Re: Fuel oil from crops vs. sustainable agriculture (was e...

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/1/04 2:41:59 PM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

> Look, I'm not an expert on agriculture and sustainability, so I can't

> really get into all the details authoritatively. Apparently I do know much

> more about the subject than you do, though, because you seem to be assuming

> that we can blithely violate the laws of thermodynamics and make something

> out of nothing.

I entirely agree that you know much more about agriculture to me, but you are

underestimating how pitifully I understand thermodynamics.

We aren't running out of " free energy. " If we can find a way to release

energy at a faster rate out of the 20 miles of crust we have, we have sufficient

input. So, if we could manufacture soil with lithotrophic organisms, for

example, we could possibly revolutionize the art of maintaining soil fertility.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/2/04 6:12:46 PM Eastern Standard Time, ChrisMasterjohn

writes:

> I entirely agree that you know much more about agriculture to me, but you

> are underestimating how pitifully I understand thermodynamics.

Oops! I meant you're underestimating my understanding, which would be an

overestimation of its pitifullness.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/1/04 4:12:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, bberg@...

writes:

> This is...very, very confused. Plants don't just extract organic

> material from the soil, nor do they somehow pull it out of the gas tanks

> of the tractors that are plowing the fields. Through a process known as

> photosynthesis, they store solar energy in organic molecules such as fat

> and sugar by combining carbon dioxide and water

That's a great point that escaped me in my last reply. Fat's are basically

carbon and hydrogen, which come entirely from carbon dioxide and water, not

soil fertility. And they are bound with energy derived from the sun, not

fertile

soil.

Vegetation is, on average, 42.9% oxygen, 44.3% carbon, and 6.1% hydrogen.

While soil is 47.3% oxygen, we know that the oxygen in plants comes from carbon

dioxide, not soil. Soil is only .19% carbon and .22% hydrogen, both of which

we know to come from carbon dioxide and water anyway.

So less than 7% of the dry matter comes from soil, and almost zero energy

comes from soil.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/2/04 7:54:21 PM Eastern Standard Time,

Idol@... writes:

> If by " good " you mean " decorative " , you're more or less correct. If,

> however, you mean " nutritious " , you're way, way wrong.

Fine, but you can get blasted on hydro. What you need to produce good

nutrition is very different than what you need to produce high yield, and

hydroponic

systems make pretty high-THC pot.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>We aren't running out of " free energy. " If we can find a way to release

>energy at a faster rate out of the 20 miles of crust we have, we have

sufficient

>input. So, if we could manufacture soil with lithotrophic organisms, for

>example, we could possibly revolutionize the art of maintaining soil fertility.

>

>Chris

Don't forget the sun. We get a LOT of free energy every day.

Just gotta use it better.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

At 03:23 PM 2/2/2004, you wrote: gen, 44.3% carbon, and 6.1% hydrogen.

>While soil is 47.3% oxygen, we know that the oxygen in plants comes from carbon

>dioxide, not soil. Soil is only .19% carbon and .22% hydrogen, both of which

>we know to come from carbon dioxide and water anyway.

>

>So less than 7% of the dry matter comes from soil, and almost zero energy

>comes from soil.

>

>Chris

Talk to any underground pot grower ... you can grow plants quite

nicely in sand and water, if you add the right chemicals. While I

really think we should protect topsoil, and make sure it has

the right microorganisms and all that, you don't need great

soil, or in fact any soil, to grow good plants.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>We aren't running out of " free energy. " If we can find a way to release

>energy at a faster rate out of the 20 miles of crust we have, we have

>sufficient

>input. So, if we could manufacture soil with lithotrophic organisms, for

>example, we could possibly revolutionize the art of maintaining soil

>fertility.

I'm not sure I understand how the first and second halves of your paragraph

are meant to connect. Current agricultural methods require found energy in

two forms -- actual energy used to operate agricultural apparatus (which I

mean in the most general sense, even including transporting and storage and

processing of food), and material applications used to support and maintain

yields. Presumably a substantially-advanced science could greatly

accelerate the formation of fertile soil, though lithotrophic organisms

would only be one part of the picture, since fertile soil is currently

created by a complex and far-reaching web of different agents, but that's

only half the input picture, and if you mean to replace the entire

ecological process of fertile soil creation with a custom brew of microbes,

you'd have to create and release an enormous range of genetically

engineered organisms into the wild to duplicate processes that ordinarily

involve time, mammals, insects, etc. That would be dangerous, but maybe

more to the point, it's not even close to being within our reach.

