Bill who putters wrote:
In article
,
Gunner wrote:

If you are interested, Google growing Hydroponic peppers (or
tomatoes). Dr Lynette Morgan from NZ is a very good source of info
and has been known to answer emails.
http://www.growingedge.com/staff/profiles/morgan.html

she has additional links to research including one specifcally on
peppers:
http://www.growingedge.com/store/boo...PID=6&ref=http
://www.growingedge.com%2Fstore%2Fbooks_multimedia.php %3F

If the book Collapse is 10 % on target this issue is trivial. Salt
will kill Australia. Fresh water and habitat destruction of all minor
and potential farming areas.

It isn't quite that bad. People now recognise that it is a problem and they
are starting to do something about it. We actually have a draft plan to
rehabilitate the Murray-Darling but it is always possible that short-term
populist politics will cause the nation's leaders to go to water (yuk yuk
yuk) and vote for a "do nothing" solution. But we have hopes. At least it
is being addressed at national level although the Chairman of the Authority
resigned in protest. I class him as a mensch so that isn't a good sign.

Not good as 20 million living in
cities are dependent on run off . Wonder if top down can fix
British vision.



We are working on both top down and bottom up solutions. Many (almost all
the small guys) farmers really do want to protect their land and to leave an
asset to their children, they just need some support and to learn how to do
it differently.

One of the strange things happening is the farmers are discovering that the
greens might be allies. This involves a great deal of re-thinking and
discarding of old prejudice but it could happen. I would love to be a fly
on the wall at some policy framing meetings (why do you want people to be
free to smoke weeds?) (you do WHAT with cows!).

Please tell me I'm wrong.

1 square yard of soil contains 200 Lb's of salt.

You are not wrong but not representing the situation accurately because
that's an extreme value It isn't all like that. I could irrigate my
pasture daily for a century and not have salinization. Having said that
there are large areas that are fairly well stuffed that will take a great
deal to rehabilitate.

I would be also concerned about (a) climate change bringing great change,
particularly cancelling the winter rains in the WA wheat belt (b) mining and
subdivision for McMansions chewing up the good coastal land where there is
plenty of water and no salt problem (c) overpopulation.

The last is the proverbial pachyderm in the portmanteau. People cannot
understand how a country with such a low population density (overall) can be
overpopulated.

David