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.

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).


songbird

In article ,
"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.

Having another bi-polar day? I just loves the way you flog that strawman.
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.
If you take the time to read the quote, you will notice that it says,
"similar enough". That takes us from "equals" to "approximates" which, a
sane person would agree, don't mean the same thing.
the time
scale difference isn't minor and probably heavily
depends upon the average annual rainfall.
Time scale for what?

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...
Best guess is 500 years/inch to produce prairie topsoil which was
approximately 10" thick when Europeans showed up..

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.
Actually, it takes a pine forest, roughly, 50 years to develop 1/16" of
topsoil.
very little
is sequestered and that would be because of fires
that char and thus turn the carbon into a form not
easily consumed...
The sequestered CO2 in eastern forests is charcoal?

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.
And don't forget the warm weather, and heavy rains that wash the quickly
decomposing organics out of the laterite soils, unless you find the
places that were altered by the indigenous prior to 1492.

so this says that reforestation is barking up the
wrong tree when it comes to CO2 sequestration
and rebuilding topsoil.

Ah . . . hmmmm? Who said anything about reforestation? Not that it's a
bad idea, and we do need to stop cutting them down. You silly goose, the
proposition was returning the farm soil to permanent ground cover, like
you might use to graze cattle on, and then run out some hypothetical
mobile chicken coops (hypothetical chickens included) to do clean up
duty on the cow flops from the hypothetical cattle.

So we got our farmers switching from grain crops to meat production.
This in turn leads to:
1) cessation of the use of chemical fertilizers, which encourage some
bacteria to devour the organic material in the soil (topsoil)
2) stops the release of NO2 from the fertilizer, which is a greenhouse
gas.
3) stops the pollution of ground and run off water, thus improving
the quality of drinking water, and cutting off the cause of ocean
dead zones.
4) At the very least, what remaining topsoil would be protected by the
permanent ground cover, and the is the expectation that we may add to
it.
5) Additional topsoil (because there is more of it, and it is made from
organic material) would effectively sequester CO2 to some extent.
Again the question is where to put the decimal point, not "if one is
needed". Peter Bane (google the name) puts the sequestration
potential at being equivalent to the US production of CO2.
6) Increased topsoil leads to increased absorption of rain fall,
recharging aquifers, and reducing chances of flooding.
7) Increased meat production on grassland instead of in CAFOs, means that
70% of antibiotics in this country won't go into meat animals,
thereby creating antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.
8) Less grain will be needed to divert into CAFOs
9) Fewer CAFOs means fewer stinking lagoons of animal excrement, that
won't be dumped into public water ways, or find its way into ground
water.
10) Gives us a good source of complete proteins (beef and chickens), for
healthy, growing kids.

So to summarize; permanent ground cover on existing farms, which is used
to raise beef, more or less along the lines of Joel Salatin's paradigm,
results in clean food, clean air, clean water, and just might save the
world.

Other than the above points, I think you made a very cogent response,
where you had your facts straight ;O)

(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).


songbird
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

Billy wrote:

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...

Best guess is 500 years/inch to produce prairie topsoil which was
approximately 10" thick when Europeans showed up..

There are two separate time spans here. One is the 13,000 years of
prarie since the last ice age. One is 5000 years to build 10 inches of
top soil.

Either the process eventually maxed out at 10 inches of top soil or
something very dramatic happened 5000 years ago to scour the top soil to
very thin. Let's check back in meteorology - Nope, nothing that
impressive that long ago. Conclusion, once the top soil reached 10
inches it maxed out and no longer grew.

So the article is about a guy who can grow an inch a year. Excellent.
Let's see how deep it is when it maxes out. Even better let's purchase
the stuff by the truckload and move it elsewhere so it never does max
out.

In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Billy wrote:

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...

Best guess is 500 years/inch to produce prairie topsoil which was
approximately 10" thick when Europeans showed up..