-

[Guest guest]

Chris-

>So less than 7% of the dry matter comes from soil, and almost zero energy

>comes from soil.

I have a very long reply to 's silly message in the works, but both

of you are missing the point when I speak of energy inputs. We are, in a

very real sense, applying fossil fuels directly to the soil. These

fertilizers (and other compounds) are quasi-free, in that most of the work

of creating them has already been done. When fossil fuels run out, much

much more energy will be required to replace them -- except that before

that happens, fossil fuel-supported agriculture will have crashed anyway by

virtue of being unsustainable and damaging to soil.

-

[Guest guest]

Heidi-

>you don't need great

>soil, or in fact any soil, to grow good plants.

If by " good " you mean " decorative " , you're more or less correct. If,

however, you mean " nutritious " , you're way, way wrong.

-

[Guest guest]

Quoting ChrisMasterjohn@...:

> In a message dated 2/2/04 7:54:21 PM Eastern Standard Time,

> Idol@... writes:

> > If by " good " you mean " decorative " , you're more or less correct. If,

> > however, you mean " nutritious " , you're way, way wrong.

>

> Fine, but you can get blasted on hydro. What you need to produce good

> nutrition is very different than what you need to produce high yield, and

> hydroponic systems make pretty high-THC pot.

Anyway, aren't we talking about fuel oil? Say what you like about the

micronutrient content of hydroponic food (and I am by no means

acknowledging an inherent inferiority in that respect), but it produces

calories just fine, and that's all you need for fuel.

--

Berg

bberg@...

[Guest guest]

-

>Say what you like about the

>micronutrient content of hydroponic food (and I am by no means

>acknowledging an inherent inferiority in that respect), but it produces

>calories just fine, and that's all you need for fuel.

Before you start touting hydroponics as a viable means of fuel production,

I suggest you look into the total costs involved and the overall

input/output ratio, which is _terrible_.

-

[Guest guest]

>If by " good " you mean " decorative " , you're more or less correct. If,

>however, you mean " nutritious " , you're way, way wrong.

>

>-

??? How so? If I grow a plant in sand with the correct nutrients added to it,

and the plant absorbs those nutrients, it will be as nutritious

as if those nutrients occurred " naturally " . Yeah, it's more complicated

than that ... some growers are adding fungi and doing things with

bacteria etc. But there are only 100 or so elements, and only

a handful of those are really needed by plants, and even just using

worm compost on bad soil can make great plants.

So how do you define " nutritious " ? High sugar? HIgh calcium?

High magnesium? Healthy plants produce sugar (also depends

on sun) and calcium and magesium you can add to the soil.

In this part of the world, our soil is lousy, always has been,

due to a glacier or two. But people can grow great crops

in it, and the topsoil grows as you grow crops if you

do them right. " Good " soil has lots of humus in it, lots

of minerals, lots of nitrogen ... but there is no magic

substance that I know of that can't be added so

the plant gets what it needs.

(which is not to say that current farming methods

don't suck ... ).

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

----- Original Message -----

From: " Idol " <Idol@...>

> -

> >Say what you like about the

> >micronutrient content of hydroponic food (and I am by no means

> >acknowledging an inherent inferiority in that respect), but it

produces

> >calories just fine, and that's all you need for fuel.

>

> Before you start touting hydroponics as a viable means of fuel

production,

> I suggest you look into the total costs involved and the overall

> input/output ratio, which is _terrible_.

I'm not rushing out to buy stock in a hydroponics companies; I'm just

saying that some of the arguments which you're advancing are incorrect

in general and/or not relevant to hydroponics. In fact, I've just

thought of another reason why the soil fertility argument is bogus. If

you just extract the refined oil and compost the rest, there's no loss

of fertility. Everything except the oil, which is just carbon, hydrogen,

oxygen, and solar energy, goes right back into the soil.

By the way, does anyone here actually know what it is that makes soil

fertile?

[Guest guest]

--- Heidi, I wouldn't want to say food processing and warehousing

sucks! Dennis

In , Heidi Schuppenhauer

<heidis@t...> wrote:

>

> >>

> (which is not to say that current farming methods

> don't suck ... ).

