil-farming/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues-idUSKCN0JJ1R920141205" target="_blank">60 years of agriculture left</a>. I don't think we should get rid of the technology any more than I think we should <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management-concepts-animal.html" target="_blank">get rid of the cows</a>. Instead, we should manage it differently.<br />
<br />
Before I jump into what that would look like, let me throw another concept in the mix: systems thinking. Put simply, systems thinking is the process of understanding a whole system by examining all of the connections between functional parts of the whole. Ecology is, by necessity heavy in systems thinking. The problem is that science is typically not strong in systems thinking. The scientific method is typically a reductionist process where variables are removed as much as possible so specific tests can be performed. Any more than 2-3 variables and the results are questionable. So while the data and understanding gathered by science is incredibly valuable, it is important to use science as a starting place, not as the whole process. Science tends to be reductionist. If we are going to build something, we need a constructionist method. Engineering, which uses the information gathered by science, is constructionist. Holistic Management and Permaculture are both also constructionist methods.<br />
<br />
The thing I have found in learning about all of the advanced techniques of growing things is that very few people are combining them. Those that are are typically combining only one or two of the items. I think that widespread use of these techniques, combined with technology would be a way to really create something truly regenerative. The important step, though, is that the technology needs to be viewed differently. The natural systems are complex and interrelated in ways that we don't fully understand, so these processes get first priority. If nature CAN do it, something natural SHOULD do it.<br />
<br />
What role, then, should technology serve? Technology should be used to pick up the tasks that humans would normally do. This is obvious. After all, this is what technology normally does. But more importantly, technology should be used to support, intensify, and accelerate those natural processes. After all, technology cannot ever be truly regenerative. Only nature can do that.<br />
<br />
I believe that if we use technology to support and accelerate natural processes, in turn using the result to build urban ecosystems, we can turn suburbia into a ridiculously productive wonderland. And I believe that those who pioneer this process will bring themselves enough prosperity that others will take notice and want to participate. The benefits of this are multi-fold and include things like carbon sequestration, restoring healthy water cycles, reductions in air pollution, increase in habitat for urban wildlife, a booming local food community, and so much more. I will talk more about what this might look like and how we get there over the next several blog posts. And yes, the intellectual property I am working will be a big part of that. Just be patient with me. I'll tell you all about it as soon as I can.Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-61834690313084111002017-06-07T19:08:00.001-07:002017-06-07T19:08:48.140-07:00Carbon Reduction vs. Carbon Sequestration<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBhDDo3ptXgLCCSACoHbwYdq-t-GIBV86sTHOm2Vl00RudlnsKjXsBfsZIbhKCIkO4OuI-3_HPpDsPLqpfULaxS4zqqyIsE1te37coqWKTjPyEwov8L6o8jFQV3D_g9qpBkv9zTeB9m9Q/s1600/20161206_143437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBhDDo3ptXgLCCSACoHbwYdq-t-GIBV86sTHOm2Vl00RudlnsKjXsBfsZIbhKCIkO4OuI-3_HPpDsPLqpfULaxS4zqqyIsE1te37coqWKTjPyEwov8L6o8jFQV3D_g9qpBkv9zTeB9m9Q/s320/20161206_143437.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look, no bare ground under these cows' hooves</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I recently had a discussion online
about the feasibility of sequestering carbon in the soil vs. just reducing how
much we produce. I have seen many articles lately where scientists say that it
just isn’t feasible to sequester carbon in the soil as the soil just doesn’t
hold enough carbon. I contended that this is incorrect and that it indicates a
lack of understanding of grassland ecosystems. See, the grasslands rely very,
very heavily on the carbon in the soil. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Unlike trees, which can suck up
huge amounts of water when it rains to help them survive dry times, grasses don’t
really have the luxury. They need to have the water in the soil where they can
use it. They do this by having deep roots that they store energy in as the growing season ends and use as a food source during the beginning of the next growing season. The
tissues that are left behind rot and add to the carbon content of the soil.
Some prairie grasses can have roots that run as deep as twelve feet, but will
routinely run three to four feet deep in most cases. The carbon, when added to
the soil, helps the soil act more like a sponge, soaking up rains and causing
very little runoff. This water is stored in the soil where the grasses can
access it to extend their growing season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Naturally the conversation led to
Holistic Management and Allan Savory’s methods and I shared his <a href="https://www.ted.com/speakers/allan_savory" target="_blank">TED video</a>. One
person in the discussion shared in turn a <a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/11/cows-carbon-and-the-anthropocene-commentary-on-savory-ted-video/" target="_blank">take-down</a> of said TED talk and I
found it rather interesting. Again, the rebuttal says that it is simply not
feasible to store the carbon in the soils. So, naturally, being the nerd that I
am, I thought I’d do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation on this. How much
land would we have to holistically manage to bring carbon back to
pre-industrial levels?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So first of all, let me pull a
couple of numbers from the two sources themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Allan Savory says in the video that
about 2/3 of the world’s grasslands are desertifying. My research tells me that
the earth’s landmasses are 57.5 million square miles. Two thirds of that is
38.3 million square miles. He also says that we can restore half of the world’s
grasslands and bring the carbon in the atmosphere back to pre-industrial
levels. So half of that is 19.2 million square miles. So we have 19.2 million
square miles to restore. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Switching to the article rebutting
the video, let me pull the next number from there. The article says that there
are currently 240 Petagrams (a petagram is 1 trillion Kilograms) more of carbon in
the atmosphere now than in pre-industrial times. So this means that we need to
find a way to sequester 240 trillion kilograms of carbon into 19.2 million
square miles. Sounds daunting, but let’s make some assumptions and run the
numbers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">First of all, we need to set some
numbers relating to carbon in soil. So let me start by saying that as a
percentage of total soil, carbon percentage will be calculated by volume, not
by weight. This is typically how that’s done. So how much does it weigh? I did
a little research (okay, I asked a friend who has a PhD in soils engineering)
and what is commonly called “muck soil” or 100% organic matter, has a specific
gravity of 0.25 grams per cubic centimeter. Yup, it is pretty light. But it isn’t
100% carbon. It is composed of a few
other elements, mostly hydrogen and oxygen. Even though carbon dioxide also
contains oxygen, let’s make this a little more conservative and assume that
only 50% of that muck soil is actual carbon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now to depth. That’s the tricky
part, isn’t it? We tend to think that an inch of topsoil is good. But that is
more a forest environment. Grassland environments tend to pump the soil much
deeper. The bunching grasses that make up those environments almost universally
send their roots three feet deep or more, sometimes over ten feet. But let’s
make the calculation conservative again, shall we? Let’s only count the top foot
of soil in this calculation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">First, let’s narrow this down. How much
carbon do we need to sequester per acre of soil?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">240,000,000,000,000 kg C / (19,200,000
square miles x 640 acres/sq mi) = 19,500 kg/acre<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.12px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.12px;">Reducing our per acre number down to a single square foot:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 17.12px;">19500 kg/ac x 1ac/43560 sf = 0.45 kg/sf = 0.45 kg/cu ft (since it is 1’ deep)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Suddenly this doesn’t sound so bad,
does it? The big numbers sound scary until they get divided by equally big
numbers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now let’s calculate the percentage
of carbon the soil would need to be increased by. Let’s start with a unit
conversion. Remember, we are halving 0.25 g/cu cm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">0.125 grams/cubic centimeter x
(2.54 cm/in)^3 x (12in/ft)^3 x (1 kg/1000g) = 3.54 kg/cu ft.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">So what percentage soil carbon is
that?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">0.45 / 3.54 = 12.7% soil carbon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So 13%, and a conservative estimate
at that. It can take a while to reach that level. I think 1-2% is reasonable in
the first year. Maybe in a decade or two we can reach 13%, maybe even 20%. But
let’s talk context a little here. First of all, the biggest impediment of this
kind of solution is not the enormity of the task. It is that, for some reason,
people who want to help, people who want to do the right thing, are throwing their
might against this idea. They are dismissing it out of hand and saying that it
just won’t work. No, this isn’t the only solution, but it is a big one. It can
do a huge amount of good. So why are people spending so much time opposing it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Second, right now, those same soils
are degrading at a rapid rate and turning into deserts. To do that, they have
to lose the carbon they once stored. So those same soils are currently
contributing to the carbon in the atmosphere at a rate that I don’t think is
fully understood. Just reversing that and turning them from a source to a sink
would make a huge difference. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a subject I have read a lot
about, studied extensively. And the second article, the one that is attempting
a take-down of Holistic Management, falls prey to a logical error, and it is
a big one. The first is that grassland ecosystems and forest ecosystems work
the same. They don’t. The grasslands function very differently. The article
tries to simplify the functioning of an entire environment down into a few
simple formulas. It isn’t that simple, though, and can’t be simplified like
that. The cycle of the animal impact is intimately connected with the water
cycle and the mineral cycle. Without that understanding, any logical argument
about why this solution won’t work is fundamentally flawed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Ultimately, though, we can reduce the carbon output all we want, but as long as nothing is sequestering the carbon away, we are fighting a losing battle. We need to be finding ways to lock the carbon back away where it belongs: in functional, living ecosystems.</span></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-50104115742914409822017-03-22T20:17:00.001-07:002017-05-04T21:08:38.275-07:00Why Small-Scale Regenerative Agriculture is so Important<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgborerZ6vr3w6uFAvXjrSyGOrJyf8WAwOUrFUPNsF6n6mDWzcZQ0vAkJndl7TAss_ciwf64oA4dZdskJM280TetF8K39pW4abfaNI4evzhuezP1bmzJMPmrvZpQUQrVNL_ZeZtcC2jKgo/s1600/Phoenix+ASH1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgborerZ6vr3w6uFAvXjrSyGOrJyf8WAwOUrFUPNsF6n6mDWzcZQ0vAkJndl7TAss_ciwf64oA4dZdskJM280TetF8K39pW4abfaNI4evzhuezP1bmzJMPmrvZpQUQrVNL_ZeZtcC2jKgo/s320/Phoenix+ASH1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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For the last several months, I have been throwing down a
whole lot of information. Thank you, loyal readers, for sticking with me. I am
going somewhere with this. There are a great number of techniques that can be
used to repair our degrading ecosystem, and do so while providing a comfortable
living for those doing the repairs. But people need to understand how this all
needs to work. We live in a society that is separated to a great extent from
nature. In order to fix what needs to be fixed, we need to first bring people
back to nature, to help them understand it and learn how to heal it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. As I mention
regularly, this is an engineering blog. I do my best to use engineering problem
solving techniques. And the first and foremost among those is this: if you wish
to solve a problem, you first have to define the problem. So, what is the
problem we are facing? And I don’t mean global warming, degrading farm land, or
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Those are symptoms. What is the problem? Let
me offer my viewpoint on this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The problem, as I see it, is an ultimate flaw with the
changes made during the Industrial Revolution. Bear with me here. See, prior to
the Industrial Revolution, some 90% of humanity lived a pastoral existence on
small family farms. When the Industrial Revolution hit, it needed two things to
function and grow: it needed workers, and it needed consumers. It is basic
supply and demand. So farmers were encouraged, and sometimes forced, to leave their
land and move to the cities. They were promised a better life and more
prosperity. For the most part, that prosperity was finally realized during the
50s with an expansion of the middle class. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But it proved to be short-lived. As an economy grows, it
builds wealth, actually creates it. For the last 15 years, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-create-jobs-2013-11" target="_blank">those gains have largely gone to the elite</a> and the middle class has seen no appreciable
increase in earnings. Prices have continued to rise, though, so the difference
between the two has caused a contraction of the middle class, with millions of people watching their standard of living decrease with little hope of reversing the slide. </div>
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There is also a more insidious problem. The Industrial
Revolution taught us that we could be separated from the land and that even our
food production could be automated. The consequences have been disastrous.
Ultimately, humans are biological beings and are intimately connected to the
environment we live in in ways we are just beginning to understand. Land needs
to be managed or the biological processes that keep it alive degrade. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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Industrial agriculture is a great example. If you take
farmland with excellent soil containing lots of soil carbon and add synthetic
fertilizers, the production goes through the roof. Profits increase wildly. But
the reason it becomes so productive is that the <a href="http://grist.org/article/2010-02-23-new-research-synthetic-nitrogen-destroys-soil-carbon-undermines/" target="_blank">synthetic fertilizers increase soil biological activity and they use all that stored soil carbon as a foodsource</a>, burning through it in as little as a few years, or maybe a few decades
at the outside. It is a perfect example of short term profit at the expense of
long term viability. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So here we are. The profits that can be extracted have been.
The rich are richer than they have ever been in the history of the world. They
are trying harder and harder to find ways to increase profits. Wages have
stagnated to the point that large swathes of humanity are barely making it
paycheck-to-paycheck. Our environment is forfeit. We are looking at the looming
threat of technological unemployment as more companies try to further cut
expenses by automating as many tasks as possible. The outlook is bleak.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Or is it? Maybe this is exactly what we needed right now. See,
momentum is the biggest obstacle to change. As long as everything is going
along great, people won’t make changes. Comfort is hard to compete with. But
discomfort and uncertainty, well, that has people craving change. Heck, a
presidential candidate used it as his campaign slogan a couple of years back. The
trick is for people to get to a very difficult realization: that they are on
their own. As long as you rely on those in power for your livelihood, you are
subject their whims and have little control. But when you decide to take
control of your own life, that’s where the magic happens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The question is, how? We live in an urban, and largely
suburban, landscape. We like our connected, technological lifestyle. Who wants
to give that up to move back to the country and pursue a homestead lifestyle?
Well, lots of people, actually, but I am talking to the rest of us here. How
can we live our modern lifestyle and still pursue some measure of
self-sufficiency. Personally, I think that small-scale regenerative agriculture
is the key here. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Small-scale regenerative agriculture is the perfect solution
for the predicament we have ourselves in. It solves the problems on pretty much
every level. There have been a number of significant advances since the last
time we were an agrarian society. And I don’t mean in the technology of the
tractors currently tearing up vast swaths of farmland. Things like organic
farming (if you think this one is ancient, <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2009/02/organic-gardening-definition.html" target="_blank">you probably don’t understand it</a>),
<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/Aquaponics" target="_blank">aquaponics</a>, and <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/mushrooms" target="_blank">mycoculture</a> have all come a long, long way in the last 200
years or so. Technology can be employed in ways never dreamed of even 30 years
ago. With careful layout and design, more food than ever can be grown in a
smaller space all while regenerating the environment. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So what can small scale regenerative agriculture do to solve
the problems at hand today? Let’s tackle them one by one and see.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Climate Change/Environmental Degradation</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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This one is probably the easiest to justify. Regenerative
agriculture is, by definition, regenerative. This means reducing monoculture,
increasing environmental diversity, and <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/soil" target="_blank">building soil</a>. The simple process of
building soil means adding carbon to the soil, a process also called Carbon
Farming. With enough practitioners of this practice, significant amounts of
carbon could be sequestered into the soils of the earth. Plus, the restoration
of life to soil helps mitigate pollution and further increases environmental
diversity, which will breathe life into ecosystems beyond the farming
operation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Stagnating Wages</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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In a household budget, there are two sides to the flow of
money: income and expenses. Most people are struggling through increases in
expenses while their wages have virtually stagnated for decades. It can be very
frustrating to find more and more ways to cut expenses just to make ends meet.