There are two separate time spans here. One is the 13,000 years of
prarie since the last ice age. One is 5000 years to build 10 inches of
top soil.
I fear that you are using a linear rate of growth instead of a geometric
rate of growth. My reading of the situation is that it maxed out at an
inch every 500 years, but started at a much slower pace.
Either the process eventually maxed out at 10 inches of top soil or
something very dramatic happened 5000 years ago to scour the top soil to
very thin. Let's check back in meteorology - Nope, nothing that
impressive that long ago. Conclusion, once the top soil reached 10
inches it maxed out and no longer grew.
Your inability to to find a causation doesn't exclude a causation.
So the article is about a guy who can grow an inch a year. Excellent.
Let's see how deep it is when it maxes out. Even better let's purchase
the stuff by the truckload and move it elsewhere so it never does max
out.
GUY!!? Google Polyface Farms and/or Joel Salatin.

You want topsoil? Say no more.

Topsoil depth varies from place to place. In the Nile River valley,
built by eons of flooding and deposits of sediment, it is tens of feet
thick.
http://www.kerrcenter.com/HTML/green_excerpt1.html
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

Billy wrote:
In article ,
Doug Freyburger wrote:

Billy wrote:

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...

Best guess is 500 years/inch to produce prairie topsoil which was
approximately 10" thick when Europeans showed up..

There are two separate time spans here. One is the 13,000 years of
prarie since the last ice age. One is 5000 years to build 10 inches
of top soil.

I fear that you are using a linear rate of growth instead of a
geometric rate of growth. My reading of the situation is that it
maxed out at an inch every 500 years, but started at a much slower
pace.

i don't think the timescale of the glaciers
melting (who knows how long that took?)
vs. what is there now and how the growth
took place is really critical in determining
the longer range productivity of the area.

if it was a straight slope, an elliptic one or
one interrupted (seesaw) it really wouldn't
matter as it would only be a slight ragged
left edge when compared to the broader
time line (essentially flat).


Either the process eventually maxed out at 10 inches of top soil or
something very dramatic happened 5000 years ago to scour the top
soil to very thin. Let's check back in meteorology - Nope, nothing
that impressive that long ago. Conclusion, once the top soil
reached 10 inches it maxed out and no longer grew.
Your inability to to find a causation doesn't exclude a causation.
So the article is about a guy who can grow an inch a year.
Excellent. Let's see how deep it is when it maxes out. Even better
let's purchase the stuff by the truckload and move it elsewhere so
it never does max out.

GUY!!? Google Polyface Farms and/or Joel Salatin.

You want topsoil? Say no more.

Topsoil depth varies from place to place. In the Nile River valley,
built by eons of flooding and deposits of sediment, it is tens of feet
thick.
http://www.kerrcenter.com/HTML/green_excerpt1.html

how is it faring under the onslaught of the dammed
river (not being allowed to flood any longer) and
industrial scale agriculture (and modern fertilizers)?

probably not well either...


songbird

Billy 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.

Having another bi-polar day? I just loves the way you flog that
strawman.

that wasn't me (FarmI is quote level not me, i
am quote level )


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.

If you take the time to read the quote, you will notice that it says,
"similar enough". That takes us from "equals" to "approximates"
which, a sane person would agree, don't mean the same thing.

yea, but i'm pretty sure the difference between
growth on the prairie vs. eastern grassland
is closer to an order of magnitude which to me
is a significant difference not so easily ignored.


the time
scale difference isn't minor and probably heavily
depends upon the average annual rainfall.
Time scale for what?

for building topsoil. one inch a year on the eastern
grassland (reasonably heavily managed otherwise
it converts to woodland) as compared to how
much per year on the prairie.


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...

Best guess is 500 years/inch to produce prairie topsoil which was
approximately 10" thick when Europeans showed up..

wow, that's 5x worse than what i thought it
was. but i'd not looked into that specific
detail yet. i'm just noodling about numbers
and wondering why some things don't seem
to add up right about certain claims.


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.

Actually, it takes a pine forest, roughly, 50 years to develop 1/16"
of topsoil.

i wonder if anyone has broken down how
much of that is char.


very little
is sequestered and that would be because of fires
that char and thus turn the carbon into a form not
easily consumed...