>

> -- Heidi

[Guest guest]

Heidi-

>??? How so? If I grow a plant in sand with the correct nutrients added to it,

>and the plant absorbs those nutrients, it will be as nutritious

>as if those nutrients occurred " naturally " . Yeah, it's more complicated

>than that ... some growers are adding fungi and doing things with

>bacteria etc. But there are only 100 or so elements, and only

>a handful of those are really needed by plants, and even just using

>worm compost on bad soil can make great plants.

Yes, there are only a hundred or so elements, but those elements combine

into thousands upon thousands of chemical compounds, and no lifeform has

the ability to synthesize any and all compounds from a base stock of plain

elements. You can't just add some copper and some zinc to soil, they have

to be in forms which are bioavailable to the plants you're growing. And

that's just the barest beginning. Life evolved into an extremely complex

web of interdependent systems in which many different kinds of organisms

support and live off many other different kinds. It's not just a matter of

adding some good old NPK and having your miraculous little black-box food

crop plant transmute it into good nutrition.

Honestly, I'm surprised that on this list of all places I find so much

ignorance about soil ecology.

>So how do you define " nutritious " ? High sugar? HIgh calcium?

>High magnesium? Healthy plants produce sugar (also depends

>on sun) and calcium and magesium you can add to the soil.

Those single-factor measurements are -- and I honestly mean no offense --

absurd.

That said, like I explained to before, this isn't my area of

expertise. I couldn't tell you what specifically would distinguish some

extremely nutritious broccoli from a cruddy specimen of the species, but

one observable characteristic would be a robust immune system (for lack of

a better term), or rather the symptoms of same -- resistance to pests,

resistance to decay after harvesting, etc. Some compounds which might seem

indicative of good nutrition, like vitamin C, sometimes instead indicate

the opposite, because some plants synthesize them as last-resort

protections when they're growing in inadequate soil and can't generate

better defenses.

> " Good " soil has lots of humus in it, lots

>of minerals, lots of nitrogen ... but there is no magic

>substance that I know of that can't be added so

>the plant gets what it needs.

I guess you don't realize it, but you're contradicting yourself

here. Humus isn't a " magic substance " , but it's also not something which

(present or immediately foreseeable) technology can create as an additive,

at least not on anything like a mass scale. Humus is a very complex

compound substance made of various organisms, decayed and partially decayed

material, etc. Right off the bat it defies any of those simple metrics of

the kind you referred to. It doesn't depend on the mere presence or

absence of particular elements, it requires a rich, vibrant ecosystem. The

most fertile, nutrition-yielding soils are those which are teeming with

life. Modern additive- and amendment-based agriculture kills that soil,

and even by our simple present metrics (mineral content, for example) foods

are getting less and less nutritious. Even organic agriculture merely

lessens this malnutrition somewhat. By itself, it's not enough.

-

[Guest guest]

Are you serious or joking? Some of it is really efficient and

wonderful, some of it is not ... I was talking about farming

though, and a lot of the methods really do ruin the land, plus

they are too expensive for the farmer. One of the science mags

was talking about a scientist in India who is working with the

locals to farm cheaper and in a way that is better for the land ...

they are building topsoil AND getting nice crops AND it is cheaper.

Of course, I'm just a farmer wannabe ... can you elaborate?

-- Heidi

>--- Heidi, I wouldn't want to say food processing and warehousing

>sucks! Dennis

[Guest guest]

>That said, like I explained to before, this isn't my area of

>expertise. I couldn't tell you what specifically would distinguish some

>extremely nutritious broccoli from a cruddy specimen of the species, but

>one observable characteristic would be a robust immune system (for lack of

>a better term), or rather the symptoms of same -- resistance to pests,

>resistance to decay after harvesting, etc. Some compounds which might seem

>indicative of good nutrition, like vitamin C, sometimes instead indicate

>the opposite, because some plants synthesize them as last-resort

>protections when they're growing in inadequate soil and can't generate

>better defenses.

However, if you DID know exactly what to measure (and I'm

sure some people do) you could probably amend the soil

to supply it. And a lot of it is not intuitive. For instance, with grapes

for wine, the grapes make better wine if they are small, underwatered

grapes (the flavor is more intense).

And land that is good for one crop can be lousy for another. Our

land is acidic, and has too much water. Berries love it, apples don't.

And I DO realize it is complex. But, like I said, I've seen people

grow good, healthy, disease-free crops in lousy soil -- I just

am not willing to throw up my hands in despair because the soil

is lousy. Part of the issue in wanting really healthy soil is that the

crops we tend to like to harvest ... like wheat ... have enormous

soil requirements. Blackberries, for one, don't. Alder trees fix

nitrogen and don't need it.

