mountaintimefrm

The most successful form of vertical farming is agroforestry, or tree-based agriculture. It provides habitat, shade, carbon sequestration, and water retention while raising per acre productivity over that of 2-D cropping. Agroforestry is a well studied, widely implemented practice that big talking green tech "big thinkers" tend to ignore if not openly scoff at.

For some reason they're called "bumpers" instead of "slicers" or "crushers" and frankly I just think that's just a failure of language not being able to keep up with the blazingly fast pace of transportation technology over the decades and decades. /s but not really

The lady in the vid, Valer Austin Clark, has some great lectures and slideshow presentations on YT if you search for her name and sort for 20+ mins. She built some absolutely massive rock dams that survived some huge floods.

I've been cell phone free since 2012. Article is correct, it's not that hard to live without one.

BS'ing

https://soilandhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/01aglibrary/010... this is the way

What better time than now to start implementing on your farm an agroforestry system based on nitrogen-fixing trees and shrubs.

Since 2011 I've been calling it megalobamboozlementarianism.

I currently move a Salatin-style chicken tractor 12 feet every day, and I could totally see turning this thing into a chicken tractor that moves itself. Bonus points if it could spot sick or injured birds, or identify a problem bird that attacks the other chickens, etc. Or even predator detection/deterrence if a fox or raccoon starts trying to dig under the edge to get inside to the chickens.

If you use water to compress the air as it goes down, you get isothermal compression. The trompe, which originated in the ancient Catalan forges, has been widely used over the centuries. Anecdotally, a trompe in a mine in Switzerland powered a whole bunch of ~1000 horsepower rock drills, provided fresh air to the underground miners, and powered turbines that generated enough electricity to power a town of about 1500 people.

Here's the vid on trompes I always see come up: https://youtu.be/50fJ8Av_g7Q

I know "free energy" devices don't really exist, but a trompe seems pretty darn close, IMO.

of all lawns, yarrow lawns are by far the softest, and that silvery color makes everyone go wild.

Playwright is the bee knees. At my last tech job I did maintenance on about 400 wordpress sites, and I used playwright to automate a bunch of monotonous clicky tasks normally done via the wordpress backend gui. It was a lot of fun and toward the end I got playwright running on heroku and made a gui so that my not very tech coworkers could upload a csv of different sites and then and a select a dropdown list of different scrapers, tests, etc.

Interesting, I will look into that.

Too much calcium carbonate is really detrimental to a wide variety of plants, it causes a condition called iron chlorosis. Basically plants will readily absorb calcium instead of iron (they need iron to do their chemistry for photosynthesis), the result of which is yellowing leaves, poor production, plant death, etc. Spraying massive amounts of calcium carbonate in the atmosphere, if it makes it down to the plants on the ground, sounds like a great way to cause massive forest die offs. Much like sulfur creates acid rain, calcium in the atmosphere would create "basic rain" which is just as much of a problem if you're a plant that requires a fairly narrow range of soil pH.

Even low grade geothermal is pretty awesome. Example: "Nebraska retiree uses earths's heat to grow oranges in snow" - https://youtu.be/ZD_3_gsgsnk

Thanks for posting that link. I took a look at their website and it's reassuring they way they succinctly pitch permaculture: "One collection of ideas and skills that’s already handily packaged and awaiting adoption is permaculture—a set of design tools for living created by ecologists back in the 1970s who understood that industrial civilization would eventually reach its limits." The phrase "already handily packaged and awaiting adoption" is a simple message that could get the point across to policy makers and the public (even though it ignores that there have already been successful permaculture-based ecosystem restoration projects for decades now).

I would love to hear what the authors of this paper think about permaculture; not the woo-woo hippie stereotype of permaculture that is so prevalent ("herb spirals", cob ovens, etc), but rather the specific principles and methods outlined in Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (Mollison, 1988). After reading their article , especially the points on creating actionable solutions, I would think they would readily embrace the framework created by permaculture.

I had a rocket mass heater for a few years and it was awesome - no smoke out the chimney, just steam. I burned sticks raked up out of my yard, pinecones, construction scraps, etc.