Introducing <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management-concepts-solar.html" target="_blank">solar dollars</a> to the household budget can breathe new life into the
flow of money. With new methods and technologies, this can happen with only
minimal additional effort on the part of the homeowner, but can result in a
much tastier and healthier diet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Technological Unemployment</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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As most are aware, machines are going to be taking all the
jobs. I have heard projections as high as 60% of jobs will be lost over the
next 20 years to automation. Personally, I think this move is highly
shortsighted. While there will be a huge savings in production costs, that
doesn’t really help if everyone is unemployed and can’t afford to buy gadgets
at the new low cost. Regardless of how bad this move will allow companies to
shoot themselves in the foot, it is coming. So, what can be done about it?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Simply put, people are going to have to become more
self-sufficient. They will need to stop relying on employers for their
livelihood. This used to be the way nearly everyone lived before the Industrial
Revolution and they did so by living primarily off of solar dollars.
Sustainable agriculture allows a return to this paradigm, allowing individuals
to reduce or eliminate reliance on employers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Urban Malaise</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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I read a comment recently that I thought was spot-on: You
don’t hate Mondays. You hate capitalism. Maybe it is capitalism. Maybe it is
our lack of connection to the natural world. Maybe it is a lack of meaning in
our lives. Maybe it is knowing that we spend our days toiling away to build
value for someone else. Maybe it is pollution. Whatever the cause, a general
feeling of malaise, discontent, unhappiness, and restlessness are prevalent in
our society. Small-scale regenerative agriculture hits pretty much all of those
causes head-on. You are building value for yourself on your own land. You are
working with and regenerating nature. I don’t think it is that hard to
understand why <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/01/mycobacterium-vaccae.html" target="_blank">gardeners are a happy lot</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Nutrition</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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As the nutrients are increasingly extracted from farmland,
our food loses its nutritional value. We become disconnected from the <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/08/nutrients.html" target="_blank">nutrient cycle</a>. By regenerating our own land and building nutrient-rich soil, we
increase the nutrient content of the foods we eat. And by doing that
small-scale, we reconnect ourselves to our own nutrient cycle.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Health</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Gardening is a great way to keep active. There is definitely
work involved. This can help with fitness and flexibility. Reconnecting our
bodies to the natural nutrient cycle will also help as our bodies will be
getting all the nutrient-rich foods they need.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The best part of all this is that we don’t need to drop our
modern lifestyle to realize all these benefits. Technology can play a big part
in reducing the labor on gardening while still improving output. Universal
availability of the internet means you can still ply your trade or profession
by working part time online throughout the week to bring in additional income.
We really can have the best of both worlds.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, tell me, what did I miss? Are there other ways
small-scale urban agriculture can change the world?</div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-67999969841546410872017-03-09T20:49:00.000-07:002017-03-09T21:57:49.493-07:00Phoenix ASH & Regrowth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_dGepdu5vKM-3QKKtf9XOEDFldKo0OSoRU32YAquMsDiFblnIYseO-vG49rQnKvTS8zS5wFe4A0R2BUm9eaiqadMa2X1ue1gzqAU-H7T_wLZfUvjqriTr4VbdbOoK3Q8iV8vD2MXokFk/s1600/ASH3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_dGepdu5vKM-3QKKtf9XOEDFldKo0OSoRU32YAquMsDiFblnIYseO-vG49rQnKvTS8zS5wFe4A0R2BUm9eaiqadMa2X1ue1gzqAU-H7T_wLZfUvjqriTr4VbdbOoK3Q8iV8vD2MXokFk/s320/ASH3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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For the last several months, I have been hinting at this
grand project I have been working on. I have felt it more important thus far to
lay the foundation to talk about some of the concepts being implemented onsite.
But I think I am in pretty good shape right now in terms of concepts being out
there, and before I jump into my next series of posts, I wanted to take a
moment to talk about the project I am currently working on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The site is called Phoenix ASH & Regrowth. It is a half
acre site in the Sunnyslope area a little north of downtown Phoenix. The
project is an attempt to achieve as high a level of self-sufficiency as
possible while simultaneously repairing the ecosystem onsite. The project site
will also serve as a demonstration site to help promote these ideas and make
significant improvements on a wide variety of fronts including food production,
nutrition, flood prevention, urban heat island effect, air pollution, economic
resiliency, erosion control, biodiversity, and much more. To achieve this,
nearly everything we do onsite is to achieve one of two goals: 1) Restore soil carbon, and 2)
Promote biodiversity. While this may sound a little overly simplistic, these
two things, when working in conjunction, cause a cascade of healthy biological
functions that achieve everything else. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Let me take a moment to describe how this cascade works.
Increasing the amount of carbon in the soil does two things primarily. The
first is that it increases absorption of rainwater. This increases biological
activity and helps mitigate flooding. The second is that it increases the
fertility of the soil. As I have explained previously, carbon in the soil feeds
the soil biome and increases the fertility of the soil and the availability of
nutrients in the soil. By increasing the available moisture in the soil and fertility
of the soil, plant growth is encouraged. Remember, as a gardener, my job is not
to take care of the plants. My job is to take care of the soil and the soil
takes care of the plants.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXehM4cmDqJAmOZJd6BON4LHnLpugXTGx-g77xpVvq3frtyJkCzVxK7jQy11OOCjMXQNvVwg812-f9SKj-5JRiS8hwE8sDJ28FnLvrYI1nTau9o9goHnTx66XD5wo5oUiXzB2YRV_pHhQ/s1600/before+after.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXehM4cmDqJAmOZJd6BON4LHnLpugXTGx-g77xpVvq3frtyJkCzVxK7jQy11OOCjMXQNvVwg812-f9SKj-5JRiS8hwE8sDJ28FnLvrYI1nTau9o9goHnTx66XD5wo5oUiXzB2YRV_pHhQ/s320/before+after.jpg" width="320" /></a>Once we have widespread growth of plants, we move to the
next level. As I have already mentioned, the driver of ecosystem processes is
the cycling of living matter from one organism to the next. This is where
diversity comes in. Different organisms make use of different food sources and
bring different benefits to the system. Rather than trying to dig through the
science of biological systems, most of which doesn’t really exist yet (don’t
even get me started on the faults with reductionist thinking employed by modern
science), it is best to let the ecosystem find its own healthy equilibrium. We
do that by including everything in the whole. There really are no weeds. The
only caveat is that they must provide more benefit than they detract. So a pine
tree was removed from the site because all it provided was shade. Oleanders
were removed because they are highly toxic. And there are a couple of weeds we
remove because of toxicity. Otherwise, everything is welcome.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Once the plants are growing, each one is valued for the
benefits it brings. Edibles are harvested for human consumption. Grass and
forbs are used for forage for the animals. Dead leaves and grass are harvested
for compost. Trees are pollarded to provide wood to build more soil. At each
level, the plant material runs through its cycle and is returned to the soil,
increasing soil carbon and helping plant growth and diversity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So let me talk for a moment about the various methods we
employ onsite to achieve all of this:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management.html" target="_blank">Holistic Management</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Holistic Management, as taught by the Savory Institute, is
more of a guiding principle. Everything we do is viewed through the lens of
Holistic Management and its principles. It is through Holistic Management that
we can make the best decisions for how to weave the myriad methods together
into one cohesive structure. The site also serves as the Arizona Savory Hub
(ASH) and the first urban demonstration site for the Savory Institute. We are
very excited to demonstrate that Holistic Range Management, which is typically
managed on large tracts of land in rural areas, can be applied in an urban
setting.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Permaculture<o:p></o:p></div>
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Permaculture is another guiding principle. The permaculture
core principles are also core values and guide what we do and how we rebuild a
complete ecosystem onsite.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management-concepts-animal.html" target="_blank">Animal Impact</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Animal Impact, as described in Holistic Management is an
important part of how nutrients are cycled through plants and back into soil.
Right now, we just have chickens and are using them to process forage and
create compost. However, long term plans include goats and sheep, and maybe
even miniature cows or rabbits. Each animal will have its own impact on the
ecosystem, improving diversity and nutrient cycling.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHvCAuaz5jnS3Tazlu5WtpfmMvTQqTwjh6z7C492HAmNAx-72GeLCiBAYGH0LaGw_mo45SIvEHweiHUI0yFIditjsZXCNEEJemA6pgoZ5QIDo4u5w3A33oX8opzWtxJMmHywEWY_dORw/s1600/Phoenix+ASH1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfHvCAuaz5jnS3Tazlu5WtpfmMvTQqTwjh6z7C492HAmNAx-72GeLCiBAYGH0LaGw_mo45SIvEHweiHUI0yFIditjsZXCNEEJemA6pgoZ5QIDo4u5w3A33oX8opzWtxJMmHywEWY_dORw/s320/Phoenix+ASH1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/gardening" target="_blank">Organic Gardening</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Organic gardening, in its ideal form, builds soil carbon,
reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. By not
using chemistry to manage a biological system, the biological system is allowed
to flourish, encouraging diversity and growing topsoil. Everything we do onsite
at Phoenix ASH & Regrowth is organic. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/composting" target="_blank">Composting</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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While some of the organic matter is either processed in
place (as in animal impact) or allowed to lie where it falls, much of the
organic matter produced onsite is processed through the composting facility
onsite. This turns decaying organic matter into high quality topsoil more
rapidly so it can be spread back out where it is needed most. In addition, we
use the chickens (Animal Impact) to process the compost. This allows the
chickens to feed off of whatever they deem edible in the compost, including
insects that are attracted to the rotting material. It also allows their
droppings to be immediately incorporated into the compost. This helps the
compost get hot and complete its cycle quickly. And when it is time for the
compost to be turned? The chickens help with that, too. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/collecting%20rainwater" target="_blank">Rainwater Harvesting</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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At just 9” of rain a year, Phoenix is a desert. But with
careful planning and a little infrastructure, the rain can be stretched really
far. To do, this, we use two primary strategies at Phoenix ASH & Regrowth.
The first is rainwater barrels. There are two rainwater barrels on each of the
three buildings onsite. The two smaller buildings have smaller, flattened
barrels that sit up against the building. These each hold a little over 500
gallons. On the largest building, there are two larger barrels, each holding
about 2600 gallons. The smaller tanks are perhaps a little undersized for the
areas they catch, and the larger tanks are a bit oversized. However, with a
little planning and some plumbing, we are able to drain the smaller tanks into
the larger as they fill up, assuring that no rain is lost. This water is used
to water the gardens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The second type of rainwater harvesting comes from offsite
flow, or water that is flowing onto the property. The property has a wash
flowing through it. While this was a major problem for previous owners, it is
seen as an advantage at Phoenix ASH & Regrowth. With a little regrading,
the site was turned into a series of retention basins. As each retention basin
fills, it overtops into the basin below it. By doing this, all, or nearly all,
of the offsite flow can be captured and stored in the ground. This has the
added benefit of reducing downstream flooding. The best part is that the first
basins built are already growing lots of vegetation and thus building soil
carbon. The change in water infiltration is already visible, with no water
standing in these basins a mere 24 hours after a big rain. The newer basins,
which haven’t had much of a chance to grow vegetation yet, take 3 or 4 days to
drain, even though they get less water.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nitrogen Producing Trees<o:p></o:p></div>
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In desert ecosystems, and in particular degraded desert
ecosystems, there is often a lack of nitrogen in the soil. This can be a
limiting factor for the growth of plants and thus the ecosystem as a whole.
Nitrogen producing trees, such as palo verde, acacia, and mesquite can make a
big difference in this area. Not only do they fix nitrogen from the air and
make it into a usable form, but many are well adapted to dry climates with poor
soil. They are drought tolerant and fast growing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/03/coppicing-and-pollarding.html" target="_blank">Pollarding/Coppicing</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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As the trees grow, they produce a great amount of biomass.
Every two years, the trees at Phoenix ASH & Regrowth are pollarded, and a
few select trees are coppiced. The branches and twigs that are cut off are used
for a variety of purposes. They are used as feedstock for growing mushrooms, some are used to produce biochar. The bulk are chipped to either produce mulch
for various areas around the site or as a bulk carbon source in the compost
bins. The biomass produced by pollarding and coppicing becomes a large portion
of the biomass we use to feed the soil. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In addition, trees typically have a root structure that
mimics the size and extent of the canopy above. When the tree is trimmed back,
the tree abandons roots and pulls back, adding as much carbon down in the soil
as is harvested from above.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2011/07/hugelkultur.html" target="_blank">Hugelkultur</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of the branches that are either trimmed out or are the
result of random pruning throughout the year are used to create new garden
beds. This use of hugelkultur adds a long-lasting source of carbon to the soil
and provides a lasting source of food for the soil biome where it is needed
most.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/05/biochar.html" target="_blank">Biochar</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Woody debris that is too big for the chipper, unusable for
mushroom feedstock, or otherwise scrap material is processed into biochar. The
biochar is added to the compost. Once there, it collects nutrients through the
processing process. Then it is added to the soil with the rest of the compost
where it is used to improve soil quality in perpetuity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/mushrooms" target="_blank">Mycoculture/Mycoremediation</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Growing mushrooms is difficult in the desert, but it can be
managed. Mushrooms are used in the intermediary process between wood chips and
soil creation and provide an additional product. We are also working to find
ways to use mushrooms to improve degraded areas of the site. This is a
technology that has a lot of potential and we are working on finding a way
around the challenges to best make it work.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/search/label/Aquaponics" target="_blank">Aquaponics</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Phoenix ASH & Rebirth is located in a very <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management-concepts.html" target="_blank">brittle</a>
environment and the bulk of the site is being managed with this in mind.
However, many of our common vegetables require quite a bit more water, thus
necessitating a non-brittle microclimate. In this interest, we are looking for
technologies that help use the water resources available onsite to their
maximum utility. Aquaponics has some great potential in this respect, being
particularly efficient with both water and nutrients. However, as a soil-less
technology, it doesn’t fit as well with the goals of the site. We are exploring
other options to improve the technology to be more organic.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As you can see, we have a whole lot going on for just a half
acre. But combined, these techniques work closely together to make some
significant changes in a degraded environment. Please help me in spreading the
word. If we can turn a half acre in downtown Phoenix into a productive food
forest and organic farm, it can be done anywhere. We just have to have a way to
get these concepts out there and teach people to implement them. This world is
fixable, and it can be done using the techniques provided to us by nature.
