In sci.med.nutrition Oz wrote:
Jim Webster writes

Some moron:
I am thinking that the surface area of roots in contact with soil is
greater than the area exposed to wind by ploughing.

Moron.
How do you grow a crop when the land is covered by trees?
The moisture loss from green grass, trees and open water is similar.
The aim is to get a top layer dry enough to work/drill.

If the soil is too fine - a clay - then water will not drain through it.

If the soil is such that the water will drain through it, it may still be
stopped by excess water at lower levels. Tree roots go a bit deeper and
pump out the lower water, and lower nutrients.


Then the leaves
contact the wind. Also the trees could be a crop.

Not in the UK. Typically the value of small (say 1000T) of standing
timber is approximately zero. Most places the highest value sale is for
firewood.

You don't sell all the `crops' you plant. Some are like lupin to
nitrogenate the soil.

What I am talking about is `agroforestry'. On a small dairy farm you would
not have a huge tonnage of trees, they would be widely spaced, and where
they pumped out water it would make space for adjoining water to move.

You could plant several types of trees, each working better in slightly
different conditions.

Trees are not rates for moisture loss.

Diversity is much better against troubles.

Sometimes it is, sometimes not.
In jims case alternatives to grass are problematic.

If you are gearing a farm up to sell having some specialist timber on it
might help to sell the farm. How about some spruce, pine or maple for
violin making? I don't know but maybe the growing rates would favour the
type of density of timber? I may be way off. But if you are far enough
from population can you burn your own timber for hot water &C?

You can
have the diversity within each farm, or else you use the govt to buffer
against loss as with BSE, or both.

Govt hates to pay farmers anything.
They paid for bse primarily for public health reasons.

Because the govt paid out the taxpayers should have say in how farming is
done.

I hate to think who will bear the brunt
of troubles with the huge GM reduced diversity scheme.

Que?

The GM genes are being put in a few more strains of crops, but the genetic
diversity is still low. These crops expend energy making the GM protein,
therefore have less viability.

not in the UK, planting trees is a waste of time and is not economically
viable unless you have an awful lot of land.Plant trees here and you would
drive people off the land

Absolutely. I doubt they would grow very well given your location
anyway. If the wind didn't get them, the salt would.

In New Zealand we grow macrocarpa near the sea. That is a useful timber.
The roots can be long and not too deep. A shelter belt of a few rows
produces many single stemmed trees. If they are standing alone you might
need to prune them.