>> " Good " soil has lots of humus in it, lots

>>of minerals, lots of nitrogen ... but there is no magic

>>substance that I know of that can't be added so

>>the plant gets what it needs.

>

>I guess you don't realize it, but you're contradicting yourself

>here. Humus isn't a " magic substance " , but it's also not something which

>(present or immediately foreseeable) technology can create as an additive,

>at least not on anything like a mass scale. Humus is a very complex

>compound substance made of various organisms, decayed and partially decayed

>material, etc.

In India they create it on fairly large scale ... certainly not on mega-scale

but I'm not

really for mega-farming anyway. My worm bins create an amazing amount of

really good black earth from the garbage that the chickens and dog don't get,

and horse ranchers produce a LOT of worm compost when they want to.

So, technologically speaking, one *could* create big flat worm bins with

mechanical

mixers and shovel horse manure or sewage or restaurant waste into them and

create really wonderful additive for bad soil. Which is teeming with bacteria

etc. and is really cheap to make. Add some bone meal to the ferment

and you get high mineral content too. You CAN grow bacteria and fungi

in bulk.

If you are saying we can't do this at mega-level -- I tend to think mega-level

anything is a BIG problem.

> Right off the bat it defies any of those simple metrics of

>the kind you referred to. It doesn't depend on the mere presence or

>absence of particular elements, it requires a rich, vibrant ecosystem. The

>most fertile, nutrition-yielding soils are those which are teeming with

>life.

I agree. I'm just saying you can ADD that life. Some gardeners are beginning

to. Adding kefir to a vat of dead milk will make a rather healthy milk,

suitable for raising chickens, for instance.

>Modern additive- and amendment-based agriculture kills that soil,

>and even by our simple present metrics (mineral content, for example) foods

>are getting less and less nutritious. Even organic agriculture merely

>lessens this malnutrition somewhat. By itself, it's not enough.

Until you have metrics, it is impossible to quantify this. Minerals are easy

to supplement. But rich, teeming soil doesn't guarantee anything ... ours

is teeming with life, and a lot of that life attacks the plant and causes all

kinds of problems. You DO have to adjust the soil unless you are willing

to just grow plants that are adapted to that ecosystem. Our local farmers

add lime -- the soil is just naturally way to acidic for most farm crops. The

Indians just ate berries ... berries like acidic.

I tend to be more like the Indians ... I grow berries and just planted nuts,

which also like our soil.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

---I'd guess I'm serious.I'm a wannabe farmer in the respect I

haven't made any profit doing it as an avocation for 7 years. Food

processing pays my bills! Do the Indian farmers have bills and taxes,

etc? Maybe they get paid to build the soil? Dennis

In , Heidi Schuppenhauer

<heidis@t...> wrote:

>

> Are you serious or joking? Some of it is really efficient and

> wonderful, some of it is not ... I was talking about farming

> though, and a lot of the methods really do ruin the land, plus

> they are too expensive for the farmer. One of the science mags

> was talking about a scientist in India who is working with the

> locals to farm cheaper and in a way that is better for the land ...

> they are building topsoil AND getting nice crops AND it is cheaper.

>

> Of course, I'm just a farmer wannabe ... can you elaborate?

>

> -- Heidi

>

> >--- Heidi, I wouldn't want to say food processing and warehousing

> >sucks! Dennis

[Guest guest]

>---I'd guess I'm serious.I'm a wannabe farmer in the respect I

>haven't made any profit doing it as an avocation for 7 years. Food

>processing pays my bills! Do the Indian farmers have bills and taxes,

>etc? Maybe they get paid to build the soil? Dennis

So why do you think the food processing and warehousing don't suck?

What kind of processessing do you mean? I buy my sorghum flour from

a farmer who mills it from his own sorghum ... which is processing,

and I love him for it!

The Indians mostly are raising food to eat, I think. Some time ago, 90% of

the farming in this country was done by the family, so that family could

have food, and a little extra to sell. So the economics of it

were not as important. A good farmer ate well, a bad farmer starved.

Privatization of land, water, etc. have changed the equation a LOT.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>

> >---I'd guess I'm serious.I'm a wannabe farmer in the respect I

> >haven't made any profit doing it as an avocation for 7 years. Food

> >processing pays my bills! Do the Indian farmers have bills and

taxes,

> >etc? Maybe they get paid to build the soil? Dennis

>

> So why do you think the food processing and warehousing don't suck?

