what is this grass called

[dave1949]

While I understand everything which you say Dave, (and agree with some if not much of it) the bottom line is that being fed in our society today has become taken for granted as breathing and having clean water to drink. Given the choice between pulling weeds and picking bugs vs collecting food stamps, most will pick the latter. Otherwise they would be out working doing whatever they can. Why do you think that migrant workers harvest so much of our crop?

Your comments remind me of someone I worked with in the orchard 30+ years ago... he came from money yet lived in a one room shack with a hand pump out front and an outhouse... He couldn't understand why the owner was willing to pay $1200 for a mower (keep in mind this was 30+ years ago) when common laborers could do it by hand.

It just so happened that there was a patch of raspberry bushes growing under the trees, where a mower couldn't reach without knocking fruit off of the trees.
they handed him a scythe and put him to work... by lunchtime the first day he said "I can see why you want a mower."

Well, being understood is a beginning. :laughing: I hope people see this as an open discussion of viewpoints. I understand I can be a bit intense, but that's me and it isn't personal by any means.

I don't think there is anything to disagree with regarding the Lake Erie toxic algae. It happened, it's history. About one-half million people lost their water supply for 3+ days. Those blooms have become common. This time the wind and currents took the bloom to the water intake. There is no mystery about how and why it happened. There is nothing that would guarantee it will not happen again. I think it makes an interesting case for examining the factors involved and looking ahead to the future.

I have no expectation that phosphorus will be banned in the Lake Erie watershed. There will be field studies, informational sessions and brochures, suggested guidelines, yada, yada. The problem will continue with at best a slight abatement. In other words, 'we' (because we are all in this together) will collectively decide to continue creating toxic algae blooms and hope for the best.

Ya know, that doesn't sound sane to me. I ask myself why we would choose failure? What is forcing such sub-optimal choices to be made? My opinion is that it can ultimately be traced back to population pressures that are pushing us beyond natural limits, and there is money to be made exceeding those limits even though it is ultimately suicidal behavior.

Mechanical weed control does not just mean pulling weeds manually. There are tractor drawn cultivators that do a reasonable job of weed control in row crops, although it is seat time intensive and the timing is critical, which equates to labor and capital production costs. The main point is that the world fed itself with mechanical methods (from sticks to hoes to cultivators) for thousands of years. That too is history. Yet somehow people believe that isn't possible now. Why not?

Migrants harvest our crops while millions collect food stamps because you can't make a living doing migrant labor--unless you adopt a migrant life style and the many negatives that come with it. It is only after migrant families find regular jobs and settle somewhere that they are able to keep their kids in the same school for more than a month, attend classes to improve their own skills, have a more regular income, get consistent medical care, and so on. Many of them are hard working people who get much less than they would deserve in a just world. If they complain too much, machines and crop varieties are developed that make them unnecessary, or production moves to cheaper off-shore locations.

Unfortunately, most people could care less. They just want to know how much a pound of peaches costs while complaining about all the free stuff those aliens and welfare bums get. That is a problem of values that goes back at least to the time of the Ten Commandments, nothing new. BTW I don't know about over your way, but much of the trucked-in tree fruit here is not even worth buying. By the time it is truly ripe, it always has an under taste of rot. They had pints of strawberries for $2 a couple days back, but they were all old and getting mushy, many packages had mold growing on the berries.

I agree we have unmotivated people in poverty. We also have people who trap themselves in poverty through irresponsible actions that keep the court systems occupied and jail seats warm. There have always been and always will be those people. But it is wrong to think every poor person is just lazy. For many, their abilities are a limiting factor. A person can't be smarter or not disabled in some fashion just by wanting to be. IF they have good parenting and a supportive education system, they may learn to compensate for some of those shortcomings.

The poor do not control our economic system or set societal values; they mostly just exist with the results of those who do. I think you are blaming the wrong end of the dog a bit.

 

[farmer2009]

Dave after stepping back and reading your comments. I find them quite amusing. You bring up the amount of fine clay sediment in a river and then want to increase mechanical cultivation. Which the more cultivation that is done in an area the lower the % organic matter of the soil becomes. When that happens you increase the amount of fine clay sediment that is placed into our streams from spring floods and summer down pours. Both of which are needed. Already around here some farmers along rivers will sit and wait in the spring or move to hill ground if they haven't had a "rise" by the time they want to plant.