There have been a lot of improvements in RMH design in recent years, led largely by the RMH enthusiasts at https://permies.com/f/260/rocket-mass-heaters

IMO traditional metal wood stoves really suck compared RMHs, but they can be made better by routing the exhaust through a stratification chamber (eg a large metal container like a barrel or a old water tank; hot flue gas enters the top, cooler flue gas exits the bottom). Pretty easy to set up next to an existing wood stove, and you get a lot more heat and a lot less smoke out of an otherwise crappy stove.

"Cannabis has by far the highest conversion rate to schizophrenia of any substance"

Quick, somebody call Deleuze and Guattari! /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoanalysis

Alternative headline from a saner and more practical world: "Europe's drought might force acceptance of landscape-wide rainwater harvesting earthworks." The effectiveness of such earthworks is pretty shocking to witness: -- https://youtu.be/8QUSIJ80n50 "Lessons of the Loess Plateau"

The permaculture folks have been implementing functional solutions to drought for 3 or 4 decades now, repairing large-scale damaged ecosystems and halting desertification. The problem already has a simple effective remedy, and gene-edited crops are a band-aid non-solution that does nothing to change the underlying conditions by which drought is created and perpetuated.

It is widely understood that forests attract/create rainfall (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941). Large scale water harvesting earthworks attract/create forests by creating the hydrological conditions amenable to increased vegetative cover. To put it simply, here is what is do be done: an army of people use whatever earth moving equipment they have available (from shovels to machinery) to dig a network of swales and catchments across the landscape, and then plant them with early successional "pioneer" species (sun/drought tolerant, often nitrogen fixing woody shrubs). In 5 to 10 years, the soil will be holding onto to the rain for much longer periods of time , creating the conditions such that longterm forest trees will begin to establish (attracting more rain), and staple crops can be reliably grown. This a proven method, it absolutely works, and it needs to be widely implemented across the globe.

Hopefully this comment get read by the heads of public works agencies of numerous governments in drought affected regions around the world.

Can't recommend enough the song "Lovely Sky Boat"

Thanks for that explanation. I assume by "free living" you mean they can exist by themselves in soil apart from plant roots (or at least for part of their lifecycle)? I'm more familiar with the ones that are symbiotic with plants, especially the ones for woody plants (Frankia, etc), which I think are largely of a different type than the ones that live on cover crop plants like clover.

Soil and decomposing organic matter aren't necessarily oxygen poor environments, and in ideal conditions they aren't at all. Depending on factors like soil porosity, and rate/frequency of precipitation, there can actually be quite a lot of gas mechanically exchanged between the soil and the atmosphere (water fills up soil pore spaces and pushes out air, then water drains out of soil pore spaces, pulling air back in). Plant roots can respire atmospheric gases into soil as well. Part of the reason why compacted (ie minimal pore space) soil is harder to grow in than the same soil made friable, is because the lack of porosity causes the soil to go anaerobic, which is inhospitable to a lot of beneficial soil microorganisms.

So having read the article summary, then the research paper, then reading the article summary again... it seems that the summary isn't at all an accurate summary of the research paper, but rather a narrow focus on the suboptimal cases where tree growing isn't super effective at sequestering carbon. It sort of completely ignores the cases where they observed enhanced carbon sequestration, increases in soil organic carbon, enhanced soil nitrogen availability, etc.

The emphatic message of the research paper is basically like, "tree growing to sequester carbon is very complicated, there's a lot we don't know, and there are a ton of different outcomes depending on how/where the tree growing is carried out."

One part of the paper I found most interesting was the section on nitrogen fixing microorganisms; they made it seem like the nitrogen fixation occurs via microbes pulling nitrogen from the soil and making it available to the plants. However my understanding is that those nitrogen fixing microbes pull N from the air, not the soil. Even good ol' wikipedia says "The bacteria are filamentous and convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia via the enzyme nitrogenase, a process known as nitrogen fixation." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankia) ... Undoubtedly there are microbes that can mine nitrogen from the soil, but why focus on those when the real bang-for-your-buck nitrogen fixation occurs when pulling nitrogen from the atmosphere.

Anyhow, great research paper, crappy summary.