>

<><><><<><I work for them. How does that go. " I'm owned by the

company store " . Dennis

What kind of processessing do you mean? I buy my sorghum flour from

> a farmer who mills it from his own sorghum ... which is processing,

> and I love him for it!

>

><><>>No offense to your farmer's processing but I am not referring

to him or her. Dennis

The Indians mostly are raising food to eat, I think. Some time ago,

90% of

> the farming in this country was done by the family, so that family

could

> have food, and a little extra to sell. So the economics of it

> were not as important. A good farmer ate well, a bad farmer

starved.

> Privatization of land, water, etc. have changed the equation a LOT.

>

> -- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>

> >---I'd guess I'm serious.I'm a wannabe farmer in the respect I

> >haven't made any profit doing it as an avocation for 7 years. Food

> >processing pays my bills! Do the Indian farmers have bills and

taxes,

> >etc? Maybe they get paid to build the soil? Dennis

>

> So why do you think the food processing and warehousing don't suck?

> What kind of processessing do you mean? I buy my sorghum flour from

> a farmer who mills it from his own sorghum ... which is processing,

> and I love him for it!

>

> The Indians mostly are raising food to eat, I think. Some time ago,

90% of

> the farming in this country was done by the family, so that family

could

> have food, and a little extra to sell.

<><><><><><>>>><I slopped hogs, milked cows, canned green

beans,plucked chickens, and baled hay(alfalfa and prairie)on one of

those farms in the 1950's and 60's.Dennis

So the economics of it

> were not as important.

We didn't starve but I thot we sure had poor ways. Course what does a

teenager know? Dennis

A good farmer ate well, a bad farmer starved.

> Privatization of land, water, etc. have changed the equation a LOT.

>

<><><><>><><>>You could say so alright!And what about regulatio/laws?

Processing and farming regs/laws and others as well. Nowadays a rural

citizen has to spend thousands of dollars to replace the outhouse!!!

Dennis

>

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/3/04 12:16:26 AM Eastern Standard Time,

heidis@... writes:

> However, if you DID know exactly what to measure (and I'm

> sure some people do) you could probably amend the soil

> to supply it. And a lot of it is not intuitive. For instance, with grapes

> for wine, the grapes make better wine if they are small, underwatered

> grapes (the flavor is more intense).

Albrecht had a system of analysis for soil that is somewhat involved, but is

probably the best of what's out there. Acres USA have information on it and

probably use it (or a modified version).

> So, technologically speaking, one *could* create big flat worm bins with

> mechanicalmixers and shovel horse manure or sewage or restaurant waste into

> them andcreate really wonderful additive for bad soil.

They in fact exist. I think a big one costs $35,000 or so, but worm castings

can go for about a dollar a pound, and the big ones make about 1000 lbs a

day.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>Albrecht had a system of analysis for soil that is somewhat involved, but is

>probably the best of what's out there. Acres USA have information on it and

>probably use it (or a modified version).

And for small gardeners, there is the experimental method. Like

these mixes for x plant that include beer, chewing tobacco, sugar to

feed microorganisms .... my plants (indoor, dead soil) get fermented

fish fertilizer. They seem happy (tho they are inedible).

>> So, technologically speaking, one *could* create big flat worm bins with

>> mechanicalmixers and shovel horse manure or sewage or restaurant waste into

>> them andcreate really wonderful additive for bad soil.

>

>They in fact exist. I think a big one costs $35,000 or so, but worm castings

>can go for about a dollar a pound, and the big ones make about 1000 lbs a

>day.

The dollar a lb must be wholesale ... I was surprised how much worm castings

cost. I have gallons and gallons of them ...

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 2/3/04 5:55:27 PM Eastern Standard Time,

heidis@... writes:

> And for small gardeners, there is the experimental method. Like

> these mixes for x plant that include beer, chewing tobacco, sugar to

> feed microorganisms .... my plants (indoor, dead soil) get fermented

> fish fertilizer. They seem happy (tho they are inedible).

For edibles, it would probably be best to use a refractometer, because high

yield, for example, doesn't necessarily translate into a good plant. I haven't

gotten one yet, but when I have more money I think I will.

> The dollar a lb must be wholesale ... I was surprised how much worm

> castings

> cost. I have gallons and gallons of them ...

Right... if you're making 1000 lbs a day, you want to avoid selling it in

1-lb packages.

Chris