The sequestered CO2 in eastern forests is charcoal?

if we're talking carbon effectively removed from
the atmosphere and not easily returned via rot
then yes. didn't you say something like 55,000
years? that's sequestered.

a forest at maturity is not sequestering much in
the way of carbon, it's cycling it (i.e. i agree with
DHS).


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.

And don't forget the warm weather, and heavy rains that wash the
quickly decomposing organics out of the laterite soils, unless you
find the places that were altered by the indigenous prior to 1492.

not forgotten, it just seems that if
the forests were so good at sequestering
carbon in the soil (that is what we were
talking about was soil building) then the
Amazon would be much different than it
is and the eastern USoA would have
much thicker soils too than it has.


so this says that reforestation is barking up the
wrong tree when it comes to CO2 sequestration
and rebuilding topsoil.

Ah . . . hmmmm? Who said anything about reforestation? Not that it's a
bad idea, and we do need to stop cutting them down. You silly goose,
the proposition was returning the farm soil to permanent ground
cover, like you might use to graze cattle on, and then run out some
hypothetical mobile chicken coops (hypothetical chickens included) to
do clean up duty on the cow flops from the hypothetical cattle.

reforestation is what happens to eastern land when
left alone. so to keep it from turning to forest means
some kind of management (which means energy
expenditure of some type to keep it clear of trees
be that via grazing or mechanical means the effort
is the same no matter what). grazing unfortunately
does not keep land clear.


So we got our farmers switching from grain crops to meat production.
This in turn leads to:

i'd say that the stats say we don't need more meat, we
need more exercise and more fruits and veggies.


1) cessation of the use of chemical fertilizers, which encourage some
bacteria to devour the organic material in the soil (topsoil)

yes, this is good to do, 100% with ya on this one.


2) stops the release of NO2 from the fertilizer, which is a greenhouse
gas.

in addition to the energy taken to produce the fertilizer to
begin with.


3) stops the pollution of ground and run off water, thus improving
the quality of drinking water, and cutting off the cause of ocean
dead zones.

i think those are not eliminated with our current river
management, wastewater and drainage systems.
reduced would be nice though -- i agree as it would
return large areas of the Gulf to productive use.


4) At the very least, what remaining topsoil would be protected by the
permanent ground cover, and the is the expectation that we may add
to it.

this is good and i'm all for it, but i don't see how
you get from point A to B without a massive labor
shift. not many of the kids today have any plans of
working on the farm at minimum wage with no
benefits. only some small percent of the people
have the dedication this type of change takes.

even for me to go all organic would be
tough here, but i'm doing better each year.
that's all i can do and try to get people
around me to see easy things they can do
to improve.


5) Additional topsoil (because there is more of it, and it is made
from organic material) would effectively sequester CO2 to some
extent. Again the question is where to put the decimal point, not
"if one is needed". Peter Bane (google the name) puts the
sequestration potential at being equivalent to the US production of
CO2. 6) Increased topsoil leads to increased absorption of rain fall,
recharging aquifers, and reducing chances of flooding.

this is only partially true. large sections of agricultural land
is ditched, drained, drain tubed and trenched. to restore it
to the previous state would involve a lot more than letting it
go back to green and then putting livestock on it to keep
it short and having chickens pick their piles apart. for
mosquito control too. you're not going to get people
back to where they'll want more mosquitoes (even if i
think the current spraying program is poisonous, dangerous
and wasteful -- i'm not going to get many others around
here to agree with me as it is very flat and swampy with
a lot of mosquitoes if left alone).

add to that the runoff troubles from streets, parking
lots, storm sewers, rooftops, and then add the waste
from treatment plants and then make it even worse
by draining all the lowlands and farming them, building
levees so the rivers cannot flood, etc. well, we're nowhere
near getting a handle on groundwater restoration.

getting the farmers to stop dumping nitrogen is only
a small part of the problem. getting people to stop
burning ditches would do a lot too (stopping erosion),
getting people to stop using pesticides would accomplish
a lot more for the long term health, nitrogen is quite
simple a poison in comparison to the others. we've
got timebombs ticking on a long slow fuse. at least
we are looking now, but so many years from now
it will take to fix and trillions of dollars. instead we
will spend them on wars in far off places to support
criminally insane or corrupt gov'ts, etc.