Let’s get on this.<o:p></o:p></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-47654233124161449962017-02-11T12:55:00.000-07:002017-02-11T12:55:22.104-07:00Composting with Chickens<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjteYtHMP2MouuzM7094_YtdpNITxzoyVep4u8dmAneLz8c8IwlJVjnR2_CqLRCTkeoeRjHM0t8YjCFhNPq6cTEWyjxiQE7VJffikJ0NbHxm3g6-be3HJDPJWzCQ7127qLZwOx387kXkEc/s1600/20161023_175050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjteYtHMP2MouuzM7094_YtdpNITxzoyVep4u8dmAneLz8c8IwlJVjnR2_CqLRCTkeoeRjHM0t8YjCFhNPq6cTEWyjxiQE7VJffikJ0NbHxm3g6-be3HJDPJWzCQ7127qLZwOx387kXkEc/s320/20161023_175050.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicken compost structure</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I love an elegant design. But what is an elegant design?
Elegant is defined as pleasingly ingenious and simple. From an engineering
standpoint, an elegant design is typically a design that achieves multiple
functions through simplicity rather than complexity. This is easily accomplished with biological systems with just a little thought. Think about the process
happening. Is there work you are doing that something else would happily do for
you? Are there organisms that could be inserted into the process that would
provide benefit without any real loss?<o:p></o:p></div>
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While I have tried to achieve this with my living systems
since I was a teenager, one of the best examples I found was from Paul Stamets.
He explained that if you compost wood chips, you can get compost, albeit
slowly. If you grow mushrooms on the wood chips first, you get mushrooms. Then
the spent mushroom blocks can be composted to still get compost, and faster.
The addition of the right organism in the middle of the process makes all the
difference. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Such is the way with chickens and compost. Chickens are omnivores. Their natural diet is a mixture of plants and bugs, with a healthy mixture of seeds thrown in. Commercial chicken feeds are mostly grain based. They give the chickens the basic nutritional needs, but don't really give them anything extra. Allowing the chickens to process compost on the other hand, is a natural fit that achieves multiple functions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl4jJD24Nb0_5XRAZMYsMcsVIUmJpBuT8vS8krHBlyc1vZou-1ehzDPbRDUZTGtmhztM2LrEH_D4pihBmV0A2og5TPW29nYmkczA7ZymCaMLldP6JDFX3KQUUshAa2ctD3UuW_nZiep9c/s1600/20170114_154805.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl4jJD24Nb0_5XRAZMYsMcsVIUmJpBuT8vS8krHBlyc1vZou-1ehzDPbRDUZTGtmhztM2LrEH_D4pihBmV0A2og5TPW29nYmkczA7ZymCaMLldP6JDFX3KQUUshAa2ctD3UuW_nZiep9c/s320/20170114_154805.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicken compost structure from the inside</td></tr>
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For our purposes, we took an existing structure that was built for compost. It was constructed out of PVC pipe and wire and measured 11' by 14' and tall enough to stand comfortably in. We moved it into a corner that was out of the way and put an existing chicken coop inside. The coop gave the chickens a place to roost and lay and gave them protection from the rain and sun. Then we built four compost bins, one cubic yard each, using the same PVC pipe and wire techniques. The doors on the front of the bins rotate down. Then, since this is Phoenix and it is hot here, I installed a mister system over the compost bins to keep the compost wet and the chickens comfortable in the summer. </div>
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To feed the chickens, I toss compost out into the open area. I also wander around and harvest a big bucket of weeds daily for the chickens to eat. Grain is given supplementally as needed and just to make sure they have enough food. The chickens pick through the weeds and kitchen scraps and eat what they want. The rest becomes litter under their feet and they manure on it. When the litter layer builds up enough, we scoop it up and toss it in one of the bins. Then we spread out a starter layer of straw or drier weeds and start the process over again. I hope to use wood chips soon as well. </div>
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Once the compost is in the bins, it heats up to hot compost range within a few days. Once a week, we drop the front gate to the bin, and spread the compost out a little. The chickens dive right in and hunt for bugs. After a day or so, we scoop it up, water it a little, and mound it back up in a different bin. The process produces compost remarkably rapidly. We are actually having trouble keeping the temperature down enough on the compost bins. We don't want them so hot that they are essentially burning off the carbon we are trying to capture. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7AGC76ORcLicj-df9X7fvc22ReZ0XoamwZNZBvA_8oW5I4mGLQqW-bInL2m2jpC-STPCUOsnPeQkXKF3xTXtRNB8X3wC885_RaJwcHqkeNajpTFX0zFduUS4qNwaOWI0_g4sZ1VhQ8-o/s1600/20161009_103407.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7AGC76ORcLicj-df9X7fvc22ReZ0XoamwZNZBvA_8oW5I4mGLQqW-bInL2m2jpC-STPCUOsnPeQkXKF3xTXtRNB8X3wC885_RaJwcHqkeNajpTFX0zFduUS4qNwaOWI0_g4sZ1VhQ8-o/s320/20161009_103407.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Store bought eggs mixed with<br />eggs from our chickens</td></tr>
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The best part is the change in the chickens. They have a habitat that is full of vertical relief to explore, attractive to bugs, and gives them lots of room to scratch around in. They have been much happier and engaged since moving into the compost bin. Plus, the change in the eggs has been remarkable. See, the color of the yolk is a good indicator of how healthy the chicken's diet is. Pale yellow yolks indicate a poor diet, usually of mostly grains. Darker yellow to orange means the diet is significantly improved. I hear that with attention to a great diet, the egg yolks can be almost made red. I haven't gotten there yet. </div>
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Personally, I think that this could be done on a larger scale to take advantage of large scale food waste. Restaurants could collect food waste separately and they could be collected daily, or every few days at the least. Then the food scraps could be dumped into a chicken compost facility with several hundred chickens. They will eat what appeals to them. The remnants could be mixed with wood chips, also from municipal waste, and composted. The chickens could be brought back once a week or so to further pick through the composting material, keeping bugs down and helping it compost. At the end of the product, there is great compost produced, happy chickens, healthy eggs, and a reduction of the trash stream.</div>
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Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-56280183961276861702017-01-25T07:59:00.001-07:002017-01-25T07:59:19.588-07:00Holistic Management Concepts – Solar Dollars<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgraoR9bwi6ZlemOKW0XBQ6rQMHEjXRnzcXiA-Hs7_fQs6UaoYvzLkBo02KkAmPfT92t85icLkN1oIEczA9oaNsh0Ux3bkWT_9TS4Ll9epSuyffPAiZEarPe03Vayo2GmUooRL2VOQ-4OY/s1600/20170116_132327.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgraoR9bwi6ZlemOKW0XBQ6rQMHEjXRnzcXiA-Hs7_fQs6UaoYvzLkBo02KkAmPfT92t85icLkN1oIEczA9oaNsh0Ux3bkWT_9TS4Ll9epSuyffPAiZEarPe03Vayo2GmUooRL2VOQ-4OY/s320/20170116_132327.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maturing solar dollars in home made mineral dollars</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Holistic Management is an interesting set of concepts,
techniques and methodologies. While the application is typically used to make
ranches profitable and regenerative, it actually has broad applicability. Many
of the other concepts have great potential beyond the ranch. Of these, perhaps
my favorite is the concept of solar dollars.<o:p></o:p></div>
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According to Holistic Management, there are three kinds of
wealth: mineral dollars, solar dollars, and paper dollars. Paper dollars are
the easiest to understand. That is the actual money we are all familiar with.
Mineral dollars are resources you have, like water, soil, rock, maybe even gold
if you are lucky enough to have a gold mine on your property. Some mineral
dollars are renewable, like fertile soil and water, while others are not, like
that gold mine. Solar dollars, though, are the product of photosynthesis.
Fruits, vegetables, wood, stuff like that. You use your mineral dollars to
create your solar dollars.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This seems like a pretty simple concept. So why, of all the
important concepts of Holistic Management, did I pick this one to expound on?
This concept is really important when it comes to the application of everything
else I am talking about. See, where this concept really becomes important is in
the area of resource conversion. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZ9cECpIIa5HklA8p3ZUduyai2kbXcLjNoeWY3uHEwfif8Jo56B9oQuokR0yEfpeoLU4wcKKr_Y5gIlej4jO0rh3_zRcMWf87wKEDroK5COsjaznEmM8nYEP7Wqetk2MGn5xh_-BMczI/s1600/20170108_140435.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZ9cECpIIa5HklA8p3ZUduyai2kbXcLjNoeWY3uHEwfif8Jo56B9oQuokR0yEfpeoLU4wcKKr_Y5gIlej4jO0rh3_zRcMWf87wKEDroK5COsjaznEmM8nYEP7Wqetk2MGn5xh_-BMczI/s320/20170108_140435.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harvesting solar dollars (pollarding) to create more solar<br />dollars and more mineral dollars</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Resource conversion is the conversion of one form of dollar
into another. For example, you can buy a bag of composted steer manure with
your paper dollars to help build your mineral dollars in the form of soil. You
can then use that investment in mineral dollars to create solar dollars in the
form of fruit from your fruit trees. Then you can <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/03/coppicing-and-pollarding.html" target="_blank">pollard</a> the fruit trees,
harvesting solar dollars in another form. You can then chip them and convert them
to another form of solar dollars: mushrooms. When the sawdust block is finished
producing mushrooms, you can compost it and create mineral dollars in the form
of improved soil. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The thing is, there are hundreds of ways to create and
utilize solar and mineral dollars. It is really up to you to determine what is
the best way to use them on your property. The important thing to realize is
that these things have value, and not just some pie-in-the-sky theoretical
value. In some cases, they give you a product to sell, and in others they
prevent you from having to spend your hard-earned paper dollars, and in yet
others, they give you a measure of resiliency. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Take a look around at your yard. What are you doing to
preserve and earn solar dollars? Are you composting? Are you maximizing the
production potential of the land you have through food forests? What can you do
better? Remember, there is more than one way to earn income.<o:p></o:p></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-13913178057410805642017-01-15T21:48:00.000-07:002017-01-15T21:48:26.716-07:00Holistic Management Concepts - Animal Impact<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBhDDo3ptXgLCCSACoHbwYdq-t-GIBV86sTHOm2Vl00RudlnsKjXsBfsZIbhKCIkO4OuI-3_HPpDsPLqpfULaxS4zqqyIsE1te37coqWKTjPyEwov8L6o8jFQV3D_g9qpBkv9zTeB9m9Q/s1600/20161206_143437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBhDDo3ptXgLCCSACoHbwYdq-t-GIBV86sTHOm2Vl00RudlnsKjXsBfsZIbhKCIkO4OuI-3_HPpDsPLqpfULaxS4zqqyIsE1te37coqWKTjPyEwov8L6o8jFQV3D_g9qpBkv9zTeB9m9Q/s320/20161206_143437.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These guys right here</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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As those of you who are frequent readers of my blog probably
know, my hobby is engineering with biological systems. In everything I do, I do
my best to be holistic. Each organism in an ecosystem has a job and the whole
works as a whole when all of the necessary pieces are where they are supposed
to be and doing the job they evolved to do. The problem with the modern world
is that our ecosystems are so degraded that the animals are often absent
completely or at the least rarely seen in natural systems. As such, it is so
easy to forget that they are an integral part and are often seen as pests or
otherwise harmful. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Animals are an
integral part of the nutrient cycling function of a healthy ecosystem. The
tricky part, though is to manage the animals. It's important to choose the right animals (or
encourage the right ones to come to you) and help them have the right impact.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is no place this axiom is more true than in a <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management-concepts.html" target="_blank">brittle</a>
ecosystem. The inconsistency of moisture in an area that has distinct rainy and
non-rainy seasons means that the organic matter (typically perennial bunching
grasses) cannot break down into its component nutrients when exposed to open
air like it does in a non-brittle environment, one with constant exposure to moisture.
But the cycling of nutrients is critical for any ecosystem to function. It is
how each and every organism functions within the ecosystem. For the plant, the
fungus, the bacteria, and the animal each, it is their food source. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In a brittle environment, the dead grasses still need to be
removed so the plants have room to grow at the beginning of the next rainy
season. As any gardener knows, the best thing for all that grass is to finely
chop it, compost it in a warm, moist environment, and deposit the finished
compost back on the ground where it can be worked into the soil. Being a bit of
a mad scientist, I propose we automate the process. Let’s make the composting
unit mobile, something that moves around
and continually collects the grasses. I think I will call this new
invention a “cow.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is basically how a ruminant works. They are mobile
organic matter collection and composting units. They provide the moisture
needed to break the plant matter down and keep the food web going. Remember,
those grade school science books downplayed the importance of poop in the
nutrient cycling of an ecosystem. In reality so many more nutrients are cycled
through dung than through dead bodies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ecosystems develop through an intricate process called
“evolution.” Often, evolution picks some minor function, one often overlooked,
and makes it an integral part of the whole. This is absolutely true with the
animal impact on a grassland. Yes, the cow eats the grass, but they miss a lot.
