David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:
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.

right, why is that though? you'd
figure that if it was truely good for
the ecosystem to have deep soil
that it would have figured that out
by now (millions of years of selective
pressure).


Different ecosystems work in different ways. In the case of tropical
forests the very high rainfall leaches the soil and the biota has adapted to
that reality.

sure, but i'm thinking that what
has happened is something else
(more on this below)...


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

yeah, i mispoke somewhat there, but what i meant
was that the need for carbon storage is now more than
what is going to be achieved using either of those two
methods. building soil would help out all around, i won't
argue against that.

my wondering about topsoil is that if it is so good
for overall life then you'd think that by this time (after
millions of years) it would be selected for and there
would be much more of it than there is instead of
what we do find. so my curiousity is engaged on
the topic of the disappearing topsoil.


Two reasons. One: that there are environments where building and
maintaining topsoil is too hard (eg tropical rainforest) so the adaptive
pathway has gone in other directions. Two: humans have been making topsoil
disappear since we started agriculture. We now live in an age where so much
is transmitted culturally instead of genetically you could call it the
post-Darwinian era. This is gross simplification of course because natural
selection still takes place as it always has but now many factors interfere
with it.

i disagree to the first one, we have the example
already of topsoil retention in some areas that
have had something done to them already (terra
preta), so in effect it is possible to have soils
that hold up against tropical rainforest conditions.
the deeper question is why hasn't nature in
thousands-to-millions of years figured that out
for itself? that is the thing i was digging at
earlier with my previous question.

the second part i do agree with.

returning to the first part though is where it
makes the most sense to look into further. i.e.
the fact that given sufficient moisture any area
goes "up" towards the source of energy instead of
investing in the dirt.

that is one thing i think that humans have come
about to deal with, the fact that plants/animals/
other life forms cannot get any further towards
the source of energy as things currently stand.
the other problem of having all of the life-eggs
in one basket (this planet/this solar system) is
a proven strategy for failure longer term and i
think we're "here" and have come about to deal
with that too. we are the great innoculators.
watch out universe. here we come! soon i sure
hope.


ascends soapbox
Typically our cultures cannot deal with issues like topsoil because they
take generations to see change. When motivation is dominated by the desire
to eat today, to make a profit next month and to be elected again in 3 years
time how can you spare any thought for problems that have taken thousands of
years to develop and will take hundreds to fix?

there are some people with longer range vision who
can do micro-pocket type stuff. having a game-preserve
and having natural areas at least gives a chance that
all will not be lost. the fear of the results of
poaching and other degradation due to mass starvation
would always be there as i'm quite sure when push
does come to shove that the wild areas will start to
be sacrificed. the only salvation really is that
much of life is pretty tenacious and likely to survive
here or there in small pockets and there will always
be conservationists who will do their part to keep
some diversity going. the great extinction now
underway is unlikely to reverse any time soon. it
will be a wave we have to ride and the other side is
far away and likely hundreds of years in the future.


The way things are heading nothing will be done on a large scale until over
population, over consumption, resource limits and climate change form the
perfect storm. People will then cry out to leaders saying "why didn't you
do anything about it?" The majority of leaders will say "elect me again and
I will fix it next year", the few honest ones will say "because you didn't
want me to" and they will be the first trampled by the hungry mob.
descends soapbox

heh, yeah, the visionaries find that public policy
and the elected life are too eroding to their own
values to maintain integrity for long.

in any mass elected government you don't get the
best governors, you get the best mass media manipulators.

my own answer to this is to randomly select all
gov't workers (and then after they are in office
and serving they can be re-elected as a vote of
confidence every four years). this would save a
lot of empty campaign rhetoric and eliminate the
corporate and lobbyists buying influence. sure,
we'd end up with bad representatives but they can
be voted out and the random selection process
would pick the next person.

if i didn't have to run for office and raise
money to get elected and do all the wasted BS
it takes to get elected i think it would be fun
to actually be in office and try to deal with
problems.

if only i were king,


songbird