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"Monsanto May Seek to Revive 'Terminator' Technology "

poypoyking said:
There are current problems with wind and water erosion almost everywhere. Here in Minneapolis the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers are both contaminated from the runoff of agricultural land. Any place that is plowed up and does not have crops growing is contributing to soil/water erosion. Without growing plants there the soil and nutrients get washed away. Plants hold the soil down and allow water to soak in.

The benefits of plowing and chemically fertilizing do not outweigh the environmental impact those practices have. We are poisoning and killing the gulf of Mexico (not to mention all the other bodies of water). The dead zone where the Mississippi enters into the gulf is now the size of the state of Conneticut and growing. We either have to eliminate use of chemical fertilizers or figure out a way to use them without poisoning our water.

Below are areas that struggle with or are at risk for erosion. It is not just isolated incidents but widespread problem.
Click to expand...

what you are talking about is called eutrophication. it is indeed caused by agricultural runoff but it is not exclusively to blame. poor storm water management and natural phenomena contribute largly. eutrophication or just giant fish kills have been happening long before modern agriculture. i think there are biblical accounts of massive population of fish dieing off. its a natural process to an extent.

what you see in the gulf is however caused by humans almost exclusively. dead zones are somewhat unpredictable with a number of factors converging in order to create a dead zone. this problem is not exlcusive to "chemicals" natural cow shit will cause the same thing. there is a reason pig farms are strictly regulated. pig shit is insanely high in nitrogen. i admit to not being knowledgeable about this particular dead zone, but i can tell you from professional experience( i work with waste water treatment systems) that bad fecal runoff is every bit as bad ecologically as the fertilizer runoff you see today. the problem has to be solved with adequate and appropriate land manage. watersheds need to be protected and even engineered to resist contamination from agricultural runoff. at the same time agricultural runoff needs to be scrutinized and adressed. i think its foolish to think you can eliminate runoff entirely... a single 5 year rainfall event is enough to overwhelm almost every single storm water drainage system designed in most cities. the dead zone in the gulf is not a static body of water it is constantly moving and changing shape and size. a nuber of factors dictate the levels of dissolved oxygen available to fish not just the presence of fertilizer pollutants.

soil erosion happens yes. some farmers in prone areas plant cover plants in between actual money crops just to adress this. this however means that they then need to till under these plants and spray herbicide to keep competetive weeds down.
obviously soil erosion is GREATLY GREATLY influenced by a number of factors...not the lease of which is soil composition itself. its foolish to try and apply one method to solve an entire issue that is so intrinsically complicated.
i do not know alot about natural soil and soil errosion. this is a subject i suspect could take you all the way through grad school. i do not understand why you think modern agriculture and retarding soil errosion are not compatable. what is it exactly that organic methods offer that traditional ones cannot accomplish? planting cover certainly is not one of them.

you say that its not worth it to continue farming with modern agronomic technologies. i say that its entirely impossible to do without them. unless you want to starve an inordinate amount of people, or double the land used for farming.
 
"Walkerton is a relatively small community. At the time of the event Stan Koebel was manager and Frank Koebel was water foreman. Neither had any formal training in their position, retaining their jobs through three decades of on-the-job experience. The water supply became contaminated with the highly dangerous O157:H7 strain of E. coli bacteria, from farm runoff into an adjacent well that was known for years to be vulnerable to contamination."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_Tragedy

"How you can catch deadly legionnaires' disease from garden compost"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1021542/How-catch-deadly-legionnaires-disease-garden-compost.html

David Kirby, author of Animal Factory, on page 204, references studies "proving that pathogens in manure water used for irrigation can be absorbed by plants: It was possible that Cryptosporidium parvum, listeria, salmonella, and dangerous strains of e-coli could contaminate fresh greens and other vegetables from the inside."
http://www.factory-farming.com/infectious_organisms.html
 
queequeg152 said:
what you are talking about is called eutrophication. it is indeed caused by agricultural runoff but it is not exclusively to blame. poor storm water management and natural phenomena contribute largly. eutrophication or just giant fish kills have been happening long before modern agriculture. i think there are biblical accounts of massive population of fish dieing off. its a natural process to an extent.

