"Brian Sandle" wrote in message
...
Jim Webster wrote:

"Oz" wrote in message
...
Gordon Couger writes

"Oz" wrote in message

I suspect you may have a problem with jim's climate.

It's a rare month indeed when transpiration exceeds precipitation.

I wouldn't know what to do with that. I just want to get wells dug
that
make
enough water that I don't care if it rains.

Jim just want's field drains and ditches that can take it away
quickly..

--

yes, I have land that I will not take cattle on between October and
March,
even though I can silage it in May.
I do find it fascinating reading when everyone is discussing the
advantages
of no-till and struggling to retain soil moisture, round here ploughing
is
used to dry the land out a bit. You plough and let the sun and wind take
away some of the moisture so you can get a tilth.

Funny old world

What are various types of trees like at extracting water from the ground?

I suppose evergreens keep the sun off the land, but they might shelter
animals from wind.

I am thinking that the surface area of roots in contact with soil is
greater than the area exposed to wind by ploughing. Then the leaves
contact the wind. Also the trees could be a crop.

You could plant several types of trees, each working better in slightly
different conditions. Diversity is much better against troubles. You can
have the diversity within each farm, or else you use the govt to buffer
against loss as with BSE, or both. I hate to think who will bear the brunt
of troubles with the huge GM reduced diversity scheme.

Trees in crop and pasture land are weeds. blocking sun and using water that
grass or crops can use.

GM crops increase the biodiversity by increasing the invertebrates,
microbes, birds and other animals that are not disturbed by repeated tillage
and toxic sprays.

In my case they reduced my costs for cotton production as a land lord 50%
and the farmers 15%, reduced the chance of wind and water erosion and let
the soil build organic matter at the rate of 1% a year. www.couger.com/farm
shows the different in notil cotton and conventional till. In this case the
notil is my neighbors and conventional till is mine on an alfalfa hay meadow
that is coming out of hay and into cotton. the other 3/4 of the farm is no
till.

Like most of the detractors of modern framing you have no practical
experience faming. I have been at this 46 years and watch crops lost to
blowing sand when there was noting that could be done about it, seen the
ditches run a mile with and florescent yellow with preplant herbicide that
was striped from the fields along with 2 or 3 inches of soil in 6 inches of
rain that came in and hour. I have seen a rise come down Red River killing
every fish in the river from one of those same driving rains falling on
freshly sprayed irrigated cotton files and washing the insecticide into the
river and killing fish for 20 miles. I had a neighbor that was never quite
well again after spraying Toxiphene and berating too much of it.

I know the real risks of the way you want us to farm and the much safer and
more environmentally friendly way I can farm with GM crops. I am spending
hard money and lots of on irrigation and my part of the tech fee on the
seed. It is some of the best money I ever spent.

Go make a living farming with your method and come back and I will give your
views some credit. But all you do is spout the same tired dogma of the
ludilits that are starving people to death in India and Africa. Dream about
them tonight. I have done every thing I can to provide food for the world
while ass holes like you try to protect what every you think you are
protecting and condemn the third world to death and disease by things like
not buying produce from countries the use DDT in spite of the fact that its
use in homes will go a long way to controlling malaria out breaks.

May the ghosts of the millions that have died and will die haunt you for
your disregard of the world situation that has cause the break down in the
fight against disease in the third world and now you want to deny them the
benefits of modern agriculture as well.

Gordon