Mention is made of “using AI” and other data sources, and that’s what I’d like to read far more about.
I wonder if the new future is writing MCPs so agents can access the data.
Is this describing use of something like GitHub copilot?
If you look at hydroponics/aeroponics, plants basically need water, light, and fertilizer (N (nitrogen) P (phosphorous) K (potassium), and a few trace minerals). It can be the most synthetic process you've ever seen, and the plants will grow amazingly well.
The other elements regarding soil health, etc, would be much better framed in another way, rather than as directly necessary for plant health. The benefits of maintaining a nice living soil is that it makes the environment self-sustaining. You could just dump synthetic fertilizer on the plant, with some soil additives to help retain the right amount of drainage/retention, and it would do completely fine. But without constant optimal inputs, the plants would die.
If you cultivate a nice soil, such that the plants own/surrounding detritus can be broken down effectively, such that the nutrients in the natural processes can be broken down and made available to the plant, and the otherwise nonoptimal soil texture characteristics could be brought to some positive characteristics by those same processes, then you can theoretically arrive at a point that requires very few additional inputs.
Nature does not work in two-variable equations, and the abundance or absence of an element typically has repercussions that are difficult to study.
An often-cited example of missing the bigger picture in controlling one variable would be the Chinese campaign against the Four Pests - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
If you only grow plants with externally-sourced nutrients, that is neither sustainable nor permaculture.
Though it may be more efficient to grow without soil; soil depletion isn't prevented by production processes that do not generate topsoil.
JADAM is a system developed by a chemicals engineer given what is observed to work in JNF/KNF. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38527264
Where do soil amendments come from, and what would deplete those stocks (with consideration for soil depletion)?
(Also, there are extremely efficient ammonia/nitrogen fertilizer generators, but still then the algae due to runoff problem. FWIU we should we asks ng farmers to Please produce granulated fertilizer instead of liquid.)
The new biofuel subsidies require no-till farming practices; which other countries are further along at implementing (in or to prevent or reverse soil depletion).
Tilling turns topsoil to dirt due to loss of moisture, oxidation, and solar radiation.
If you see the macrobiota in soil it is an indicator microbiota is present. The more the merrier.
I believe they have trace minerals and the grub larve eat the oak leaves and poop amazing soil.
I now have 6" of black soil with earthworms!
This is in dry central Texas. Moisture helps microbial/fungal life. Leaves retain moisture.
Another key ingredient is pressure/compaction of leaves.
I have results on my YouTube channel: theRainHarvester
After talking to fellow natural hobby farmers I realized the soil quality was garbage (lack of earth worms and insects), and there were severe drainage and water holding issues: weirdly the soil didn't hold water but it drained way too slow too. So, ehen it rained it was swamped for days but when it got dry none of that water stayed at the top 1 meters of the soil. I'm lucky to find amazing help from local natural farmers, so I got natural green compost (no animal products/byproducts). I have been introduced to no-dig farming too. So first year I started by applying 20cm thick compost on top soil, after putting a layer of old paper boxes against weeds. Then planted my seedlings on these, with worm poop and for some phosphate loving plants bat guano as fertilizers around the plants, topping of with hemp mulch and cacao shell mulch as topping. When this soil has sunken enough, topped off with 2-3 cm compost and mulched again. I have sprinkled insect friendly flowers to attract insects too. This was an amazing succes with not only plants flourishing, fighting diseases much better and resulting in an amazing yield. I didn't need to water as often as before (4x less frequent than before in the soil, 8x less frequent than in the pot). After year 3 I stopped all fertilization and introduced cover crops that could be used as mulch and fertilizer at the same time.
This process though is not linear. I still have plants which are not successful at all. I can grow juicy tasty watermelons in a northern European country but no parsnips or carrots or cauliflowers yet. This is what I love though, I'm interacting with a living microbiome rather than executing lab experiments. Failures are keeping it interesting and improving learning.
Farming is hard, unpredictable (prone to disasters/famine/plagues), and prone to all sorts of problems with soil, weather, etc.