They dung and urinate all over everything and tend to not eat the contaminated
vegetation. But all of the vegetation needs to be lowered to ground level.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Also, bare ground is pretty much the biggest problem in a
brittle environment. As ground sits bare (nothing growing from it and no plant
litter covering it), there is nothing to replenish the soil carbon content and
it just bakes in the sun. Bare soil loses its carbon content eventually and
forms a hydrophobic (water repelling) crust. This crust matures over time, becoming more and more
effective at repelling what rain comes to it. As the environment further
degrades, the soil crust forms a permanent crust, grows a sad layer of algae
and gets protection in a <a href="https://www.nps.gov/cany/learn/nature/soils.htm" target="_blank">state park</a> from people who can’t tell the difference between a
healthy ecosystem and a biological response to extreme environmental
degradation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In order to keep the grassland healthy, the soil crust needs
to be broken regularly and the uneaten litter scattered over the surface, along
with a healthy dose of dung and urine applied. But this process breaks down
when the cattle spread out across the landscape, grazing peacefully. The hooves
naturally break the crust, but not when they step gingerly. The weight of the
animals crushes the dead clumps of grass and scatters the remnants across the
bare soil, but not when they walk carefully between the grasses. The piles of
dung help fertilize, but not when they are twenty or thirty feet apart. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
See, the ecosystem doesn’t respond specifically as a single
block. Each clump of grass responds to the pressures and stimuli it is
subjected to. Grass is overgrazed a clump at a time. Grass is undergrazed a
clump at a time. And the two can be right next to each other. When cows are
allowed to live a leisurely, spread out life with plenty of room to wander and
plenty of time to pick and choose what they eat, they do exactly that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is the natural system of predator and prey that brings
the whole thing together. In the wild, the great herds of ungulates are
subjected to the predation of pack hunting predators like lions and wolves. The
herds bunch together for safety. But in bunching, they eat huge amounts of food
and leave behind huge amounts of dung and urine. In the excitement of being
bunched and worrying about predators, they aren’t careful about where they step
and trample the bunches of grass and break up the soil crust. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
See, it is only the original system that works completely to
maintain the grassland ecosystem. The herds have to be big enough that they can
eat or spoil the food, then move on before the grass starts growing back. They
have to be bunched and excited to disturb the ground just right to get the
benefits. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem is that those great herds are largely gone, as
are their pack hunting predators. But if the land dies without them, what are
we going to do?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It turns out that Allan Savory has worked out a way to mimic
the impact of the animals and built a whole system around it. The system is
called <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2017/01/holistic-management.html" target="_blank">Holistic Management</a>. It uses smaller paddock sizes to mimic the bunching
and manage the time spent grazing. It even turns out that the excitement and
trampling can be mimicked without the stress of predators. Ivan Aguirre, a
rancher in Mexico, uses mesquite hulls, the parts filtered out after the
milling of mesquite pods, as a treat. Mesquite pods are naturally sweet and the
cows get so excited about their treat (a waste product, really), that they
trample everything to get to the hulls. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unfortunately, it is likely that the great herds are gone
forever. However, with enough dedicated people and the will to make a
difference, we have the tools to restore the grasslands of the world to some of
the most productive ecosystems in the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-20676859228507574512017-01-08T22:28:00.000-07:002017-01-08T22:28:05.531-07:00Holistic Management Concepts - Brittleness Factor<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBhDDo3ptXgLCCSACoHbwYdq-t-GIBV86sTHOm2Vl00RudlnsKjXsBfsZIbhKCIkO4OuI-3_HPpDsPLqpfULaxS4zqqyIsE1te37coqWKTjPyEwov8L6o8jFQV3D_g9qpBkv9zTeB9m9Q/s1600/20161206_143437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBhDDo3ptXgLCCSACoHbwYdq-t-GIBV86sTHOm2Vl00RudlnsKjXsBfsZIbhKCIkO4OuI-3_HPpDsPLqpfULaxS4zqqyIsE1te37coqWKTjPyEwov8L6o8jFQV3D_g9qpBkv9zTeB9m9Q/s320/20161206_143437.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A brittle environment in the dry season, complete with<br />happy cows</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I began to delve deeper into Holistic Management, there
were several concepts I thought were just brilliant. The first one is the
Brittleness Scale. It is quite simple, really, it is just a scale from one to
ten that describes the inconsistency of moisture throughout the year. A
rainforest, where it rains almost every day, would be a one. A deep desert, on
the other hand, where it only rains a few weeks out of the year, would be a 10.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the surface, this seems pretty simple of a concept, and
not really worthy of a whole blog post. However, like many simple concepts,
just a little bit of digging into the impacts reveals just how important of a
concept it is. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do me a favor. Go look up Google Earth. Keep it at a global
level. Scroll around a little and look at the little blue-green-tan orb we live
on. I’ll wait. Did you notice how the land masses of the world are
predominantly either green or tan in color? That is your brittleness scale
right there. For the most part, the green areas are non-brittle, and the tan
ones are brittle. Obviously, it is a scale, but it’s a good general rule. Now
think about the population centers of the world. Where do all the people live?
Southeast Asia. Europe. Eastern United States. The west coast of Australia. Japan.
The list goes on. These areas are predominantly green. The only
significant exception to this rule is the Middle East, but those civilizations
started in the river valleys, primarily of the Nile and the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers, prone to seasonal flooding and deposits of rich soils. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The non-brittle environments are easy places to be
successful in agriculture. There is always plenty of water for humans and our
crops. The soil is always trying to build itself up. Heck, just leave it fallow
for a couple of years, and the weeds move in and build the soil back for us. Because
of this, these areas are where we had the stability and prosperity to settle
down and develop civilization, including institutions of higher learning. They are where science was
developed. They are where that science was used to study the best way to
maintain crops and soil fertility. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what’s the big deal? Why is this such an important idea?
Well, the first thing is a subtle point, but like most subtle points, makes all
the difference in the world. Brittleness doesn’t indicate the amount of water
an environment receives, but rather the consistency of available moisture,
including humidity. See, an environment <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-most-important-concept.html" target="_blank">functions</a> by breaking down organic
matter from one organism to another until it is returned to its constituent
parts, returned to the soil, then upcycled into plants to begin the process
again. Every level of this process requires available moisture to break down
organic material. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I first moved to Prescott, AZ in 2002, there was a
rather large tree, probably 30’ tall, that was right next to a highway I
traveled regularly. The tree had already been dead long enough that it had
lost all of its bark and all of its small branches. But the large branches and
the trunk remained. It wasn’t for another 4 or 5 years that it really started
losing the big branches in earnest. It was probably around 2010 that the tree
finally lost its last branch and a little after that that it fell over. In a
nonbrittle environment, this process wouldn’t have taken more than a few years
rather than the probably 15 or more it took in this brittle environment. And
Prescott is probably a 7 on the brittleness scale. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When an environment is extremely dry and has little to no
rain for long periods (Prescott can go 5 to 6 months at a time with no rain at
all), the biological processes that drive can only operate for, at most, a
couple of months out of the year. So how does the ecosystem function without
the extra moisture?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It turns out that nature is extremely adaptable, and
perennial bunching grasses end up being key to brittle ecosystems. They do
several things for the ecosystem. At the beginning of the rainy season, the
grasses expend stored energy from their roots, sacrificing the roots and
pushing their blades skyward as fast as possible. Once they are full grown,
they make use of the fertility in the soil, the available rain, and plentiful
sunshine to replenish the stored energy in their roots. Once the roots are
ready, they produce seed heads and go dormant, usually about the time their
rainy season is over. There they will sit until the next rainy season. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But they have some pretty strict requirements. They can be
grazed during the rainy season, but if they are overgrazed during this time,
they won’t have the energy to store in their roots and take full advantage of
next year’s rainy season. They also need to be grazed completely before next
year’s rainy season. If the dead foliage isn’t removed, the new foliage will be
choked out just as it is trying to grow. Lastly, it needs a heavy dose of
fertilizer. I’ll get into the animal impact needed to make this happen in my
next post.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the most important impacts of this environment is how it manages its own water. The annual cycle of the grasses sacrificing their
roots and growing new ones has the effect of “pumping” carbon into the soil.
That carbon feeds the soil microbes and increases fertility. More importantly,
for every 1% increase in soil carbon, every acre has the ability to store an
ADDITIONAL 60,000 gallons of water.
So if there is only one percent carbon in a field, it can only store 60,000
gallons of water when the rains come. But if you can get that number up to 5%,
the same acre of land can store 300,000 gallons of water. And the prairie
grasses can send their roots 6 feet or more into the soil, helping that water
penetrate deep into the soil, where it will be stored. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most brittle environments are prone to heavy rains when the
rains do come. Without this natural cycle and a healthy grassland ecosystem,
the soil carbon is lost and the water runs off, causing erosion as well as lost
moisture. When the grasslands are restored to a more natural system, so much
water is stored that ephemeral streams often start flowing again, providing a
permanent supply of water to the animals that roam in these environments.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Grassland ecosystems can be some of the most productive on
the planet, but only if the natural processes that make them so are fully
understood and upheld. If the right level of animal impact is fostered, these
ecosystems can begin the process of self-repair in just a couple of years and
provide a great source of solar dollars (I’ll talk about that one in two
posts).<o:p></o:p></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-15694386948800872702017-01-01T19:26:00.003-07:002017-01-01T19:26:59.144-07:00Holistic Management<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdyogFzwyOuOPDbe6ya3HWUQoyHIRqwk4kOgixNt0Smy1PXIeEn5tiHsGYK7xvGsfCOSRoUhNNIkvMZ8Jag5iwEFXvdFUtc9NOqbjhItocvLBQhOWduCH8BauLBMn0XVBmKMRVokHAEMU/s1600/1.1977.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdyogFzwyOuOPDbe6ya3HWUQoyHIRqwk4kOgixNt0Smy1PXIeEn5tiHsGYK7xvGsfCOSRoUhNNIkvMZ8Jag5iwEFXvdFUtc9NOqbjhItocvLBQhOWduCH8BauLBMn0XVBmKMRVokHAEMU/s320/1.1977.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Inmaculada Ranch, Hermosillo Mexico before Holistic<br />Management - 77% bare soil, 23% soil crust, 3 species of<br />perennial grasses</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every now and then I find a concept that just blows my mind.
Not because it is difficult to understand, but because it shifts my worldview
and causes me to see the world around me in a whole new light. Often, the new
information latches onto a generally accepted concept that just bothers me. It
nags at the back of my mind because it doesn’t feel true, but everyone accepts
it as true because they have been told it is. But then this new idea comes
along and adds clarity to the issue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this case, the idea that never made sense to me is that
agriculture, particularly the raising of cattle, is responsible for some huge
percentage, about 9%, of global production of greenhouse
gasses. In reading most articles, the assumption is that it isn’t just poorly
managed stocks. Most make the assumption that it is the cows themselves and it
couldn’t possibly be any other way. That makes no sense to me. Pretty much all
of the grasslands of the world were home to great herds of large hoofed
animals before man came along. Herds of bison in the North American Great
Plains were reported to be in the tens of millions of animals. So how could it
possibly be that the natural, healthy condition was home to that many large
animals, but now we can’t possibly handle a similar number without doing severe
damage to our atmosphere and environment?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The answer came from a biologist named Allan Savory. I have
written about him <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2010/06/combating-desertification.html" target="_blank">before</a>, but have since learned much more about his ideas and
methods and I have to say that I am sold. The answer is quite simply that, as
humans, our centers of population and learning are mostly in areas that have
consistent moisture throughout the year. These are very productive ecosystems
that support large populations and we know well how to keep them healthy and
productive. They also tend to be conducive to growing forests. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The grasslands of the world, on the other hand, operate
completely differently. The inconsistent
moisture won’t support as many trees, but rather favors a completely different
type of environment, one dominated by perennial grasses. As I mentioned <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-most-important-concept.html" target="_blank">before</a>, this cycle of plant growth and decomposition is the primary cycling of nutrients in an ecosystem, and the primary driver of life. Because of the inconsistent availability of moisture, the moisture required to biologically break
down organic matter and foster the creation of the soil is simply not present
for much of the year. This means that as a plant (in this case, the grasses)
grows during the wet season, it produces body mass. As it runs through its
annual cycle and sheds biomass, the biomass doesn’t simply fall to the ground
and decompose. So how does the grassland ecosystem function?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It turns out that a completely different method of
decomposition is utilized by the grasslands. The decaying grasses get the
moisture they need to decompose in the gut of large ruminant animals, such as
cows and bison. The animals then deposit the proto-soil in the form of urine
and dung. This then continues to decompose and fertilize the soil. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgreClb4ozBP1xWzxpvPuUMRTj1DKnYHqzHyE653w8d90rNycilqickf4xwU-1U8ncsvARZ2lPh8Y3iZEilr6P4aBxymeKB4ucPhrNcIMBoaWpQEkjWRKd6flN8s2smmVfAFTOZXSVcbjg/s1600/3.2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgreClb4ozBP1xWzxpvPuUMRTj1DKnYHqzHyE653w8d90rNycilqickf4xwU-1U8ncsvARZ2lPh8Y3iZEilr6P4aBxymeKB4ucPhrNcIMBoaWpQEkjWRKd6flN8s2smmVfAFTOZXSVcbjg/s320/3.2013.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Same location as above, after 36 years of using Holistic<br />Management practices. 25% bare soil, 1% soil crust, 11<br />species of perennial grasses</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, the whole process is very fragile and is contingent
on several factors. The right kind of animal impact needs to be maintained. The
grasses rely heavily on the top of the plant being removed by the animals
between the completion of the growing season and the beginning of the next
growing season. Some of this happens via eating and some happens via trampling.