Now about your phosphorus comments. You say it's a combination effect of fertilizer and human waste. Ok I agree. But let's look at the phosphorus outlay by farmers atleast here in KY as that is what I am familiar with. A farmer is going to use for row crops a mix of 9-23-30 at a rate of about 300#/acre. Now that's assuming they don't soil sample every year and apply recommendations. But those guys usually use less than my example. So that's 69 lbs of P every year per acre. Not much.
Ok now let's look at the people side. How many people are in the Lake Erie watershed? How much crap do they flush everyday? What is done with their waste? What is used to fertilize their lawns? Their golf courses? When you look at the amount of P. That is applied per acre it's not all farming. On average the American home owner uses many times more fertilizer per acre on their lawn than the American Farmer does on his fields. How many farmers do you know who have time to weed and feed their lawns and mow twice a week as a result. Now the great thing about phosphorous is we don't have to worry about it leaching into our ground water. As it only moves through the soil at a rate of about 1/4 inch a year.

Modern agriculture is here to stay. I believe we will see changes in the next 50-100 years but nothing drastic. It's people's belief in this country that they must do what ever to eliminate world hunger. While I don't have a problem helping others especially those less fortunate I have a problem with hand outs. If other countries would step up and want to learn then let's teach them. Don't just ship food and say next boat arrives next week.

 

[dave1949]

Dave after stepping back and reading your comments. I find them quite amusing. You bring up the amount of fine clay sediment in a river and then want to increase mechanical cultivation. Which the more cultivation that is done in an area the lower the % organic matter of the soil becomes. When that happens you increase the amount of fine clay sediment that is placed into our streams from spring floods and summer down pours. Both of which are needed. Already around here some farmers along rivers will sit and wait in the spring or move to hill ground if they haven't had a "rise" by the time they want to plant.

Now about your phosphorus comments. You say it's a combination effect of fertilizer and human waste. Ok I agree. But let's look at the phosphorus outlay by farmers atleast here in KY as that is what I am familiar with. A farmer is going to use for row crops a mix of 9-23-30 at a rate of about 300#/acre. Now that's assuming they don't soil sample every year and apply recommendations. But those guys usually use less than my example. So that's 69 lbs of P every year per acre. Not much.
Ok now let's look at the people side. How many people are in the Lake Erie watershed? How much crap do they flush everyday? What is done with their waste? What is used to fertilize their lawns? Their golf courses? When you look at the amount of P. That is applied per acre it's not all farming. On average the American home owner uses many times more fertilizer per acre on their lawn than the American Farmer does on his fields. How many farmers do you know who have time to weed and feed their lawns and mow twice a week as a result. Now the great thing about phosphorous is we don't have to worry about it leaching into our ground water. As it only moves through the soil at a rate of about 1/4 inch a year.

Modern agriculture is here to stay. I believe we will see changes in the next 50-100 years but nothing drastic. It's people's belief in this country that they must do what ever to eliminate world hunger. While I don't have a problem helping others especially those less fortunate I have a problem with hand outs. If other countries would step up and want to learn then let's teach them. Don't just ship food and say next boat arrives next week.

You can be amused if you wish, but your post is avoiding the hard questions while pointing fingers at the other guy. I'm not a farmer, nor any sort of soil scientist. I'm just one of the millions who live with the results of the choices those people make. They have been deadly wrong in the past, our food is trending toward an unhealthy chemical stew, the environment is under increasing stress, and there is a heavy and increasing reliance on unsustainable practices and assumptions.

There is a social dynamic to most professions and farming is no exception. For example the database work I used to do was nothing cutting edge, but it did help bring the reality of what strategic information management can do for some businesses. It's not a far leap from that to realizing how much data is out there, and how it can be aggregated, mined and leveraged. The outcome of that ability is not always a good thing. Farming actually has a very large social dynamic which is why we non-farmers are likely to give you farmers a hard time now and then. I surely understand if you feel like, "Heck, all I'm trying to do is make a living while feeding you." :laughing:

Go back to post #27 and you will find this paragraph:
The Lake Erie toxic algae is fed by phosphorus run-off from fields, and by human sewerage. The Maumee river runs from Ft Wayne, IN (IIRC) to Lake Erie at Toledo, OH. In spite of no-till, that river runs as brown with fine clay sediments as it ever did when I was a kid in the 1950's, and it is delivering whatever is soluble in fields, towns and residential areas to the lake.