7) Increased meat production on grassland instead of in CAFOs, means
that 70% of antibiotics in this country won't go into meat animals,
thereby creating antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.

i know, once i heard about that use of antibiotics
i got sick to my stomach. f'n idiots. it should be
banned outright immediately (along with feeding
chickens arsenic, feeding cattle bubble gum or
any other animal byproducts, etc.).

but i disagree about meat production needing to be
increased.


8) Less grain will be needed to divert into CAFOs

fine by me.


9) Fewer CAFOs means fewer stinking lagoons of animal excrement, that
won't be dumped into public water ways, or find its way into ground
water.

yea, we had someone doing a feedlot down the road
a ways. luckily we are miles away and not downwind.
but i felt sorry for any neighbors. a dairy farm smells
good when run correctly. a CAFO smells nasty.

there is a bison farmer on the opposite corner
and the CAFO is now returned to corn and soybeans
so i'm thinking the corn and soybeans are a better
tradeoff.


10) Gives us a good source of complete proteins (beef and chickens),
for healthy, growing kids.

too much protein already for most people.
the kids (who don't usually eat it anyways)
they like hotdogs, macaroni and cheese
and ice-cream -- nothing green please.


So to summarize; permanent ground cover on existing farms,

won't work for many crops, they don't do well
with any competition -- variety in diet being important
and i like some of those grains. if they can eventually
come up with perennial versions that would be great.
i know that is being worked on. that would go a
long ways towards stablising the soils and improving
the soil community/structure and it would also reduce
weed troubles if you could get a field going full of
mixed grains and legumes which could fruit at
different times and thus be harvested at different
times using different means. we're only starting on
this sort of figuring.

so while i agree that bare soil can be troublesome,
it can be worked around in some ways and at
other times it's necessary (to switch crops or to
deal with certain types of weeds -- beans and
sow thistle being specific examples) and then
there are certain perennials and annuals that only
get going in disturbed soils. do you suddenly
want to remove that type of plant from the
diversity of life?


which is
used to raise beef, more or less along the lines of Joel Salatin's
paradigm, results in clean food, clean air, clean water, and just
might save the world.

no, probably won't. it would help some things for sure,
but it is only scratching the surface.


Other than the above points, I think you made a very cogent response,
where you had your facts straight ;O)




songbird

In article ,
"songbird" wrote:

Billy 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.

Having another bi-polar day? I just loves the way you flog that
strawman.

that wasn't me (FarmI is quote level not me, i
am quote level )


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.

If you take the time to read the quote, you will notice that it says,
"similar enough". That takes us from "equals" to "approximates"
which, a sane person would agree, don't mean the same thing.

yea, but i'm pretty sure the difference between
growth on the prairie vs. eastern grassland
is closer to an order of magnitude which to me
is a significant difference not so easily ignored.


the time
scale difference isn't minor and probably heavily
depends upon the average annual rainfall.
Time scale for what?

for building topsoil. one inch a year on the eastern
grassland (reasonably heavily managed otherwise
it converts to woodland) as compared to how
much per year on the prairie.


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...

Best guess is 500 years/inch to produce prairie topsoil which was
approximately 10" thick when Europeans showed up..

wow, that's 5x worse than what i thought it
was. but i'd not looked into that specific
detail yet. i'm just noodling about numbers
and wondering why some things don't seem
to add up right about certain claims.


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.

Actually, it takes a pine forest, roughly, 50 years to develop 1/16"
of topsoil.

i wonder if anyone has broken down how
much of that is char.


very little
is sequestered and that would be because of fires
that char and thus turn the carbon into a form not
easily consumed...