This happens best in the presence of huge herds that are bunched and excited
because of the presence of pack hunting predators, such as lions. In this
configuration, huge numbers of animals are constantly on the move. They consume
the bulk of the tops of the plants, trample on the rest, and fertilize what’s
left. When the next rainy season comes around, the perennial grasses are ready
to leap off and complete their life cycle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But when this cycle is disrupted, such as is the case over
most of the land masses on the planet, the grasses don’t get the cycle of
stress and rest they need to best complete their life cycle. Most of the
grasslands of the world are either overgrazed or over-rested, both equally
damaging to the perennial bunching grass. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is an important environmental factor. As I mentioned
<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/04/soil-nutrition.html" target="_blank">previously</a>, the soil is a living thing. It needs to be fed, and it eats
decomposing organic matter, mostly plant. In the grasslands, a small percentage
of this comes from the animal dung, but really, the bulk of it comes from the
grasses themselves. See, in order to take advantage of the brief rainy season,
the grasses store a huge amount of energy in their roots. At the start of the
rains, the grasses shoot skyward, sacrificing those roots. They pull the energy
from the roots and allow them to die. Once the grass is to the proper height,
they begin the process of storing energy, growing new roots. The old roots then
decompose and feed the soil. This happens every year. The bunch grasses in
essence pump carbon into the ground to feed the soil.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As you might imagine, this is the single biggest carbon sink
on the planet, one that is currently not functioning, causing the soils to lose carbon to the atmosphere rather
than storing it in almost every grassland on the planet (about 60% of Earth’s
landmasses). But the effects aren’t just damaging to global warming. See, the
carbon in the soil, stored as humus, turns the soil into a giant sponge. When
the monsoon rains come, healthy grasslands with heavy amounts of <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/06/making-humus.html" target="_blank">humus</a> in the
soil soak up the bulk of the rain. This stores the water in the soil, allowing
more and healthier grass to grow and creating a positive feedback loop. But
when the process is disrupted, the carbon disappears from the soils, causing
the soils to form a water-repelling crust, which increases flooding and erosion
while exacerbating the problem. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Holistic Management was developed by Allan Savory as a
series of techniques to best replicate the impact of the great herds without
actually restoring the great herds. Cows, sheep, and goats are typically used
to create the restoration, but have to be managed carefully to simulate the correct type of
impact. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are a bunch of really important concepts from Holistic
Management, many more than can be outlined on a blog. I’ll select a couple of
the more important concepts to delve deeper into over the next several blog
posts. Over the next couple of posts, I will talk about the Brittleness Scale,
Animal Impact, and the concept of Solar Dollars. After that , I can delve into
some of the possible ways Holistic Management can be used to make real,
positive change in the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-41249539076333933112016-12-19T15:13:00.001-07:002016-12-19T15:13:41.438-07:00New Perspectives<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJo8GcbX_PAeGpvIvOVrkzdwtaxA176SFhNJICFcUlrdOpTQhYwJsS2EeSW6s2dR6HmjFRY_fNlx0o23Se-S4Y_Hv6FgjElmLd9RG8gyu90n5Q2iFrrl1Bvl21rkC1oJnEfkoFsEDm1js/s1600/IMG_3908.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJo8GcbX_PAeGpvIvOVrkzdwtaxA176SFhNJICFcUlrdOpTQhYwJsS2EeSW6s2dR6HmjFRY_fNlx0o23Se-S4Y_Hv6FgjElmLd9RG8gyu90n5Q2iFrrl1Bvl21rkC1oJnEfkoFsEDm1js/s320/IMG_3908.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
I am not prone to hero worship. People are people no matter their accomplishments. I make two notable exceptions to this rule, and both are because of their brilliant minds, minds capable of looking at an old problem with new perspectives and then using that perspective to recombine and innovate. I adore people who excel at this sort of thinking. I even aspire to do it myself. The first person I would call a hero of mine is Paul Stamets. Seriously, if you haven't heard of him, look him up. His work with mushrooms is world-changing, and that's not even an exaggeration. The second person I would call a hero of mine is Allan Savory. Again, this is someone who has looked at the world with an open mind and developed better ways to doing things that absolutely have the potential to change how we live on this planet.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<br />
Two weeks ago I had the extreme fortune of attending the Savory Institute's hub gathering. Allan Savory spoke and as one can expect of such a mind, he offered two different viewpoints that really changed my perspective. I would like to share them here.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<strong>Resources vs. Management of Resources</strong><br />
<br /><br />
The first is the concept of the difference between resources and the management of those resources. It is often said that cows are the (or one of the) biggest causes of global warming in the world. Yet, the grasslands of the world were dominated by massive herds of ungulates, cows included, that numbered in the millions. So how is it that a massive population of large, hoofed animals 100,000 years ago was an integral part of a healthy, regenerative system, but a similar population of these animals today is a major threat, a significant cause of global warming? What has changed?<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
Quite simply, these herds are no longer being managed by natural cycles of rain and drought, summer and winter, predator and prey. They are instead being managed by people. Put another way, the cows are a resource. It is our management of this resource that is the problem, not the resource itself. To blame the resource is to shift the blame off of where it needs to lie and onto a red herring.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<strong>Using Chemicals to Manage a Biological System</strong><br />
<br /><br />
We live in a culture that has forgotten that are are a part of the ecosystem and the ecosystem is a part of us. We cannot be separated from it. We are tied to the circle of life by the food we eat. This food comes from the land and is a part of the natural ecosystem. But all too often, industrial agriculture fights against the natural processes. The soil is depleted from poor practices. Natural relationships between predator and prey are disrupted, leading to a population boom in the prey (pests). All this causes problems with the crops, resulting in reduced yields.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
As a society that doesn't understand our connection to nature, it is perhaps unsurprising to realize that we also don't understand the complex interplay of species that make up a healthy ecosystem. We do, however, have a very comprehensive understanding of chemistry. As the saying goes, when the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems start to look like a nail. So industrial agriculture is currently deep in the process of attempting to deal with a biological problem by using a chemistry solution. As you might imagine, it isn't working very well.<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
I do hope I can continue to learn from Allan Savory. I love his unique perspectives. Every new perspective gets the mental gears churning. That's where all the good ideas come from.Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-66214581782717772382016-12-01T12:26:00.002-07:002016-12-01T12:26:59.821-07:00Imagining Utopia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Imagine, if you will, a typical day. You roll out of bed at 5:00 in the morning, groggy. As you wake up, a feeling of existential dread settles in, same as always. You shower and get dressed, then hop in your car, driving 45 minutes in stop and go traffic on the freeway. Finally, you arrive at your office, clock in, and wander through the maze of grey cubicles to find your own grey space. You log into your computer and begin your daily task of making someone else fabulous amounts of money, most of which you will never see in your meager paycheck. During your day, you listen to one neighbor clipping fingernails, while another listens to hate speech on talk radio. Yet another neighbor has one personal conversation after another and someone else giggles intermittently as they presumably surf social media. At lunch you eat a burger that was probably microwaved and holds no real nutritional value while talking about how automation is going to take everyone's jobs in the next ten years and we will all be unemployed. <br />
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You head back to your life of grey and work out the rest of the afternoon, watching the minutes slog by like hours until the magical time of 5:00 rolls around and, elated, you get to hop back in your car and spend another 45 minutes driving home. As you walk in your front door, you see your neighbor. His house is only 20 feet from yours, but you have no idea what his name is. You've never talked. You head in, throw together a quickie dinner from pre-made ingredients made in a factory, grab a beer, and sit down to drone it all out in front of your 52" television. You know, the one you worked so hard to earn the money to buy so you could forget for a few measly hours how hard you work and how little difference you actually make.<br />
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Did that one hit a little close to home? For millions of people, that is life. Yesterday looked largely the same, and tomorrow will look the same as well. Yet here we are, fretting that someone is going to take that job that we hate. Will it be an immigrant? Will my job be shipped to India? Are they going to invent a machine that can do my job? Certainly the job is mindless. It wouldn't be hard to program a machine to do it. But then I'll be out of work. I won't be able to afford all the little things that make this miserable life bearable.<br />
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So here we all are, fighting against the inevitable to protect something we hate. But what if there was a better way? What if we could use this period of change to break those chains and envision a better way of living, a way with meaning? Allow me to paint for you a picture of a very different day.<br />
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You wake up with the sun and take a refreshing shower. Then you go up on your roof and see what is ready to pick today. You grab some eggs from the chickens, pick some spinach, chard, peppers, and garlic chives. While you are doing that, you wave to Jim, your neighbor, who is doing the same thing on his roof. Then you go downstairs and whip yourself up a breakfast burrito while you catch up on social media. Around 9:00 you head into your home office and log into work. Periodically you look out your window and enjoy the southern Arizona mountains in distance framed by the waist high green grass between. <br />
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By noon, you are done for the day. You head back up on the roof and pick some greens and edible flowers for a salad that you mix with your home made pickled beets and onions. After lunch, you head out into your community. There are only 20 homes here and you know every neighbor by first, middle, and last name. You say hi to a couple of passersby and swing into catch up with a close friend. Then you head on out to check on the cattle. You have to hike through a quarter mile of waist tall grass to get to where they are currently stationed, but it isn't bad. There are no fences and you only had to hop one running stream and it was only 3 feet wide. When you get there, you check that their water supply is functioning and observe that they have another three days of grazing until they need to be moved to the next paddock. Then you pull out your tablet and check their harnesses. The use of drone technology has allowed you to track and herd the cows to better manage where they forage. Then you hike back home, in time to see that your groceries were delivered by drone. You head out to the pond and catch a couple of tilapia to pair with fresh veggies for dinner. After dinner, you walk down the Public House (in some places they shorten it to Pub) to visit with neighbors and maybe see if you can finally beat Hank at chess.<br />
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It sounds like a very different life, doesn't it? But the technology to make it happen is already here. Let's break this down piece by piece and paint a picture about how to make this reality.<br />
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Technological Unemployment<br />
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Machines long ago took the manual labor jobs, leaving people to do the knowledge work, the white collar jobs. With the rapid improvements in AI that are currently happening, it won't be long that machines will also be able to do our knowledge work and those jobs will be lost as well. There is a lot of anxiety about this prospect and more than a few books on the subject are available. Yet answers are few and far between. The thing is, I know relatively few people who absolutely love their knowledge work jobs and gain a deep sense of fulfillment from them. I say let them take those jobs. There is more important work to be done. Let's kick start the restoration economy and employ people in the more important task of restoring our beleaguered ecosystems. At least for now, that isn't a task that machines are going to be very good at.<br />
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Rural Living<br />
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Why did people flock to the cities in the first place? Mostly it is because, with the advent of the industrial revolution, that is where the jobs were, the opportunities. But those manufacturing jobs dried up. Now the white collar jobs that replaced them are also poised to dry up. So why stay in the cities? Entertainment? Convenience? These things can be available in rural communities as well. In a decade or so, you won't even need to own a car. Self-driving cars and drones will be able to deliver goods as needed and come take you to town when you need it. The internet provides all the connectivity needed to work at a distance. And new technologies will make the labor of growing food crops a whole lot less labor intensive. <br />
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But what's that you say? Won't we hasten ecosystem damage by spreading 7 billion bodies back out across the rural landscape? Isn't it the mere presence of humans that causes the damage to the ecosystem? Not necessarily. A human presence with the right set of tools can help repair the ecosystem. It depends on the environment. <br />
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Brittle Environments<br />
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Each environment falls somewhere on what is known as the Brittleness Scale. Where it falls depends on the availability of moisture throughout the year. As I mentioned <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/08/nutrients.html" target="_blank">before</a>, the success of an ecosystem is dependent almost entirely on its ability to cycle nutrients through from one organism to the next. Non-brittle environments have consistent moisture and the humidity needed to break down organic matter. This assists greatly in the breakdown of the organic matter and the cycling of the nutrients through the system. <br />
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Brittle environments, in contrast, don't have the moisture available to bacteria to break down the plant matter and return nutrients to the ecosystem. In nature, a very different system has evolved to make this work, and it is incredibly effective. The problem is that it requires thousands of square miles of undisturbed land, and the mere presence of humans disrupts the delicate balance. This system is quite complex and I will be covering how it works in future blog posts.<br />
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So if our mere presence disturbs it, why would we want to move there? Well, it turns out that there is a method developed by <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2010/06/combating-desertification.html" target="_blank">Allan Savory</a> that replicates those processes. The only problem? It requires a lot of work. With enough people and a whole lot of attention to detail, we can turn most of the deserts of the world back into incredibly productive grasslands that pump carbon into the soil and provide an incredibly productive bounty. <br />
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It could just be that this is an opportunity in disguise. We are about to be in a position where a whole lot of people are going to be looking for a new way to make a living, and finding a way that brings meaning to their life in the process is a win-win for everyone.<br />
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<br />Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-72428645604610946462016-11-17T10:53:00.000-07:002016-11-17T10:53:09.047-07:00May You Live in Interesting Times<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvByLJmuIr4F0v2wkQt2gOyf4cez56kxX6jPIy-3u0Swy6XPF73TasnO9t4s2I0ChOedimqpHdGBbONNrHB5YM_JKRvV6iyt6844o8vHgZpqgTB4DIlfUJYecqRZeNkChCasD1g6_fZA/s1600/20161113_110737.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvByLJmuIr4F0v2wkQt2gOyf4cez56kxX6jPIy-3u0Swy6XPF73TasnO9t4s2I0ChOedimqpHdGBbONNrHB5YM_JKRvV6iyt6844o8vHgZpqgTB4DIlfUJYecqRZeNkChCasD1g6_fZA/s320/20161113_110737.jpg" width="320" /></a>There is an old Chinese curse that goes "May you live in interesting times." And yes, it is a curse. As humans, we crave stability. Interesting times are uncomfortable. But they also present opportunities. Real change is difficult for people when they have to step out of their comfort zone. But when their comfort zone has disappeared out from under them, they start looking for a new one. That is when you can introduce them to a better way. But before we get into better ways, let's take a step back. As I have mentioned before, this blog looks at the world through an engineer's eyes. Engineers solve problems. The first step in solving the problem is always to define the problem. So let's start by doing that.</div>
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So, what is causing these interesting times we live in? Personally, I think it is several things converging at once. The one thing that has most people worried these days, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and the violence that accompany those, is perhaps not a cause, but rather a symptom. When people are thrust out of their comfort and stability, they tend to lash out and look for someone to blame. It is just human nature. The less savory aspect of our nature, sure, but part of our nature. So let me list the things that I think are at cause. To be clear, this is just my opinion, and I am sure there are many other opinions.<br />
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<b>Extraction of Wealth</b><br />
Capitalism is a system where corporations are set up specifically to extract wealth. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting yet another article talking about how the stockholders of X Corporation are pushing the leaders to cut salaries and benefits to increase shareholder value. And that practice has been going on for decades. While wealth is continually increasing, it isn't infinite. Those at the top now hold obscene amounts of wealth, but it isn't enough. They are always grabbing for more. They use their wealth to change laws and mold minds. They tell people that they are job creators and shouldn't be taxed. They create laws to reduce their tax burden. They create laws that make the public pay for their expenses while they keep the profits. All that money has come at the expense of the majority of people. We have seen costs increase and wages stagnate. We have seen our quality of life decline.<br />
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<b>Environmental Degradation</b><br />
