songbird wrote:
FarmI wrote:
Billy wrote:

Well, in this case, it would be prairie grass (reflecting Salatin's
pasture),

What sort of species are you talking about when you say 'prairie
grass'? The reason why I ask is that the You-tube clips of Salatin's
place doesn't look like anything I'd call a 'prairie'. He looks like
he's got a farm on quite rich land in a well protected area.
'Prairies' to me suggest very open and exposed locations and the
grasses there would, TMWOT, be much tougher and less nutritious than
in good pasture land. I might be talking through my hat 'cos I
haven't got a clue about US farms, but that's what I'd expect here in
Oz if we were looking at farms of differing capacities.

right, anyone talking about grassland production in
the eastern seaboard of the USA being equivalent
to what happens on the prairies is full of it. the time
scale difference isn't minor and probably heavily
depends upon the average annual rainfall.

the soil of the prairies was probably produced over
the period of time after the last ice-age. it isn't that
thick. if it could accumulate at a rate of an inch a
year it would be much deeper...

ok, so let's return to the eastern seaboard and
wonder why the topsoil in unmolested places isn't
deeper? if it can be so productive why isn't it?
because it is woodland and not grassland and
unmanaged woodlands cycle carbon but do not
sequester once it's reached maturity. very little
is sequestered and that would be because of fires
that char and thus turn the carbon into a form not
easily consumed...

if trees and forests were so good for carbon
gathering and keeping the soils of the Amazon would
be deep and fertile, but they are not unless you
find the places that were altered by the natives in
prehistorical times.


Tropical rainforest is often on leached soil where most of the nutrients are
actually in the trees. Saying that this environment doesn't accumulated
soil and therefore no forest will do so does not necessarily follow.
Particularly where temperate forests were cleared for crop land you can
certainly increase the amount of carbon stored by converting them to pasture
or back to forest. But your point about reaching a maximum and then not
storing any more is correct. Evan so I don't think carbon sequestration is
anything more than a side show when it comes to managing climate change.

so this says that reforestation is barking up the
wrong tree when it comes to CO2 sequestration
and rebuilding topsoil. (but i won't argue that
it's bad for species preservation and diversity
because that's needed too in many places -- so
there has to be the tradeoff there).



You are right that it is not a panacea but wrong in saying we cannot build
soil or sequester carbon by altering land use.

David