The sequestered CO2 in eastern forests is charcoal?

if we're talking carbon effectively removed from
the atmosphere and not easily returned via rot
then yes. didn't you say something like 55,000
years? that's sequestered.

a forest at maturity is not sequestering much in
the way of carbon, it's cycling it (i.e. i agree with
DHS).


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.

And don't forget the warm weather, and heavy rains that wash the
quickly decomposing organics out of the laterite soils, unless you
find the places that were altered by the indigenous prior to 1492.

not forgotten, it just seems that if
the forests were so good at sequestering
carbon in the soil (that is what we were
talking about was soil building) then the
Amazon would be much different than it
is and the eastern USoA would have
much thicker soils too than it has.


so this says that reforestation is barking up the
wrong tree when it comes to CO2 sequestration
and rebuilding topsoil.

Ah . . . hmmmm? Who said anything about reforestation? Not that it's a
bad idea, and we do need to stop cutting them down. You silly goose,
the proposition was returning the farm soil to permanent ground
cover, like you might use to graze cattle on, and then run out some
hypothetical mobile chicken coops (hypothetical chickens included) to
do clean up duty on the cow flops from the hypothetical cattle.

reforestation is what happens to eastern land when
left alone. so to keep it from turning to forest means
some kind of management (which means energy
expenditure of some type to keep it clear of trees
be that via grazing or mechanical means the effort
is the same no matter what). grazing unfortunately
does not keep land clear.


So we got our farmers switching from grain crops to meat production.
This in turn leads to:

i'd say that the stats say we don't need more meat, we
need more exercise and more fruits and veggies.


1) cessation of the use of chemical fertilizers, which encourage some
bacteria to devour the organic material in the soil (topsoil)

yes, this is good to do, 100% with ya on this one.


2) stops the release of NO2 from the fertilizer, which is a greenhouse
gas.

in addition to the energy taken to produce the fertilizer to
begin with.


3) stops the pollution of ground and run off water, thus improving
the quality of drinking water, and cutting off the cause of ocean
dead zones.

i think those are not eliminated with our current river
management, wastewater and drainage systems.
reduced would be nice though -- i agree as it would
return large areas of the Gulf to productive use.


4) At the very least, what remaining topsoil would be protected by the
permanent ground cover, and the is the expectation that we may add
to it.

this is good and i'm all for it, but i don't see how
you get from point A to B without a massive labor
shift. not many of the kids today have any plans of
working on the farm at minimum wage with no
benefits. only some small percent of the people
have the dedication this type of change takes.

even for me to go all organic would be
tough here, but i'm doing better each year.
that's all i can do and try to get people
around me to see easy things they can do
to improve.


5) Additional topsoil (because there is more of it, and it is made
from organic material) would effectively sequester CO2 to some
extent. Again the question is where to put the decimal point, not
"if one is needed". Peter Bane (google the name) puts the
sequestration potential at being equivalent to the US production of
CO2. 6) Increased topsoil leads to increased absorption of rain fall,
recharging aquifers, and reducing chances of flooding.

this is only partially true. large sections of agricultural land
is ditched, drained, drain tubed and trenched. to restore it
to the previous state would involve a lot more than letting it
go back to green and then putting livestock on it to keep
it short and having chickens pick their piles apart. for
mosquito control too. you're not going to get people
back to where they'll want more mosquitoes (even if i
think the current spraying program is poisonous, dangerous
and wasteful -- i'm not going to get many others around
here to agree with me as it is very flat and swampy with
a lot of mosquitoes if left alone).

add to that the runoff troubles from streets, parking
lots, storm sewers, rooftops, and then add the waste
from treatment plants and then make it even worse
by draining all the lowlands and farming them, building
levees so the rivers cannot flood, etc. well, we're nowhere
near getting a handle on groundwater restoration.

getting the farmers to stop dumping nitrogen is only
a small part of the problem. getting people to stop
burning ditches would do a lot too (stopping erosion),
getting people to stop using pesticides would accomplish
a lot more for the long term health, nitrogen is quite
simple a poison in comparison to the others. we've
got timebombs ticking on a long slow fuse. at least
we are looking now, but so many years from now
it will take to fix and trillions of dollars. instead we
will spend them on wars in far off places to support
criminally insane or corrupt gov'ts, etc.