As the population of the world pushes towards 8 billion, we are increasingly trying to find a way to feed all the people. Just as the wealth was extracted from the middle class, the nutrients have been extracted from the most productive farmland in the world. The soil, our most valuable resource, was destroyed. As the soil was depleted, the crops stopped growing so well, so we sprayed synthetic fertilizers on them. Those further damaged the soil while running off and damaging our rivers and our oceans in the process. We bunched our livestock up so they could be treated like anything else in a factory and their waste piled up and fouled the land and rivers. That carbon that was once stored in our soils was lost to the air and no more carbon was added to the soil. Combined with carbon from fossil fuels and other sources, it built up in the atmosphere, warming our planet.<br />
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<b>Lack of Connection</b><br />
I read an <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-and-sex-in-the-digital-age/201509/the-opposite-addiction-is-connection" target="_blank">article</a> recently that suggests that the root cause of addiction is a lack of connection. Ideally, this is a connection to other people, but I would argue that there should also be a connection to nature as well. Why else would so many people feel so good by heading out for a hike or camping or other versions of communing with nature? When the connection isn't there, it creates a hole. People try dumping all sorts of things into that hole to fill it, most of them unhealthy. We live in a society that has grouped us all into big cities but broken our connection with our fellow man. We paved the ground, crammed the houses together, and drove out all the vibrant natural world. It isn't healthy for us, and it creates anxiety.<br />
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I am sure the list goes on, but this is, in my opinion, the crux of the matter. So how do we solve these issues? Obviously, some structural changes are needed in the way we do things, but there are plenty of people working on that. I will let those fine people do what they do best. I am going to work on what I do best, which is technical solutions. So, you ask, what technical solution will solve all of that?<br />
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A better way to garden.<br />
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Yes, you read that right. I really think that gardening needs an upgrade. And yes, I truly believe that it can make that big of a difference. Let me break it down for you to demonstrate how this one solution addresses each of these concerns.<br />
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<b>Extraction of Wealth</b><br />
As we look at our rising monthly expenses and our dwindling paychecks, we do a simple bit of mathematics. How can I either increase income or decrease expenses? Food is a major expense for most families. On top of that, somehow the garbage foods have gotten really inexpensive and the healthy, organic vegetables have gotten really expensive. Gardening hits the expense side of that equation really hard. For a little land and a lot of work, you can grow most of your food. But what if modern technology could come into play. What if a better way to garden was introduced? What if you could grow more food with a little land and not so much work? What if you could be so productive that not only do you not have to quit your job, but you could even sell produce back. What if we created a network on this new fangled internet thingy and sold that excess zucchini and tomatoes that you previously couldn't give away. I mean, it is local and organic, right? Now it hits both the income and the expenses side of the equation while completely cutting out Big Agriculture and the other corporate interests.<br />
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<b>Environmental Degradation</b><br />
Plants pull carbon out of the air. It is as simple as that. Plants turn carbon dioxide from the air into sugar. It is their most basic of process. They then turn that sugar into all kinds of good things. Edible things. Tasty things. If more people gardened, we could accelerate that process. And we could compost the parts we don't eat and turn it into more soil. What if we gardened in 95% organic matter, adding just enough inorganic matter to satisfy some of the mineral needs of our plants. What would that look like? Healthy farmland has soil that is 5-10% organic matter and only in the top 3 or 4 inches, usually. What if you gardened in a foot or two of pure organic matter? And you make that organic matter on your own property. It comes right out of the air your children breathe. And plants don't only get rid of carbon dioxide in the air. They also scrub the air of just about every other kind of pollutant there is. Better yet, what if this new kind of gardening produced organic soil as an output? Every couple of years, you scoop out amazing, black soil and spread it elsewhere, starting over fresh in your garden. <br />
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<b>Connection</b><br />
What better connection to the earth and to nature is there than a garden? You work the soil with your own hands. You breathe of its goodness (getting lots of <a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/01/mycobacterium-vaccae.html" target="_blank">Mycobacterium vaccae</a> in the process, I might add) and it brings you health. You eat the plants you grow and further that connection to the earth. It is a wonderful cycle. Beneficial insects, birds, and other wildlife are drawn to the garden. It creates something wonderful. But what about the connection to other people, you might ask? I have been gardening for almost two decades now, and I can tell you that gardeners are some of the most connected people there are. It is a great thing to have in common with people. You never lack for things to talk about. You share seeds and success stories and failures and heartache. It is a bonding experience.<br />
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But these aren't the only things that more gardening will create. As more and more people garden, especially with a network in place to sell the excess produce, it takes from the industrial agriculture machine. We know where our food is coming from. We take back control. A community space could be created to aggregate and sell the produce. People could learn what is in demand and grow to demand. A whole new market would develop with locally grown produce. Side markets could develop, like mushroom growing and local cafes. With a good enough garden technology, the labor could be reduced to the point where a service could be hired to maintain the garden, leading to more employment. The list goes on.<br />
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So what would this new garden technology look like? Well, first of all, it would use modern technologies. There are some great innovations out there now. But most people who grow food seem to be running in one of two directions right now. The first is to go all the way back to nature. It is the homesteading way. Cut out most of the technology and restore the land back to a highly productive ideal. The other way is the technological way. Cut nature out entirely and use the technology available to provide the plants with exactly what they need. Personally, I think that the answer lies in a combination of the two methods. Combine a thriving, living ecosystem at all levels with the labor saving of modern technology.<br />
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Yes, I am working on something like this. My prototype has been running for 3 years now and has performed fabulously. I am currently working on building a larger system and testing it on a grander scale. So bear with me for a little while. I need a little more time. But there are good things on the horizon. Let's make the world a better place through gardening.<br />
<br />Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-64261275668071037152016-10-16T15:35:00.000-07:002016-10-16T15:35:44.293-07:00Making Restoration Appropriate to the Environment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the last year or so my studies have taken a bit of a
different turn. While I have always been passionate about building complete
miniature ecosystems and including as many of the necessary forms of life as
possible to make that happen, lately I have been looking at it from a larger
scale. I have gone beyond the terrarium, beyond the garden. My studies have
taken me into larger areas and my interests are to either restore ecosystems to
as close as possible to a natural state or to create something that closely
mimics their natural state, but with humans as a necessary component, with the
natural system being both supported by and supporting the humans that live in
it. In doing so, several things have become very obvious to me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The first is that the usual scientific processes that use a
reductionist thinking cannot be applied to natural systems. The ecosystem
functions as a whole and cannot be reduced to anything that has any real
meaning. That doesn’t mean it can’t be understood. There are certain guiding
principles that the ecosystem follows that provide insight. As I mentioned in a
<a href="http://madbioneer.blogspot.com/2016/08/nutrients.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>, one of the key principles is the cycling of nutrients. The
carbon cycle must continue to cycle because the carbon cycle IS the energy
cycle. If the carbon cycle stops cycling, the ecosystem starts to die. If the
carbon cycle is accelerated the ecosystem thrives. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The second thing that has become obvious to me is that there
is one overriding core function that must be maintained for an ecosystem to
function. As I mentioned, the cycling of nutrients must continue. A huge
percentage of those nutrients are locked up in dead organic matter, mostly of
plant origin. That organic matter must decompose through living processes. In
so doing, it feeds the soil organisms and promotes life while cycling
nutrients. But in order to break down naturally, it must be exposed to water.
The bacteria and fungus that typically do the work cannot do the work without
water. Often, even humidity in the air can be enough, but there must be water.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, that begs the question: What about environments
with inconsistent moisture? What about environments that don’t have enough
moisture in the air to decompose organic matter for several months out of the
year? I live in Phoenix, Arizona, and it rarely rains here between February and
June. How does the organic matter decompose? The answer is that nature is
resourceful. We tend to think of dead plant matter falling to the forest floor
and decomposing among the rest of the leaf litter, but that isn’t the only
method. What about in the stomach of a herbivore? It is moist and full of
bacteria. Digestion and decomposition are almost the same thing. It turns out
that in arid and semi-arid environments, that method is actually one of the
primary means of decomposition in a natural, undisturbed arid environment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
That brings me to the third thing that has become obvious to
me. I have become acutely aware of late about how people think about restoring
environments. The most obvious example of this is when people say “We need to
stop climate change now! We need to plant thousands of new trees!” As my
perspective shifts, it becomes more obvious just how short sighted this
viewpoint is, though it is simple to understand how it arose.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Google Earth is a great way to tell what sorts of
environments there are. Zooming out to where you can see entire continents on
the screen, it is easy to see the colors of various land masses. The green ones
are areas that are subjected to consistent moisture, whereas areas that receive
inconsistent moisture are shown in brown or tan. While the brown or tan areas
cover around 60% of the planet, most of the heavily populated and highly
scientifically relevant areas are in green areas. All of Europe, all of
southeast Asia, the entire eastern United States and Canada, New Zealand, and
the eastern coastlines of Australia are all solid green. So it makes sense that
the thought leaders would look around outside their windows and say, hey, we
need more trees. Those things soak up huge amounts of carbon and store it in
their trunks. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem is, that solution simply doesn’t work for 60% of
the Earth’s landmasses. The great grasslands won’t support a forest, and even
if you could find a way to get it to grow, it would displace all the organisms
for whom the grassland is their native habitat. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The grasslands have evolved to work with the inconsistent
moisture. The interesting thing is that they actually sequester about the same
amount of carbon as the forests do, but rather than storing it in the woody
trunks of trees, they grasses use the seasonal moisture to have a sort of ebb
and flow between above ground tissue and below ground tissue. Dryland grasses must take full advantage of the dry season. To do that, they store energy gained from last rainy season in their roots. At the beginning of the rainy season they sacrifice roots to push leaves towards the sky. Every time they
do that, it has the effect of pumping decaying tissue,
and the carbon that goes with it, into the ground. As this carbon builds up, it
opens up the pores in the soil and the soil absorbs more water when it rains.
This allows more grass to grow, and increases the effect of pumping more carbon
into the ground, giving it more water holding capacity, onward and upward. But
certain processes need to be observed to keep this process functioning
correctly. It is easily disturbed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Over the last several months, I have been working towards
becoming certified in Holistic Management. This is a series of techniques
developed by Allan Savory to help restore the great grasslands of the planet.
Over the next several posts, I will be covering several of the key concepts
from Holistic Management in detail. I believe it is worth sharing.<o:p></o:p></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-17550779679002637152016-08-11T19:48:00.001-07:002016-08-11T19:48:50.681-07:00Nutrients<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0XpdE2qf6jv8QT0k8K4A02BwQivT0Krq-9dFyVaJDgxj9t4wEknZY1nMXZWXCxyKp15coaQKvYtFrDRfgsZVYqnPyFb9YTbbqu82Xu9YdYRXObbE1pkiHv79xBI_JxKr66-_mqBDuNWk/s1600/20160515_071356.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0XpdE2qf6jv8QT0k8K4A02BwQivT0Krq-9dFyVaJDgxj9t4wEknZY1nMXZWXCxyKp15coaQKvYtFrDRfgsZVYqnPyFb9YTbbqu82Xu9YdYRXObbE1pkiHv79xBI_JxKr66-_mqBDuNWk/s320/20160515_071356.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My current garden</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In business, the key to success is understanding your business. And I don’t mean that we know exactly where we file our TPS reports.
I mean understand the core of the business. In one philosophy, this is achieved
by asking five very simple questions: 1) Why do we exist? 2) How do we behave? 3)
What do we do? 4) How will we succeed? 5) What is most important right now?<o:p></o:p></div>
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While these questions seem very elementary, answering them
can be anything but. To correctly answer these questions requires a level of
introspection that many people are uncomfortable with. It requires the leaders
of the business to boil down the business, its core purpose, and its core
values to a simple sentence, one that rings absolutely true and one that the
members of the organization can identify with.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have been thinking recently about applying these questions
to the management of ecosystems. As I have mentioned before, I am constantly
experimenting to construct ever more complex ecosystems. But the more I travel
down the path, the more I am finding myself asking those same questions
businesses are encouraged to ask themselves. Why does an ecosystem exist? How
does it behave? What does it do? How does it succeed? What is most important in
an ecosystem, and what is most important right now in this ecosystem I am
trying to build? But first I need to catch you, my reader up a bit. Let’s start
by asking the question, what is an ecosystem?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In nature, an ecosystem is a series of living organisms that
live together, forming a series of relationships. In a healthy ecosystem, the
relationships are predominantly mutually beneficial. Sure, it might not seem
that the coyote is providing a mutually beneficial relationship with the
rabbit, but a broader look shows this to be true. The ecosystem seeks balance.
The rabbit evolved as a prey species and has a reproductive rate that reflects
this. In absence of predators, the rabbits overpopulate and starve when they
run out of food. The predator-prey relationship is mutually beneficial to the
species as a whole, if not that individual who got converted into coyote poo.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So these organisms create mutually beneficial relationships.
How? What about them is mutually beneficial? The more I ask myself this, the
more it comes down to nutrients. An ecosystem functions though a healthy
exchange of nutrients. How do those nutrients cycle through an ecosystem?<o:p></o:p></div>
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The mycorrhizal fungus pulls the raw materials from the ground, sometimes
going so far as to mine them from the bedrock below, and feeds them to the
plants. The plants incorporate them into their bodies as they grow. Herbivores
consume the plants and incorporate them into their own bodies. Carnivores
consume the herbivores and receive the nutrients in turn. All through this
process the various animals produce large quantities of feces. That feces
contains not only the nutrients that passed through the animal, but also the
ones that the animal “used up” and needs to dispose as waste product. The
scavengers and decomposers move in and take those same nutrients and cycle them
into their own bodies. The fungus grows mushrooms, the insects grow and
reproduce, the bacteria multiply. These are in turn consumed by other
decomposing organisms, such as earthworms. Some of the nutrients head back into
the birds from here, while others continue to be broken down further into their
component parts. Eventually, they get gathered back up by the mycorrhizal
fungus and fed back to the plants, completing the cycle. The better this cycle
functions, and the more nutrients it has to cycle through the ecosystem, the
healthier the whole ecosystem is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There is an important distinction I want to point out here. When
considering the food options for an organism we are conditioned to look at
caloric inputs. Where does the organism get the energy it needs to continue its
own biological processes? But this is really only half of the equation. Food
serves two purposes. Well, actually it serves a lot more purposes, but we are
going to just focus on the big two. When an organism ingests food, it breaks it
down as far as it can to get both the energy for sustaining life and the raw
materials it needs to build, rebuild, and repair its own body. The foods that
supply the energy are the calorie dense foods while the foods that supply the
latter are the nutrient dense foods. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN6AzKjUeKQa9bOUHWnTF4RcslevEVaR7DUuwPW2uMXzftchGNx1N17UYFMu9Q9pi5GnEi8L71u96A5gRJ3jphp2BDH7yhNZExMMWDGrugmgZnTQVJSTiYG6MYz3X35N5Xmrus9Ivk2RU/s1600/breakfast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN6AzKjUeKQa9bOUHWnTF4RcslevEVaR7DUuwPW2uMXzftchGNx1N17UYFMu9Q9pi5GnEi8L71u96A5gRJ3jphp2BDH7yhNZExMMWDGrugmgZnTQVJSTiYG6MYz3X35N5Xmrus9Ivk2RU/s320/breakfast.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The nutrient dense foods are arguably more important in the
long run. Sure, you need energy to live, but it is the nutrients that give
health and vitality. It is the nutrients that prolong life. Nutrients are much
more than making sure you are getting enough potassium and calcium in your
diet, though. The form they come in also matters. There are a number of
phytochemicals that have wildly diverse impacts on the body. Some stimulate the
immune system. Some are medicinal. Some help organs function better. I think I
can safely say that the list of phytochemicals and their impact on the human
body is far from fully understood. Their impact on the rest of the ecosystem is
even more poorly understood. Let me offer an easy example. Catnip has a mild, minty
flavor. The phytochemical that produces that flavor is a powerful insect
repellant, particularly effective on cockroaches. To cats, it has a narcotic
effect. In humans, it tastes kind of nice, nothing more. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s jump to the fourth question above, “How will we succeed?”