The reason modern fertilizer and pesticides are used so widely is they make that fundamentally extremely difficult process easier and more predictable.
Also Aloe Vera, absolutely the most frustrating house plants I’ve ever had.
> The new biofuel subsidies require no-till farming practices
This actually depletes soil of nitrogen!
Maybe there is some semi-magical way how to grow veggies in hydroponics well, but nobody doing mass produce figured that out so results are subpar on many aspects.
Also, what cover crops did you introduce?
The distinction isn’t hydroponics vs soil - it’s organic vs inorganic farming. Non organic soil faces the same issues. Aquaponics (I.e organic hydroponics using fish and other aquatic organisms) also yield flavorful crops.
I also live in Texas, north Texas, on a dry limestone outcrop with soil depths averaging about 6" but highly variable due to the sloping nature of the property. My best, most fertile soils are underneath the hackberry/cedar elm/live oak stands on the property where leaves are allowed to accumulate and decompose. In the cleared area, it was farmed for hay, beans, corn, etc before we bought the place, the soil is pretty light, tends to dry out quickly and can be difficult to dig if it hasn't rained in a while. Under the trees it is dark and richly connected and you can dig with your fingers to the rock ledge underneath. It's some good shit.
We grow all our garden stuff in troughs and rings since growing in the soil requires too much water due to the oven effect in the summer where the near surface rock heats up and radiates all night drying the soil making it necessary to water daily. I'm on a private water well and not terribly enthusiastic about watering anything every day since it seems like a waste to plant things that won't grow without a lot of babysitting.
I also collect rainwater from my greenhouse roof and use a solar/battery setup to drive a water pump inside one of the tanks which is just a standard plastic rotomolded tank. The other tank I have is a stainless steel tank that I got for a song since it leaked like a sieve due to design issues. I can testify that flex-seal tape doesn't work. I sealed all the joints since all were leaking and every one of them developed leaks past the tape. The only notable difference that the flex-seal tape made was in slowing the leak enough that fine particulates began to accumulate in the leaky spots and that has allowed some of the largest leaks to become trickles so that the tank will now hold water. I believe that it will eventually seal itself as all the crud tries to escape the tank and ends up forming a nice organic seal. Big win for me. I just need to put a pump on it now and extend the line to my orchard at my hugelkulture berm.
You have a bit of cedar there. We use cedar mulch to control weed growth. It is an effective weed inhibitor where we have laid it down. I have tested cypress, cedar, and hardwood mixes and cedar definitely controls everything better. We have our annual weeding process set so that we take a few hours in the fall and spring to pull about 95% of things we don't want and then over the growing season we just spend a little time yanking new growth if it happens.
You can and also should incorporate composted grass clippings (weed-free or cut from an area with native grasses and flowers). This will help build rich soil too. Avoid anything from a place that has an invasive plant problem. I am eradicating several non-natives from my place as I slowly drag it back to a native plant property. I have an area of the garden that is set aside as a pollinator attractor and it is full of natives that keep it alive with bees and insects from spring until the first good freeze. It's really rewarding to step out and hear the activity as you stand under the blackberry arches that are loaded with berries and blossoms waiting for the bugs.
I'm gonna check out some of your work, especially the Arduino controlled pump setup inside your greenhouse, since I would love to monitor my own usage from the tank.
Cover crops: clover, buckwheat and winter rye. Cut before seeding and lay them flat over the surface.
>"Freslyn Mae, Camata, and Ryna Mae, Capurcos, and Eula Marie, Delino, and Gecelene, Estorico, (2025) Assessing the Sources and Risks of Heavy Metals in Agricultural Soils: A Comprehensive Review. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology"
It goes so quick with enough care, it's so fascinating. It's impossible to find any place without a lot of worms now.
I have the same issue with carrots. Parsnips are so much more harder though, they just don't grow any root at all!
White vinegar is better at cleaning vegetables than so called vegetable soaps, and more importantly the acid dissolves soot and heavy metals.