7) Increased meat production on grassland instead of in CAFOs, means
that 70% of antibiotics in this country won't go into meat animals,
thereby creating antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.

i know, once i heard about that use of antibiotics
i got sick to my stomach. f'n idiots. it should be
banned outright immediately (along with feeding
chickens arsenic, feeding cattle bubble gum or
any other animal byproducts, etc.).

but i disagree about meat production needing to be
increased.


8) Less grain will be needed to divert into CAFOs

fine by me.


9) Fewer CAFOs means fewer stinking lagoons of animal excrement, that
won't be dumped into public water ways, or find its way into ground
water.

yea, we had someone doing a feedlot down the road
a ways. luckily we are miles away and not downwind.
but i felt sorry for any neighbors. a dairy farm smells
good when run correctly. a CAFO smells nasty.

there is a bison farmer on the opposite corner
and the CAFO is now returned to corn and soybeans
so i'm thinking the corn and soybeans are a better
tradeoff.


10) Gives us a good source of complete proteins (beef and chickens),
for healthy, growing kids.

too much protein already for most people.
the kids (who don't usually eat it anyways)
they like hotdogs, macaroni and cheese
and ice-cream -- nothing green please.


So to summarize; permanent ground cover on existing farms,

won't work for many crops, they don't do well
with any competition -- variety in diet being important
and i like some of those grains. if they can eventually
come up with perennial versions that would be great.
i know that is being worked on. that would go a
long ways towards stablising the soils and improving
the soil community/structure and it would also reduce
weed troubles if you could get a field going full of
mixed grains and legumes which could fruit at
different times and thus be harvested at different
times using different means. we're only starting on
this sort of figuring.

so while i agree that bare soil can be troublesome,
it can be worked around in some ways and at
other times it's necessary (to switch crops or to
deal with certain types of weeds -- beans and
sow thistle being specific examples) and then
there are certain perennials and annuals that only
get going in disturbed soils. do you suddenly
want to remove that type of plant from the
diversity of life?


which is
used to raise beef, more or less along the lines of Joel Salatin's
paradigm, results in clean food, clean air, clean water, and just
might save the world.

no, probably won't. it would help some things for sure,
but it is only scratching the surface.


Other than the above points, I think you made a very cogent response,
where you had your facts straight ;O)




songbird

Too much lack of content to deal with tonight, back at you in the AM.

Save the Forest Litter.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

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

In article ,
"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.
It worked for the buffalo and those that tended them.
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.

Citation, please.

Evan so I don't think carbon sequestration is
anything more than a side show when it comes to managing climate change.

All fixes are temporary, and all analogies fall apart somewhere.
Still, it is something that we could do right now, and have an impact on
environmental, and human health.


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
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

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.

Citation, please.


Note that we were talking about changes to land use not sequestering carbon
in less decomposable forms. I was told the amount that can be stored has
limits in a course by Dr Judi Earl who put me on to Dr Christine Jones. The
latter is the local guru on agricultural carbon sequestration. The reason
given is that as decomposable carbon builds up the microbes that break it
down also build up until the rate they are breaking down reaches the rate of
build-up, in other words an equilibrium is reached. The position of the
equilibrium depends on the land use and methods but you will still get one
sooner or later. This is ignoring the carbon stored above ground in forests
etc but you can see that it also has a maximum value depending on what is
grown.

Here is one quote:

"The capacity of soil to store decomposable organic carbon by
physical protection within micro-aggregates or other organomineral
complexes seems to be finite.
Once these complexes are saturated any added decomposable
organic carbon cannot be protected from decomposition.
Even if this capacity has been severely depleted it can be resaturated
rapidly (e.g. within 30 years by growing pasture)."