To restate what we have learned: 1) The purpose of an ecosystem is to cycle
nutrients, 2) The health of the individual as well as the health of the
ecosystem are determined by the sheer volume of nutrients available for
cycling, and 3) The diversity of form for those nutrients matters. The first
thing is that the nutrients need to be present in the soil. In the long term,
this is a little less important. In most soils, the necessary raw materials can
be mined from the soil particles by the mycorrhizal fungus or from the air by
the plants. Compost helps a lot. The addition of organic matter helps a lot. What
is probably most important, though, is to not remove anything from the
ecosystem that you don’t have to. You ate that cucumber and your waste is going
down the toilet? I’d say that is a regrettable but acceptable loss. But those
peels need to go back into the soil. That plant, when it dies, needs to go back
to the soil. That’s how you retain nutrients.<o:p></o:p></div>
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How do you achieve a diversity of nutrient forms? You do
that with a diversity of organisms. Different plants uptake different nutrients
from the soil. They then form them into different phytochemicals. Those
different plants attract different insects. Those different insects form a
complex web of predator and prey. The insects in turn feed the birds. The
connections go on. But the diversity of life encourages and invigorates life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s now jump to the last question above: “What is most
important right now?” Given the information here, I think the most important
thing right now is to increase diversity. Take another look at my garden in the
picture above. Those felt bags cover about a square foot each. Given the
principles of traditional gardening, each of those bags should hold about one
plant: one tomato, one chard, one pepper, one bean. But they are planted much
more densely than that. And they are thriving. If I have a square inch of soil,
I find something to put there. It takes a little careful planning on the
companions, but it can be done. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The other thing to do is to stop spraying. Yes, those aphids
are killing your spinach. Give them a quick spray with the hose. If you have
healthy, diverse soil, your plant will make it through. But wait, just wait.
Those aphids are prey species and they are ringing the dinner bell loud and
clear to baby praying mantis, ladybugs, lacewings, and a huge number of other
beneficial insects. Those insects bring more insects. A healthy population of
insects brings toads, birds, and lizards. Together they start to form an
ecosystem. It may take a few years, but that ecosystem will balance and get
down to what it does best: cycling ever increasing quantities of nutrients. And
that’s the best you can possibly hope for.<o:p></o:p></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-56136713752731391942016-07-04T16:40:00.000-07:002016-07-04T16:42:50.044-07:00Surviving Economic Instability<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjty47CZI1lG6kdKQsoWjVP8xTTj__Ux4WCzoOmrJAaQFM1nefNSZz0zmxMHc6U9aaERJozCxw8kIWCvUG-S9o-Q2kinMN7xLJET7pFYAtaw2ITXiR4o-nRUSeFsSCRA6v6dM6ye07Sof4/s1600/before+after.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjty47CZI1lG6kdKQsoWjVP8xTTj__Ux4WCzoOmrJAaQFM1nefNSZz0zmxMHc6U9aaERJozCxw8kIWCvUG-S9o-Q2kinMN7xLJET7pFYAtaw2ITXiR4o-nRUSeFsSCRA6v6dM6ye07Sof4/s320/before+after.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Before/After</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Successful economies are built on stability. If you know exactly where your next meal is coming from and can reliably predict no shortages, it allows you to free more of your money up for investments and spending, which are the real drivers of an economy. However, if there is even slight uncertainty, people start increasing their savings and holding off on buying things they don't need. Small events of this size are what cause recessions. The larger the uncertainty, the worse the recession. Unfortunately, we are likely headed into the largest period of uncertainty in an age. Climate change is absolutely happening, and at a frightening rate. Agricultural land is widely being poorly managed and thus used up. The grasslands of the world are almost all turning to desert. To make matters worse, our country is throwing up walls (figuratively, but maybe literally as well) and developing factions that increasingly vilify each other. These are not the sort of things that bode well for the sort of long term stability a thriving civilization is built upon.<br />
<br />
I saw a maxim recently that really struck a nerve. "When you have more than you need, don't build a higher wall, build a longer table." I really love that one. As humans, we thrive together. We survive the hard times together. We build a civilization together. We make the world a better place together. A few people acting alone cannot do it themselves.<br />
<br />
But what if that saying isn't referring to food and money and other tangible resources? What if you have an abundance of knowledge and solutions? What if that knowledge and those solutions are exactly what is needed? How would you build that longer table and what would it look like?<br />
<br />
The first thing to remember is everything has a value. If you give it away for free, that is its value. I learned this from martial arts. I'd honestly teach it for free to have a good group of people to practice with. But teaching it for free sets its value. If I am not paying for class, what do I miss if I don't show up? But when someone pays for something, it sets a value. You don't have to fleece people, but give the knowledge and the solutions a value.<br />
<br />
Once the base set of knowledge and solutions is identified, it needs to be developed, researched, and implemented. The first thing you need is a team. Honestly, this is probably the hardest part. When you are implementing something completely new, how do you find people who share the vision, who think beyond what has been universally taught and what everyone believes? It is a tough thing,and a lot of luck is involved.<br />
<br />
Next you need a demonstration site. While you might find a few people to believe in your vision, if you want more people to believe, it has to be demonstrably true. You have to be able to prove to the doubters and naysayers that it can be done. Nothing is more fun than telling the person who says "It'll never work!" that "We have been doing it successfully for 3 years now. Want to come see?" But it needs to be more than a demonstration site. Provable prosperity is the minimum. If a demonstration site is in an area that wouldn't normally support such a thing, even better. You want to produce all the food you need on a half acre? Build it in a desert, on the side of a mountain, in a frozen tundra. If you can do it there, you have proven it can be done anywhere.<br />
<br />
Next you need a community. You need a dedicated group of individuals willing to work together, willing to learn, willing to embrace a new version of prosperity. You need people who will go out and implement the solutions on new sites and in different ways. You need people who will talk about it and bring new members to create a growing community.<br />
<br />
Now I just have to bring this set of ideas to life. I have a vision, a set of solutions I believe could fix our environment, bring security, and maybe even fix the economy. I have a team. I have a demonstration site. Who wants to be a part of my community?Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-72316882388631033392016-06-19T16:20:00.001-07:002016-06-19T16:20:24.991-07:00The Importance of Snails in Aquaponics<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoD8fXrFHIzI2CiqgMYqQvTIGQ6H3HwyxUoya7m6C1DUUgfZFTShnmDOB9BcJELxckkXCPZo_7jSN9L8sUnNusrNvdmE4w1l88IxoPe7HkvsAsSIdhaq4HXyVV9YOBy1w7w56kLRb90GU/s1600/snails.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoD8fXrFHIzI2CiqgMYqQvTIGQ6H3HwyxUoya7m6C1DUUgfZFTShnmDOB9BcJELxckkXCPZo_7jSN9L8sUnNusrNvdmE4w1l88IxoPe7HkvsAsSIdhaq4HXyVV9YOBy1w7w56kLRb90GU/s320/snails.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The two kinds of snails in my garden. Malaysian trumpet snail<br />on the left, Rams horn snail on the right.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I was at an aquarium store once buying a couple of fish and saw some great snails. They weren't the big flashy kinds, like apple snails or nerite snails, but rather little Malaysian trumpet snails. I could tell they were trying to get rid of them, so I asked for a few. The saleswoman referred to them as "parasitic snails." That got my curiosity up, so asked in what way they were parasitic. She kept talking about how hard they were to get rid of and what a problem they were. "But," I asked, "you called them parasitic. What organism do they infect and what harm do they do." She just found the question confusing." It was after another few moments of conversation that I found out that she didn't know the difference between "nuisance" and "parasitic." But I did get her to toss a big handful in with the fish, where I promptly introduced them to my garden.<br />
<br />
In soil gardening, worms are particularly useful. They perform a number of benefits to the soil. In an aquaponics system, snails can be just as useful to the water ecosystem as worms are to the soil, if not more so. They perform a number of beneficial functions in the tank. First and foremost, they are the clean up crew. If you overfeed your fish, your snails will gobble up all that extra food in short order. If a fish dies and you don't notice, the snails will jump on it and gobble up the remains in just a few days, lessening the impact to the water chemistry. They also act as an extra food source for the fish, particularly if you have tilapia. The tilapia will eat the little ones whole and will eventually figure out how to pick the shells apart on the big ones to pluck out the juicy bits.<br />
<br />
In fact, because of these two facts, snails end up being a useful indicator of how accurately you are feeding your fish, which can be particularly useful if you feed them sinking food pellets. If you are overfeeding your fish, the snails will latch onto the ready food supply and increase in numbers rapidly, multiplying in just a couple of weeks. If you are underfeeding your fish, the fish will turn to the snails as a source of food, and the snail population will plummet. They are even a good indicator of water quality. If you have a water quality problem, perhaps caused by a big rotten fish, low oxygen levels, or some other problem, the snails will attempt to escape the water. So if you come check on your tank and there is a big line of snails right at the water's edge, you know you have something to fix.<br />
<br />
Another useful function is the role they play in cycling minerals, particularly calcium. If your water supply is hard, like mine is, there are lots of calcium salts in the water. In aquaponics, this can be particularly tricky. Water is added, bringing with it more salt for every gallon. But the water leaves the garden via evaporation, leaving the calcium behind. The snails make their shells by pulling the calcium out of the water. When they die, or are eaten, that little calcium pellet falls to the bottom of the tank. If you run your tank for several years, the snail shells build up. If calcium is short, the living snails will get their calcium from the dead snail shells. If there is plenty, they just pile up. I love scooping the old shells out and adding them to my garden soil. They act as a slow release calcium supply in the soil.<br />
<br />
The question is, what kind of snails do you want? First of all, don't get the ornamental snails. A lot of those are considered beneficial in the hobby aquarium because they don't reproduce rapidly. That's actually a problem in aquaponics. You want lots of snails. There are two main kinds of snails, Malaysian trumpet snails and rams horn snails. The trumpet snails have a long curl to their shells and are shaped like an elongated cone. The rams horn snails curl outwards and don't form any kind of a trumpet shape. There are a couple of other kinds of pond snails out there as well that have an intermediate cone shape.<br />
<br />
The Malaysian trumpet snails can be useful in their own way. The shell shape helps them burrow through sediments, where they prefer to live and eat. In their burrowing, the perform much the same function as the earthworms do in soil, they aerate the sediment and help eliminate anaerobic patches which can become smelly. However, their shell is too hard for the tilapia to eat. They can still be useful, though. As they overpopulate, just scoop them up and toss them in the soil. They are pretty tough, but they can't move around outside the water and only survive a couple of days. Or, if, like me, you have a pet turtle, you can just use them as supplemental turtle food. I have a little 3 stripe mud turtle. His beak has no trouble crushing the hard shell of the trumpet snail and he considers the long shape to be perfectly bite sized.<br />
<br />
The rams horn snails are the preferred snail in aquaponics. I have had a few of the medium conical snails and they work well, too, but don't thrive and reproduce as well as the rams horn snails. The primary food source of the rams horn snails is algae, extra food, and whatever other organic debris ends up in the tank. They can get up to a half inch in diameter, though that is rare. The few I have gotten that big always earn the name "Monstro the Snail" from me. Usually they are much smaller, maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter.<br />
<br />
So I hope you consider adding snails to your aquaponics garden. I know I love what they do for mine.Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-77383093829979672262016-06-05T23:45:00.001-07:002016-06-05T23:45:28.542-07:00Making Humus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAEc8FH_P4paWFmo6BWXT7sZgfPjUhzRyPZCJaOMCRb5Nkg3i6zQlz_65M3FIOkZN_qqD9-HydKIbTg75URgfqFmguUPTU-qaTR3OfsDzNjVm7GSznyxoBd6VYu7wJ_BfnheM6DgV2f2s/s1600/20160518_064755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAEc8FH_P4paWFmo6BWXT7sZgfPjUhzRyPZCJaOMCRb5Nkg3i6zQlz_65M3FIOkZN_qqD9-HydKIbTg75URgfqFmguUPTU-qaTR3OfsDzNjVm7GSznyxoBd6VYu7wJ_BfnheM6DgV2f2s/s320/20160518_064755.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">First
I want to be clear. I am not talking about hummus, the yummy dip that comes
from various cuisines around the Mediterranean. I am talking about humus
(pronounced HYOO-mus). Humus is a type of soil derived from fully
decomposed organic matter. It is black and rich and just about the best thing
you can have for growing plants. But humus isn’t just more compost or similar.
It is stable and retains itself long term in the soil. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So
if it is so great for your plants, how do you get it? Well, that’s the problem.
Humus is quite possibly the most valuable substance on the planet, even if
nobody realizes it <insert about="" and="" assumed="" demand="" diatribe="" here="" long="" supply="" value="">. Everything that supports our life on this planet, from the air
we breathe, to the water we drink to the food we eat depends on humus. But
nature makes it very slowly. As a kid my dad always told me that it takes
nature a thousand years to make an inch of topsoil (which is mostly composed of
humus). While I don’t think it takes quite that long, there is certainly not
enough that it can be sustainably harvested, even on a small scale. Plus,
current farming practices degrade the topsoil rapidly. Tilling in particular is
very damaging to the humus.<o:p></o:p></insert></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">However,
we can make humus. Before we do so, there is one thing we need to understand.
What is humus? Quite simply, humus is distilled from decaying organic matter.
The problem is that the process of distilling the humus isn’t very efficient. You
can’t take a cubic yard of fall leaves from your yard and get a cubic yard of
humus. That cubic yard of leaves might give you a couple of tablespoons of
finished humus. After 3 or 4 years. But it isn’t quite as bad as it sounds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
basic formula is this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Organic
Material => Organic Matter => Humus <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Organic
material is just about anything that was produced by a living thing. Woody debris from plants are best. Add it to
your compost bin and compost the heck out of it. The composting process removes
most of the bulk that is going to go away. That cubic yard of leaves will give
you a gallon or so of finished compost. Then add that to your soil. Over the
next several years, that will break down further into a beautiful humus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now
there are just three things to remember:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1)
The reduction. When you realize just how much organic matter reduces to make
good humus, you will join the legions of us who spend lots of time creating a
huge composting operation. It really is the most important thing you can do for
your garden.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">2)
The reason humus is so great is that it feeds the living organisms in the soil
that form the ecosystem your plant is existing in. By adding compost, you are
feeding the soil organisms. The fact that you are making more and more humus
from the process is actually almost secondary. Feed your soil!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">3)
When you stop feeding your soil, the humus starts to break down and will
eventually be lost. Actually, this is happening all the time anyway. It is just
that regular additions of compost add humus to the soil faster than it can
break down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">So
go out and make more of the real black gold, the basis for our existence on
this planet!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-7217797083572499432016-05-18T23:45:00.002-07:002016-05-18T23:45:40.722-07:00Wake Up Sheeple!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCy4joThwQACtZJYR5g5FzcrXj19s0eL9-mGyYQpABM9Luk6dXE9Vhrx24zVFzAKDuZxpqSQQeCkW1FifJj6R_G9-C_HbC48_UnuWKZeTcFL2ECR1vHT1ItbmYoiODU_Nr_-pMWTV6o6Q/s1600/Facepalm.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCy4joThwQACtZJYR5g5FzcrXj19s0eL9-mGyYQpABM9Luk6dXE9Vhrx24zVFzAKDuZxpqSQQeCkW1FifJj6R_G9-C_HbC48_UnuWKZeTcFL2ECR1vHT1ItbmYoiODU_Nr_-pMWTV6o6Q/s320/Facepalm.png" width="252" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Okay, first of all, let me say that I despise that phrase. The
concept that people who are missing some facts that you have, fail to see their
impact, or just don't care are somehow either asleep, bleating sheep, or both,
is just insulting and really, really condescending. However, "I feel I may
have some information that would be worth considering and perhaps incorporating
into your cognitive model" lacks the same punch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">So what idea do I think is worth incorporating into your cognitive
model? Let me start with the ideas that I believe to be mistaken. There are
actually two opposite opinions that I want to cover here:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">1) Nature alone cannot feed our population.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Hunter-gatherer societies cannot sustain large populations, even
in a pristine wilderness. There just isn’t enough food available out there to
go around. To compensate, we invented agriculture. But eventually that wasn’t
good enough so we invented fertilizers and huge equipment. But we know that
soon even that won’t be enough. We need to find ever better ways. Nature brings
pests and diseases, so everywhere we see a hazard, we cut out nature.