No mention of nuts in the article, nor in the comments here, which is truly sad. It's like people have forgotten that nuts exist, as they are so often left out the discussion around meat vs plants vs fake meats WRT fats and proteins. Nuts are incredibly nutritious, high in fat and protein that is arguably of better quality than animal fats and proteins, and many nut trees can live for hundreds of years while producing thousands of pounds of nuts every year. Some nut species can live for thousands of years if they are managed correctly (there are still living hazelnuts in Italy that were planted by the Romans). Deeply tap-rooted species like walnuts and hickories don't require supplemental watering once established. I can't find it at the moment but last year I read a study of energy flows for North American tree crops, and the ERoEI of Shagbark Hickory was rated at 55,000.

Going forward, anytime there is discussion of energy or efficiency of plant vs animal agriculture vs fake meat, etc, if tree crops aren't factored into the discussion then that provides an opportunity to quote No Country for Old Men: "You don't know what you're talking about, do you?" Leaving out that there is the option of growing a tree that produces a cow's weight worth of fats and proteins every year, with little to no inputs, in perpetuity, is a crime of omission.

Just to compare some approximate numbers, 100g of hazelnut contains 17.0g of carbs, 13.7g protein, and 60.8g fat. Walnuts contain 9.9g, 26.1g, and 65.2g, respectively. Whereas 100g of beef contains 0g carbs, 35g protein, and 10g fat. And 100 grams of black beans contains 25g carbs, 9g protein, 0.5g fat.

Further reading -- Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, by J. Russell Smith

Further viewing -- "Nuts as Staple Foods" a presentation by Osker Brown: https://youtu.be/CJpitVC4mzs

Water infiltration is measured by digging a small hole, filling it with water, and seeing how fast it drains.

Informally yes, but the scientific way is to use a ring infiltrometer: https://www.fao.org/3/s8684e/s8684e0a.htm -- Basically instead of digging a hole, you pound a pipe into the ground and then fill the pipe with water.

As for agricultural practices being able to change soil composition multiple feet down, trees and tap-rooted plants are very effective at placing large volumes of organic matter at depth. One example, Lacy Phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia) is an annual plant that produces a dense fibrous root system that reaches a depth of 4 feet; in the fall the Phacelia plants die, and their roots decompose at depth, creating pathways for water infiltration while also increasing soil organic matter at depth. The same goes with other trees and shrubs. The farmer from the "It ain't much but it's honest work" meme, Dave Brandt, has some really enjoyable presentations on youtube about improving soil composition at depth.

Gabe Brown's work is primarily on improving soil health, not on earthworks for flood prevention, aquifer recharge, etc. His gains in rainwater infiltration is a secondary effect of the steps he's taken to improve his soil.

In terms of projects whose primary aim is flood prevention / aquifer recharge, John D. Liu, Andrew Millison, and Geoff Lawton all have documented quite a few projects that have been very successful in addressing the problem.

Probably the best documented example of it working is in the Loess Plateau in China. John D Liu has a couple documentaries on it, here is one: https://youtu.be/IDgDWbQtlKI

A good example of a similar project in India, as covered by Andrew Millison: https://youtu.be/jDMnbeW3F8A

Sepp Holzer did a similar project in Portugal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUryneCjxV4 ...I believe he also did some pretty large projects in the middle east, but I can't find any vids on them at the moment.

Geoff Lawton has done a ton of projects like this, but maybe not at the landscape wide scales like the projects above.

Probably the best book on the basic principles of how to do it - Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster. Also the book Water For Every Farm by P.A. Yeomans is pretty good as well, but not as accessible of a read.

TLDR - To keep desert monsoons from flooding areas downstream, dig a landscape wide network of swales and basins to catch, soak and sink the water into the soil. Properly dug, such earthworks recharge aquifers while stopping flooding and erosion.

Maybe don't full on bring it on because it will be a disaster, but... if anyone wants to learn how to make this not be quite such a huge problem, they can familiarize themselves with the hydrology concepts covered in the youtube channels of Andrew Millison, Brad Lancaster, John D. Liu, Geoff Lawton. There has been a ton of quality work already done, and it has been well documented.

tldr - megaflood can be prevented by building earthen berms throughout the landscape to catch, spread, and sink rainwater runoff into the ground, thereby recharging aquifers and preventing catastrophic flooding.