Which is from he

http://www.amazingcarbon.com/PDF/Lei...N_ARMIDALE.pdf

This site

http://www.amazingcarbon.com

has a huge amount of material on this topic. I haven't read it all. If you
also google on:

carbon sequestration "christine jones" site:.au

you will get much more. She is of the view that paying farmers to do
sequestration is a solution to climate change. I think we must try many
solutions because until you try you don't know for sure what the effect will
be and also there are political, economic and social limits on the extent
that any given solution can be adopted thus we are likely to need a
multi-pronged approach to succeed.

Also I would not want to push only sequestration solutions because the
fossil fuel industry will try to seize on any method of dealing with climate
change (eg "clean coal") as long as it allows them to keep on burning and
that is very undesirable for many reasons apart from the increase in
atmospheric CO2.

David

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:


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.

Citation, please.


Note that we were talking about changes to land use not sequestering carbon
in less decomposable forms. I was told the amount that can be stored has
limits in a course by Dr Judi Earl who put me on to Dr Christine Jones. The
latter is the local guru on agricultural carbon sequestration. The reason
given is that as decomposable carbon builds up the microbes that break it
down also build up until the rate they are breaking down reaches the rate of
build-up, in other words an equilibrium is reached. The position of the
equilibrium depends on the land use and methods but you will still get one
sooner or later. This is ignoring the carbon stored above ground in forests
etc but you can see that it also has a maximum value depending on what is
grown.

Here is one quote:

"The capacity of soil to store decomposable organic carbon by
physical protection within micro-aggregates or other organomineral
complexes seems to be finite.
Once these complexes are saturated any added decomposable
organic carbon cannot be protected from decomposition.
Even if this capacity has been severely depleted it can be resaturated
rapidly (e.g. within 30 years by growing pasture)."

Which is from he

http://www.amazingcarbon.com/PDF/Lei...N_ARMIDALE.pdf

This site

http://www.amazingcarbon.com

has a huge amount of material on this topic. I haven't read it all. If you
also google on:

carbon sequestration "christine jones" site:.au

you will get much more. She is of the view that paying farmers to do
sequestration is a solution to climate change. I think we must try many
solutions because until you try you don't know for sure what the effect will
be and also there are political, economic and social limits on the extent
that any given solution can be adopted thus we are likely to need a
multi-pronged approach to succeed.

Also I would not want to push only sequestration solutions because the
fossil fuel industry will try to seize on any method of dealing with climate
change (eg "clean coal") as long as it allows them to keep on burning and
that is very undesirable for many reasons apart from the increase in
atmospheric CO2.

David
The pdf was a good romp with soil "C" saturation rates varing from 30
years to 20,000. Part of Salatin's putative success with topsoil
building would have to be that he is returning more "C" to the soil than
"N", so it would seem that this isn't a rudderless enterprise.

I share your concern about coal, and since we have already breached the
Rubicon for the CO2 greenhouse effect at 450 ppm, if you factor in the
influences of the other greenhouse gasses (CH4, NO2, O3, H2O). If our
politicians weren't such whores, it would be a simple matter of
maximizing those activities that ameliorate greenhouse gases, and the
continuous reduction of those activities that aggravate it (fossil
fuel). Of course this would need to factor in, transitioning those
employed in fossil fuel extraction into different employment, and the
screams of "socialism" from the lunatic fringe.

Building topsoil would still have the salubrious effects of:

1) cessation of the use of chemical fertilizers, which encourage some
bacteria to devour the organic material in the soil (topsoil)
2) stops the release of NO2 from the fertilizer, which is a greenhouse
gas.
3) stops the pollution of ground and run off water, thus improving
the quality of drinking water, and cutting off the cause of ocean
dead zones.
4) At the very least, what remaining topsoil would be protected by the
permanent ground cover, and there is the expectation that we may add
to it.
5) Additional topsoil (because there is more of it, and it is made from
organic material) would effectively sequester CO2 to some extent.
Again the question is where to put the decimal point, not "if one is
needed". Peter Bane (google the name) puts the sequestration
potential at being equivalent to the US production of CO2.
6) Increased topsoil leads to increased absorption of rain fall,
recharging aquifers, and reducing chances of flooding.
7) Increased meat production on grassland instead of in CAFOs, means that
70% of antibiotics in this country won't go into meat animals,
thereby creating antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.
8) Less grain will be needed to divert into CAFOs
9) Fewer CAFOs means fewer stinking lagoons of animal excrement, that
won't be dumped into public water ways, or find its way into ground
water.
10) Gives us a good source of complete proteins (beef and chickens), for
healthy, growing kids.