Hydroponics and large scale urban vertical farming are great examples. One book
on vertical farming stated that urban vertical farms would be sealed with air
locks, positive pressure would be applied to the whole building, and workers
would have to change their clothes upon arriving, all to make sure no pests got
in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The problem with this thinking is that nature has developed some
really amazing tools to work with, but most of them really only function
properly as a part of a functional ecosystem. You can’t build that ecosystem if
you are too busy excluding most of it or poisoning it into submission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">2) We should give up technology and move back to nature.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">This opinion is the counter-point to fallacy #1. These people see
the damage done by industrial farming and the wholesale destruction of natural
systems and want to toss the whole thing and move back to nature. The idea is
that the only way to fix the problems caused by modern life is to throw them
out, go off the grid and build a regenerating farm using natural systems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The problem with this is that just because a technology is being
used incorrectly or inappropriately doesn’t mean it is inherently bad. Sure,
some parts are bad. I think we could do without glyphosate entirely. But we
have some really amazing tools at our disposal that could be a wonderful part
of the solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">So what new thought should be incorporated into people’s cognitive
model?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><b>The natural world has developed a whole host of tools that perform
a spectrum of functions. It is only through understanding of those tools and
their interactions to each other that we can truly solve the problems facing us
today. Modern technology can be used in conjunction with natural functions to accelerate the functionality of the whole system.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">In essence, by combining human technology and understanding of
natural processes we can sort of hack nature to create something better than
both, but that is still regenerative. Compost is a perfect example. You will
never, in nature, find a well-aerated pile of decomposing organic matter of
precisely the right mixture of high-nitrogen and high-carbon material. However,
someone figured out that if you create such a thing, the process generates heat
and supercharges the soil creation process. It is a combination of natural and
human processes to create something that works better than either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">But compost is just the beginning. With a deep understanding of a
wide variety of organisms and how they work, combined with some serious systems
thinking, a whole new technology could be devised. We could use those natural
processes and recombine them into regenerative solutions that solve problems,
provide a greater quantity of local, nutritious food. In the process, we
surround ourselves with life and bring nature back into our cities, living
side-by-side with the people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">This blog is called Mad Bioneer. The –neer is a take-off from
engineer, and to that end I like to gear the content here towards practical
solutions. And I am not looking win-win here. I am at the least looking for
win-win-win. Just how many different functions can we really fit into the
solving of one problem? Let’s take a look at an example problem and see what we
can come up with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Problem: Food Waste<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Description: Food waste is a huge problem in America. We leave it
on our plates in restaurants, we let it go bad in the refrigerator, we let it
expire in our cupboards. When thrown out, it rots and smells bad. It attracts
vermin, from rats to insects, that in turn spread disease and become a
nuisance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I read a book on vertical farming recently and the author tackles
this issue. His suggestion is to burn the food waste to provide energy to power
vertical farms. I can’t imagine the energy density is all that great on food
waste, and burning it just turns it into greenhouse gas without any side
benefits at all. I think we can do better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The immediate thought is to compost it. It would have to be mixed
with lots of brown matter, but in most cities, that can be provided from yard
waste. In the process, great soil is produced in large quantities. Win-win. Not
good enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY9uzxnZzF3wldIGbOclLwaeKfMgvHDZL9hgcmI8n_M9D1vpSlAxs4eNTpO7GLlvVaexa5WRFdnwtnpHscFa4ywECK3_kJIUTp9FlfB8s89cYB9kYNPGaOaRaHKPTsEzvqU53SsN6lpek/s1600/chicken.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY9uzxnZzF3wldIGbOclLwaeKfMgvHDZL9hgcmI8n_M9D1vpSlAxs4eNTpO7GLlvVaexa5WRFdnwtnpHscFa4ywECK3_kJIUTp9FlfB8s89cYB9kYNPGaOaRaHKPTsEzvqU53SsN6lpek/s320/chicken.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A simple chicken composter</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The bacteria consuming the food don’t give any other functions
other than producing soil. Chickens would be a great addition. Scrap the addition of brown matter and feed the scraps to chickens. Chickens are omnivores.
They prefer bugs, but will take food scraps and can eat just about anything we
eat. They will gobble up leftover food, and leave behind some high nitrogen
packets. In the process they produce eggs and meat. Win-win-win. Still not good
enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">If you dump a huge pile of food waste in a bin where chickens can
get to it, it will start to rot. While chickens are omnivores, they aren’t
scavengers. We need something else to do the bulk of the processing while it
rots. Give the chickens one to two days with the pile of food waste, then move them to the next pile. Now we bring in black soldier flies. Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) are
voracious consumers of rotting food waste and thrive on high protein waste that
is a little rich for earthworms. In the process, given the right container,
they self-harvest and provide an easy, high-quality, high-protein food source.
We have fed our chickens already. Let’s use this step for something else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The BSFL could be fed to tilapia in an aquaponics or similar
setup. The protein from the food waste becomes fish food. They process it into
meat and their waste products go to fertilize plants in the other part of the
system. So now you are producing meat and vegetables off of the waste
reclamation process and you haven’t even gotten soil yet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Unfortunately, BSFL don’t make very good compost. So they would
just take up the early part of the process. They pick out the rich foods and
the rotting foods and begin the process of breaking them down. But they don’t
need to be left in forever. At this point, you add that brown material from
your municipal yard waste collection to get the mixture right and add worms.
This step will probably take the longest. But when the product is mostly
complete, you can add the chickens back in and let them gobble up the worms and
any other bugs in the system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">By carefully choosing the vermin we introduce to the system
(chickens, BSFL, tilapia, and worms rather than rats and cockroaches), we are
able to control the benefits the process confers. Sure, it takes longer, but
look at all the production that is gained and value that is added.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Problem #2: Yard Waste – tree trimmings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Problem Description: Tree trimmings are a constant part of
suburban life. We like our trees and we like them neat. But sent to the
landfill, the organic material rots slowly in a low oxygen environment,
producing methane and taking up space.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_FJbJrVR7qbHT3vs0U8W9ufLe8R0aQrBv8Qeu6wto5gD4l2df_F3eeee-v6NyGeab4nLx4l4mSENdjdXieyp_M2GO8NiF9NmvOLXWhplFJWyNtrHNSGg1d9Z5UV6ArONpHC1Fz0Z3_jM/s1600/mushrooms.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_FJbJrVR7qbHT3vs0U8W9ufLe8R0aQrBv8Qeu6wto5gD4l2df_F3eeee-v6NyGeab4nLx4l4mSENdjdXieyp_M2GO8NiF9NmvOLXWhplFJWyNtrHNSGg1d9Z5UV6ArONpHC1Fz0Z3_jM/s320/mushrooms.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Some municipalities are now chipping the woody waste and
composting it to produce soil. While this is a better solution, it still
doesn’t add enough value. How about if we chip those branches up and pasteurize
them. Then we can grow gourmet mushrooms on them, like shiitake and oyster
mushrooms. While the mushrooms will do the hard part of the decomposing
process, they won’t quite finish it off. Worms do a really great job of turning
finished mushroom blocks into soil. The worms could then go to feed chickens.
So now you have produced mushrooms, eggs, and meat from the process as well as
healthy compost to add to soil.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">These are just ways to handle resources destined for
decomposition. The same thought process can be applied to a variety of
problems, including food production itself. All it takes is some deeper
understanding of the organisms and processes involved and some systems-level
thinking. Let’s get on this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367527072664881186.post-43130811760098602582016-05-02T18:04:00.000-07:002016-05-03T23:46:55.086-07:00Biochar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcD9KQT2sq-LSJ6UsXfkrFvp51khXty5_DINvV7g7nWezIncjh5RSEOk4XE7BZbhY9OALb-KTto3S7e6JvO7jfCp9suLR0k8bmC4MU7e1AXi3r962p1plN6u4Eyrv00udQa-VGbKyjvFo/s1600/20160329_191204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcD9KQT2sq-LSJ6UsXfkrFvp51khXty5_DINvV7g7nWezIncjh5RSEOk4XE7BZbhY9OALb-KTto3S7e6JvO7jfCp9suLR0k8bmC4MU7e1AXi3r962p1plN6u4Eyrv00udQa-VGbKyjvFo/s320/20160329_191204.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Soil in the rain forest is some of the poorest on earth. Plants absorb the nutrients they need through their roots, relying heavily on the plants being soluble in water. A rain forest, true to its name, rains almost constantly. That rain picks up the nutrients in the soil and washes them away. The various living organisms try to hold on to those nutrients by locking them away in their bodies, but eventually those nutrients are returned to the soil. The soil cannot hold on to them. So when explorers discovered lenses of dark, black, fertile soil in the interior of the Amazon Basin, it came as a big surprise.<br />
<br />
The soils came to be called terra preta soils and have been the subject of much study. Due to the high concentration of pottery sherds, bones, charcoal, and other indicators of human life, it was obvious that the soils were made by a previous civilization. But it was initially unclear why the soils retained such a high degree of fertility, with fertility possibly even increasing over time instead of degrading as would be expected. It turned out that the cause was the concentration of charcoal in the soil that was doing it.<br />
<br />
The study of this soil led to the discovery of biochar, a form of charcoal produced by pyrolysis, creating the charcoal at high temperatures and in a relatively low oxygen environment. The physical and chemical structure of biochar acts a lot like the carbon commonly used in water and air filters. It is extremely porous, leading to a high surface area, one that is really good at cation exchange. For the lay person, that means it bonds with a wide variety of compounds, holding them in place. In a carbon filter, this means it bonds with soluble lead, arsenic, and chlorine, things you want removed from the water so it is safe to drink. In soil, this capability is more applicable to nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Biochar in soil can hold on to the very nutrients that plants need to survive and thrive.<br />
<br />
The benefits don't stop there, though. Because of biochar's porosity, it is also very good at retaining water. Interestingly, the open structure of biochar seems to be an ideal support for microbial life. Beneficial bacteria and fungi thrive in the environment created by biochar. The nutrients bound to the biochar are easily accessible to the microorganisms crawling all over the surface, where they can become a part of the life cycle of the soil, eventually to end up in plants.<br />
<br />
So what does it mean for food production? Biochar has a huge potential in agriculture. One of the great frustrations of modern agriculture is that soil fertility is falling. To combat that, soils are heavily treated with synthetic fertilizers. Those fertilizers wash away readily in the rain, meaning that more need to be added. But it also causes a problem downstream. All that fertilizer in the water causes an algae bloom. That algae bloom is followed by the algae dying. As the algae in the water column starts to rot, it steals oxygen from the water, killing fish, crustaceans, and anything else, creating a dead zone. The annual dead zone on the Gulf of Mexico reached 6400 square miles in 2015. All that fertilizer used to make that dead zone was purchased by farmers, each one hoping that that fertilizer would go to their plants.<br />
<br />
So what if something could be added to the soil that helped all that fertilizer stay in place? What if that amendment also increased water retention, thereby increasing drought tolerance? What if it also increased beneficial microbial activity, the very activity that supports plant growth? And where does it come from? We really like having trees in our cities, and we like them to be well trimmed. Those trimmings typically head for the landfill. What if we diverted that waste product instead and made our soils better? That biochar could be added to farmland, and just like in the Amazon Basin, that fertility could be realized for hundreds of years. Biochar can take hundreds or even thousands of years to degrade in a natural environment, and it improves the soil that whole time.<br />
<br />
But what about more modern, higher tech growing methods? Could biochar be used as media for hydroponics or aquaponics? I have seen a lot of discussion of the possibility online, but very little actual data on whether it works or not. I think that an analysis of what biochar does and how it would apply to hydroponics and aquaponics might be in order.<br />
<br />
Again, biochar absorbs nutrients and holds on to them. It will do this with huge amounts of nutrients. Now, biological activity can access those nutrients (remember the "exchange" part of cation exchange) and help feed them to the plants. But that means two things for aquaponics and hydroponics. The first is that the biochar is going to absorb a LOT of nutrients until it is filled up. In land-based agriculture, the biochar is typically "charged" or pre-filled with nutrients before being added to the soil. In hydro- and aquaponics, that doesn't necessarily have to happen, but the grower needs to know that the biochar will take its fill before the plants can get it, and that process can take some time, perhaps weeks or months.<br />
<br />
The second thing to recognize is that it is the biological activity that exchanges all those cations. Fungi is particularly active in that process, but bacteria are also important. Without that living system, the biochar will just act as a nutrient sink that will have to be filled before a regular nutrient profile can be maintained.<br />
<br />
Biochar in a properly alive media would have a stabilizing force on the nutrient load of the media. Once it is full, the bacteria and fungi can access it if nutrients drop too low and it will absorb when nutrient loads are too high. Adding it while a tank is cycling might help lessen the stress on the fish, but the grower might want to refrain from adding plants until the nitrate level starts to climb, indicating that the biochar filter is full. Also, adding it as a supplement to the media rather than as a media in itself would be a good idea, perhaps 20% or less.<br />
<br />
As for me, I do aquaponics with soil. The soil I create is a vibrant, living community that holds its own nutrients pretty well and should have no trouble accessing nutrients held in the biochar. I am working on expanding and creating new aquaponics beds and will be trying biochar as a supplement to the soil in the system, probably at around 20% of total volume. I will report back on how that worked when I have more information.Edmund Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14641544307516292564noreply@blogger.com1