Gallon bottles of white vinegar are cheap. It’s also good for laundry especially if you have hard water, or a humid climate. Some people put it in the rinse cycle for their dishwasher as well, instead of rinse aid which is hell on your intestines.
The next year we moved from that house to a new place, where we couldn't plant directly in the ground but the landlord was happy for us to use pots and planters. I eagerly planted my broccoli again thinking we'd have the same endless supply... but this time it barely produced anything and looked nothing like the last year. I bought some kind of soil bags from the gardening store after asking an employee which would be good for vegetable pots and planters. Something about the pots or the soil or otherwise made a gigantic difference even though we had moved probably less than a mile distance wise.
I'm a very amateur gardener so I may have made some other mistakes, but I think I treated the plants very similarly both years.
But the problem is you also get water and early/late season sugars exchanged between plants (Simard et al).
So within a generation the soil structure has collapsed, you’re at the whim of every microdrought, and you’re dealing with the Red Queen problem. But like drugs, at first it feels amazing.
> dirt
Dirt isn’t much better than hydroponics. Soil is. Conventional farming has been described by some as “hydroponics in dirt”. That’s why it’s so fertilizer dependent, just like hydro.
There are a few places in the world where there is insufficient phosphorous in the native rock to grow plants without fertilizer. But everywhere else, healthy soil fungi could mine it out of the sand in the soils. If they were left to grow instead of burned to death with herbicides and fertilizers.
The tilapia/aquaponics people have a better system.
The model they presented was that the plant stores nutrients all year, and then when it fruits it dumps those nutrients into the fruit. With dwarfism we’ve reduced the plant size and kept the fruit size with the theory that more photosynthesis goes into the fruit. But there’s also a smaller reservoir for everything else that goes into the fruit.
Savvy academics know this and respond accordingly. Whether it’s AI (now) or DEI stuff (until recently), they add the required little sections and play the game.
and then from the worm farm, mix with outdoor soil and grow in that. A automated a flood and drain system with our fish and cultivate nitrogen fixing bacteria with that, and water the plants with this water every couple of days.
Using these two approaches I have not had to buy any nutrients in years and our soil is doing well.
https://lomi.com/?srsltid=AfmBOor2uvg1DJ2J1E6rXh-8L3iAqzeSD0...
When I lived in upstate NY our house was on property that had been a glacial lakebed. The soil was a bit sandy, if anything too well drained, but adding lots of leaf mold -- we had more than enough maple trees -- made it retain water adequately, and things grew well.
When it came time to move, we sold the house to a pair of doctors who were moving up from Texas. One of them was just so enthusiastic about how good the soil was, and about the big piles of partially decomposed leaves we had, compared to the terrible clay soil they had down there. So if nothing else, good soil can help property values.
Sugary sap? Water will enter and sugars flow out. High nitrogen content? Same same.
We’ve got a local grow block recycling program through the Central Texas Mycological Society. For your use case, all you’d need to do is bury the blocks in leaf litter with one long edge barely poking up above the surface. A combo of blue and pink oyster would probably serve you well, depending on the season.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Am...
On the ecological side, some anthropologists argued that humans actually played a major role in transitioning Amazonia from mostly grasslands to the rainforest it is today around 10,000 years ago.
The distribution of many plant species is inexplicable without looking at human settlement patterns. So much so that other anthropologists have called the Amazon a "manufactured landscape".
https://sci-hub.ru/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007...
Three Sisters: Corn, Beans, Squash: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)
Companion planting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting
Nitrogen fixation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_fixation
Forgive me if you got that, it just sounded like you were talking past each other.
It depends. For leafy vegetables it makes sense that dust > soil. However we find more lead and antimony in corn grown in proximity to highways.. this is clearly from road runoff taken up by the plant through the soil . We also find arsenic in brown rice and other crops again taken up through the soil because these soils are heavily contaminated from past arsenic-bearing pesticide use
But, dust/ topicals also matter. There is a reason fruits with thick skins like avocados, pineapple, melon, kiwi, always find themselves on the "Clean 15" list every year- because they are testing the flesh of the fruit, which is protected from topical pesticides by the skins. But I eat the kiwi skins sometimes...or make tea with the pineapple rinds... which people usually don't... and am guessing that they are a lot worse than the flesh.