Hopefully the above would also inspire more small farmers to return to
mixed use farms as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

This is the first time that I have heard of "Phytolith Occluded Carbon".
Unless we can grow sugarcane it in Ohio, to make methanol as a
replacement for fossil fuel, it sounds as it it is of limited utility. I
don't think the plant is suited to the weather in most of this country,
and I would hate to see farmland given over to just CO2 sequestration.
It seem to me that fast growing forests that can be converted to
charcoal would give both habitat, clean water and air, and sequestration.

Anyway, thanks for the citation.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html

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).


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.

again true, but only to a point and i think there
is a need now to go beyond what can be
accompished this way.


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.

i'd change my statement to "not storing much more" because
i do think that periodic fires do store some more. just not
that much at a time.


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.

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.

so much topsoil is lost to erosion and biological
processes that it ends up in the ocean and then
turned into coal and oil but the timescale for that
process is geological (not historical). the balance
needed is the use of the energy to match what the
ocean is capable of storing. we're way past that
(i'm not sure what that amount is), but we'd
know we've gotten there if the ppm of CO2 stablizes
and then starts falling and the ocean acidity does
the same.


songbird

In article ,
"songbird" wrote:


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.

so much topsoil is lost to erosion and biological
processes that it ends up in the ocean and then
turned into coal and oil but the timescale for that
process is geological (not historical). the balance
needed is the use of the energy to match what the
ocean is capable of storing. we're way past that
(i'm not sure what that amount is), but we'd
know we've gotten there if the ppm of CO2 stablizes
and then starts falling and the ocean acidity does
the same.


songbird

Think of modern agriculture or logging etc as nothing more than strip
mining. Cheap and easy but short term.

http://www.wsu.edu/gened/learn-modul...oil/soil1.html

--
Bill S. Jersey USA zone 5 shade garden
globalvoicesonline.org
http://www.davidmccandless.com/

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.



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.

again true, but only to a point and i think there
is a need now to go beyond what can be
accompished this way.


Yes


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.

i'd change my statement to "not storing much more" because
i do think that periodic fires do store some more. just not
that much at a time.


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.

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.

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?

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


David

In article ,
"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.



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.

again true, but only to a point and i think there
is a need now to go beyond what can be
accompished this way.


Yes


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.

i'd change my statement to "not storing much more" because
i do think that periodic fires do store some more. just not
that much at a time.


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.

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.

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?

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


David
Wot? A soapbox without anybody standing on it? ascends soapbox, rant on

Since too many politicians are involved in making money, rather than
politicking, it will have to be left to us sheep to change direction, if
we can.
Organic produce increases its rate of sales. year after year, not just
in the U.S. but around the world. Since 1990, the market for organic
products has grown at a rapid pace, to reach $46 billion in 2007. This
demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland.
Approximately 32.2 million hectares worldwide are now farmed
organically, representing approximately 0.8 percent of total world
farmland.

Then there are organic gardeners. Organic Gardening Magazine's rate base
will increase more than 5% to 275,00 from 260,000, the third increase
for the magazine in four years and an overall jump of 28% from 2007.
Organic Gardening's relaunch is in response to a changing mindset among
Americans who are choosing to lead healthier, more environmentally
conscious lifestyles.

Nutritious food, free of unnatural chemicals, has a strong appeal, and
we as organic gardeners are its lobbyists. The world needs to return to
a sustainable model, and it is up to us, at least for the time being, to
engage in conversations about organic gardening, write letters to the
Editor of our local papers, and even write to our Congress people to
uphold organic standards, and to make subsidies, at least in part,
dependent on stewardship of the land.

Natural ecosystems and organic farmers are the only creators of topsoil
today.

rant off, descends soapbox
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html