While raising production levels is great, there are downfalls to that benefit...right?
Coming full circle here on things I'm fascinated by, I've seen research that supports the "theory" that GMO crops tend to leave the soil in a poorer state and sooner than a traditional crop of plant organisms, and that while GMO's do grow faster , are resiliant to pesticide and produce more yeild, that those attributes also cause the plant to take in less stored nutrient, and thus also provide less nutrient to the consumer...
What are your thoughts here, true/false
???
I grow my own beef, several of my own vegtables, and of course potatoes. I also have a private well, so some of the theories don't directly apply to me.
This will be a long one!
We learned a long time ago that crop rotation is key for plant health, yeild, and soil nutrient preservation. Using conventional synthetic fertilizer adds large amounts of sodium to your soil, which is a death sentence to your plants, soil and water uptake. With a large percent of farms moving from manual to mechanized irrigation, it started causing issues. In order to control sodium levels, you need to be able to push the sodium through the soil with water. Mechanized irrigation puts down less water, more often, causing a "wicking" effect to take place. This "wicks" all the sodium, along with other minerals to the top few feet of soil, hurting plants, tying up nutrients, and causing soil erosion, all of which has a compounding effect on the other!
With rotation, and proper irrigation, we've been able to see a huge jump in available soil nutrition, soil texture and a sodium level that was 20 times lower than what it was when we took over certain fields. We started by doing a no till rotation. A no till or minimum till operation will keep more organic matter in your soil. That helps with water uptake and soil nutrition. It allowed us to run our mechanized irrigation slower, less often, and helped us push our sodium out of the growing "layer". This in turn helped more plants grow and that is where the GMO comes in. We used to have to use several herbicides to keep the weeds controlled in any given year. These harsh chemicals would put our plants through what we called "chemo therapy". The plants would suffer some of the effects of the chemicals used to treat weeds, and therefore did a poor job of being able to make a decent canopy if the herbicides didn't kill off a resistant plant. In comes roundup ready. I can keep my plants healthier since they are resistant to the chemical we use to control the other weeds. It gets better. Now we can grow a thick canopy of plants, that control ground cover to keep unwanted weeds from getting sunlight and growing. In crops like alfalfa, it has made it to the point where we spray many fields once every other year, which saves money, and herbicides! On top of that our yield is significantly better since we don't have to use "chemo therapy" causing chemicals on it, stunting its growth, which is now a compounding good thing of soil nutrition and yields!
It still comes down to good farming practices, but everything we learn to do helps!
Being able to grow the same amount of crop on 20% less land is an awesome thing to think about when you bring up the population problems we are facing! GMO's are the key to feeding an ever increasing population on an ever decreasing amount of land. Without GMO's we would be starving to death.
Hmmm
Do you see an "agenda" there
Take the old guy that was trickling info to the public out, and replace him with an attractive woman...
:roflmao:
I agree to a point, anymore though, it would seem like even the good ones are forced to make decisions against their own better judgment once they are in their respective position of power...it's more a game of thrones than a democracy
In which our only ally is hope
I asked my state senator how he compromises when the matter is against what he believes, yet the majority of the population wins over that belief.
He told me that "you never compromise on your morals, but everything else can be up for debate". I felt like that was a decent answer for a politician. lol
Here are some man made climate manipulation facts, again on a localized scale.
http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2014/04...ng-cloud-seeding-statistical-information.html