Terra Preta is noble savage fiction [1] created because charcoal stains the soil quite deep. (Similar to how the OP 'spotlight' is mostly fiction)
Biochar enthusiasts show the staining in soil cutouts after a few years.
I do a lot of biochar (100+ liters a week) but it has mixed results in the scientific journals, meta studies don't show a lot of improvement.
[1] The Amazonian cutting down of forests and burning it for quick release of nutrients works, but unless a third of your babies die you will run out of forest.
If you prepare the pot, soil etc properly, you can get good results. It's very repeatable as it's a very precise recipe. If you put potting soil in a pot randomly it won't work at all.
we tried composting before and the volume of organic waste we produced was too much and we had to dispose a lot of our waste in general trash (our location has no organic waste disposal that runs in our neighborhood) meant animals ripped our curb side bags open.
I am not a degrowther to save the planet either, so a company putting compostable products in place of plastic ones seems like good economic activity.
I overwater before going, and when I come back sone of it is mildly brown. A week later with water replenishment, it's almost all green again.
Makes sense for a desert plant.
now, wow, calling it a grassland before humans 10,000 years ago is to smoke too much pot before reading/making papers. 5,000,000 AD then yes, maybe... /s but Terra Preta and other indigenous interferences is not even 10% of Amazon territory. various other animals are responsible for spreading diversity be it by shitting seed or just moking stuff around to make nests or impress some partner. the rainforest are also there because mountains changing courses of rivers.
[0] "Geology and geodiversity of the Amazon: Three billion years of history" https://www.theamazonwewant.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/C...
[1] the grassland hypothesis (somewhere in the text) and other curiosities about its biodiversity https://www.science.org/content/article/feature-how-amazon-b...
Sadhguru rode 30k km on bike across Europe , Asia to spread the message about depleting soil.
Biochar is just the first step in making Terra preta so it's not a surprise that it doesn't work as well as the final product.
These devices reach impact parity in a few years (2 to 10 depending on the electronics and how much they're used).
There are archaeological finds in Europe dating smelting in the region back as early as 5500 BC.
> There is evidence that there have been significant changes in the Amazon rainforest vegetation over the last 21,000 years through the last glacial maximum (LGM) and subsequent deglaciation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest
Also, there's this:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/10-800-years-a...
This is another "I'm doing my part" gimmick that solves literally nothing when you look under the hood
your last link is about Llanos de Moxos, which isn't in Amazon. you don't seen to understand even basic geography... even if Llanos was 100% man-made (and isn't) and it was part of the Amazon (and not a region that borders it) it would be the equivalent of 2.6% of the whole Amazon area. concluding such a thing because 3% of an area that benefited (soil quality wise) from billions of years of geologic events and was partly modified by humans is ignorant but again, Llanos isn't even Amazon
it was common knowledge among middle age that Earth was flat. doesn't seem an argument to me
Edit: So it is likely that the change happened and had nothing to do with the soil change.
In general: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rock+dust+soil+amendment
A plausible hypothesis: tilling destroys the bacteria that get nitrogen to plant roots.
Isn't runoff erision the primary preventable source of nitrogen depletion?
FWIU residue mulch initially absorbs atmospheric nitrogen instead of the soil absorbing it, but that residue and its additional nitrogen eventually decays into the soil.
I have heard that it takes something like five years to successfully completely transform acreage with no-till; and then it's relatively soft and easily plantable and not impacted, so it absorbs and holds water.
No-till farmers are not lacking soil samples.
What would be a good test of total change in soil nitrogen content (and runoff) given no-till and legacy farming practices?
With pressure-injection seeders and laser weeders, how many fewer chemicals are necessary for pro farming?