I'm not blaming farm use of chemicals for all of our problems. Other sources such as lawns and pet waste down storm drains are significant too, not to mention the chemical load our bodies now carry due to non-farm use, but we were talking about farming practices.

I would guess that untreated sewage in that watershed is lower now than in the past. Here is the scoop on phosphorus removal in sewage treatment:

Sewage treatment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Phosphorus removal
Each person excretes between 200 and 1000 grams of phosphorus annually. Studies of United States sewage in the late 1960s estimated mean per capita contributions of 500 grams in urine and feces, 1000 grams in synthetic detergents, and lesser variable amounts used as corrosion and scale control chemicals in water supplies. Source control via alternative detergent formulations has subsequently reduced the largest contribution, but the content of urine and feces will remain unchanged. Phosphorus removal is important as it is a limiting nutrient for algae growth in many fresh water systems. (For a description of the negative effects of algae, see Nutrient removal). It is also particularly important for water reuse systems where high phosphorus concentrations may lead to fouling of downstream equipment such as reverse osmosis.

Phosphorus can be removed biologically in a process called enhanced biological phosphorus removal. In this process, specific bacteria, called polyphosphate-accumulating organisms (PAOs), are selectively enriched and accumulate large quantities of phosphorus within their cells (up to 20 percent of their mass). When the biomass enriched in these bacteria is separated from the treated water, these biosolids have a high fertilizer value.

Phosphorus removal can also be achieved by chemical precipitation, usually with salts of iron (e.g. ferric chloride), aluminum (e.g. alum), or lime. This may lead to excessive sludge production as hydroxides precipitates and the added chemicals can be expensive. Chemical phosphorus removal requires significantly smaller equipment footprint than biological removal, is easier to operate and is often more reliable than biological phosphorus removal.[citation needed] Another method for phosphorus removal is to use granular laterite.

Once removed, phosphorus, in the form of a phosphate-rich sludge, may be stored in a land fill or resold for use in fertilizer.



Some states ban the use of phosphorus on lawns:
STATE LAWS BANNING PHOSPHORUS FERTILIZER USE

PHOSPHORUS FERTILIZER BANS

At least 11 states ban phosphorus fertilizer use or sale: Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.

In general, these states prohibit phosphorus fertilizer application unless it is for (1) curing a lack of necessary phosphorus, (2) establishing new turf, or (3) repairing turf. Many states exempt agricultural lands and production, commercial or sod farms, gardening, or golf courses from the ban. And many prohibit applying fertilizer (not only phosphorus fertilizer) on impervious, frozen, or saturated surfaces, or within a certain distance of a water body. Inadvertent application on impervious surfaces must be removed or cleaned up. Some states also have phosphorus fertilizer sale restrictions such as separately displaying phosphorus fertilizer and posting cautionary information.


Where sediment is concerned, I certainly haven't captured the river water and tested it for sediment load in 1954 and now 60 years later. It's an observation that the river doesn't look like it has less sediment than it did before no-till. If no-till was really effective in that environment, I should see some difference. It would be interesting to have that data and be able to adjust it by acreage in tillage, by tillage method, then and now. Of course I realize that fields are not the only areas of soil disturbance.

No-till increases the reliance on herbicides and often on GM seeds resistant to Roundup. It may require less fuel and contribute to soil health, but it relies on chemicals for weed and insect control success. Since insect eggs and weed seeds aren't being given a proper burial by a plow, more will survive.

What is the balance or trade-off in total costs between reduced run-off (which sediment is an indicator of), possibly reduced fertilizer use, and less fuel burned versus an increased environmental chemical load in the form of herbicides and pesticides? Nobody knows the complete answer to that question which is why it is dangerous to ignore it, or to just assume that it must be better than mechanical tillage based on the positive aspects that you do know or realize from your own perspective.

When Soggy Bottom Outdoors asked, "What do we know about glysophates [that have been around for several decades]?", that is about as honest as you can be about the unanswered questions. It would be foolhardy to claim everything is just fine when you don't know all the answers let alone the questions. That is exactly what has happened in the past and everything was definitely not just fine.