Soil is a living, breathing, hospitable community of earth, fungi, insects, water, and countless other organisms. You can’t make silicon wafers from it, but it’s the cornerstone of entire ecosystems. It might be one of the most precious yet overlooked natural resources
The Wikipedia source was to back up the claim that Amazonia was largely grasslands about 10-20k years ago. That is what is common knowledge.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170901113607.h...
For the former, which was the hardest, I just kept changing up species until I found some things that would grow. When I tried a new species, I would always add some mulch or soil for enhancement. I now have perhaps 15 feature trees established to various stages and have been able to expand by mulching a more fertile area at the base of the plants in which I have started to place other plants.
For the latter, I turned the earth and removed the majority of waste, mulched the whole thing lightly, wet it down regularly, transplanted some large shade trees (which survived but basically didn't grow for about a year), then began a combined campaign of continuous stick and branch mulching and food waste (surface composting). Even though much of the ground became covered in a weed, which I removed recently, the soil is now dark, rich, and highly nutrient dense, holds moisture, and contains significant planted trees, a forest of emergent palms, and self-sprouted fruit trees and vines. The transformation took around 2 years.
I do still have three challenge areas: two small beds where the soil is depleted and gets far too much sun, and one where the soil is depleted and gets almost no water. All now have plants growing, but only one could be described as thriving.
Frankly, western botany used to sustain the outdated view that planting a tree in a field with full sun was "the best way" because it was "not competing".
It now turns out plants grow better with diverse friends and an ecosystem.
Aspects of this include but are not limited to insect life, fungal networks, resource exchange, and subsoil life such as earthworms as well as soil protection, wind protection, sun protection (most many recent seedlings cannot withstand full sun and deeply appreciate increased humidity).
Just adding NPK doesn't bring in insects, doesn't bring in soil protection, doesn't bring in fungi. In fact, it may very well poison these elements within an emergent ecosystem.
Trees in nature are usually in forests, where they grow tall in competition for light. Terra in cultivation tend to be grown surrounded by grass, growing wider and shorter to collect sunshine.
While reduced sunlight can have a role in early stage height differences, this occurs both in cultivation and in nature and therefore is not a sole causative factor.
The sort of factors being indicated that were previously ignored by western horticulture are interaction based. Cultivated trees often face simplified fungal communities, limiting nutrient diversity compared to natural forests’ complex networks. Furthermore, natural forests exhibit interconnected fungal systems that facilitate nutrient redistribution between trees and improved community pathogen resistance.
The average person is unaware or thinks this is fantasy. They are ignorant. Don't be ignorant.
There's an interesting read about a polder in English here, especially the mechanical soil improvement section is worthwhile: https://www.canonnoordoostpolder.nl/en/land/cultivation
I've read that pigeon guano is also great. I didn't do any research on its environmental impact though, as I don't need it at the moment.
And you don't seem to know basic history, casting doubt on other things you say. Nobody serious in the middle ages (or since much further back than that either) thought seriously that the Earth was flat.
now if you are defending this absurd commentary that Amazonia was a grassland 10,000 years ago and turned out to be what's because humans, i think you both are on the level of flat earth 21° century people
In hydroponics YOU provide the work to gather and process all the nutrients and provide them to the plant roots in an optimal form. In nature, that work is done by the soil ecosystem.
In the end, the plant does not seem to really care. As long as it has the right molecules available, it's happy. Possibly moreso since it doesn't need to sacrifice any of its sugars.
> "Discovery of nitrogen-fixing corn variety could reduce need for added fertilizer" (2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17721741
humans may altered the biodiversity of Amazonia by breeding only wanted species. but we don't have too much evidence of that (yet). but if it was, the biodiversity of pre-humans was probably richer, as indigenous apparently managed the forests with fire and farmed hyperdominant cultures [0]
[0] https://portal.amelica.org/ameli/journal/181/1813954027/html...
The trees grow faster than the elephants can wreck them. But in areas with less rain fall elephants keep the grasslands more open.
As did Mammoths in the northern forests.
{{citation-needed}} # good luck with that