what you see in the gulf is however caused by humans almost exclusively. dead zones are somewhat unpredictable with a number of factors converging in order to create a dead zone. this problem is not exlcusive to "chemicals" natural cow shit will cause the same thing. there is a reason pig farms are strictly regulated. pig shit is insanely high in nitrogen. i admit to not being knowledgeable about this particular dead zone, but i can tell you from professional experience( i work with waste water treatment systems) that bad fecal runoff is every bit as bad ecologically as the fertilizer runoff you see today. the problem has to be solved with adequate and appropriate land manage. watersheds need to be protected and even engineered to resist contamination from agricultural runoff. at the same time agricultural runoff needs to be scrutinized and adressed. i think its foolish to think you can eliminate runoff entirely... a single 5 year rainfall event is enough to overwhelm almost every single storm water drainage system designed in most cities. the dead zone in the gulf is not a static body of water it is constantly moving and changing shape and size. a nuber of factors dictate the levels of dissolved oxygen available to fish not just the presence of fertilizer pollutants.

soil erosion happens yes. some farmers in prone areas plant cover plants in between actual money crops just to adress this. this however means that they then need to till under these plants and spray herbicide to keep competetive weeds down.
obviously soil erosion is GREATLY GREATLY influenced by a number of factors...not the lease of which is soil composition itself. its foolish to try and apply one method to solve an entire issue that is so intrinsically complicated.
i do not know alot about natural soil and soil errosion. this is a subject i suspect could take you all the way through grad school. i do not understand why you think modern agriculture and retarding soil errosion are not compatable. what is it exactly that organic methods offer that traditional ones cannot accomplish? planting cover certainly is not one of them.

you say that its not worth it to continue farming with modern agronomic technologies. i say that its entirely impossible to do without them. unless you want to starve an inordinate amount of people, or double the land used for farming.
Click to expand...

I think what I am trying to say is that the current modern farming practices are not sustainable. They are constantly thinking up new ways to do things, they just need to find a way to do it without killing/polluting the land. The advent of current modern farming methods has accelerated the decay of the land. There has to be a balance somewhere.

Yes, dead zones in general have been around for some time (centuries). The Black Sea for instance has had hypoxic areas since the 2nd or 3rd century. It was the biggest dead zone in the world until the fall of the Soviet Union where it was largely reversed due to the unavailability of fertilizers. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone specifically is shown to be mostly from agricultural chemical runoff.

And I agree, there is so much to these topics one can only scratch the surface.
 
interesting, i was not aware that bacteria could travel into plants like that?

it is however an easy problem to solve. potable water is treated with chlorine, in contaminated wells the same must be done. here in texas wells are periodically tested for coliforms and bacteria nitrates etc. each well permit is subject to unique circumstances... for example wells excessively close to a sanitary leach/spray field will be subject to FAR more frequent bacteriological tests( we call them bactee's). i suspect the same happens with agricultural wells, i wonder if the permit issued for that well was not handled properly or if the testing was not carried out .

poypoyking said:
I think what I am trying to say is that the current modern farming practices are not sustainable. They are constantly thinking up new ways to do things, they just need to find a way to do it without killing/polluting the land. The advent of current modern farming methods has accelerated the decay of the land. There has to be a balance somewhere.

Yes, dead zones in general have been around for some time (centuries). The Black Sea for instance has had hypoxic areas since the 2nd or 3rd century. It was the biggest dead zone in the world until the fall of the Soviet Union where it was largely reversed due to the unavailability of fertilizers. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone specifically is shown to be mostly from agricultural chemical runoff.

And I agree, there is so much to these topics one can only scratch the surface.
Click to expand...

i agree to the extent that farming practices need to change towards mitigating these issued. however when these changes are so radical as to greatly increase food costs and decrease land production such that much more land must be farmed i part with you. playing this game of environmental priorities over that of the human populace is insane. take away artificial nitrogen from farmers and people will starve period.

you are right in that middle ground is to be had, however conversion to total organic farming is NOT middle ground, its as far to the lefr or right as one can get.
 
How many growers use compost or manure without testing or proper food hygiene practices? I'm sure every farm or greenhouse cares about food safety and will wait for manure or compost to fully compost at a high temperature...Big Farms are Great ;)


 
The difference between Natural BT and plants that have been modified to make BT to kill insects are as different as night and day. Also Round Up Ready plants have been modified to resist the chemical herbicide Round UP which is chemically quite closely related to Agent Orange, "its not the same as agent orange" but some of the same chemicals are used in it. Some of my heath problems have been confirmed to be caused by Agent orange that I was exposed to when I was in Vietnam.
Many herbicides that have been outlawed here are still used by many other countries including China, which now is undergoing a agriculture nightmare do to the over use of many herbicides and pesticides which are linked to the strange disease that has completely killed off all the Bees in large parts of China which has spread to Australia and the US.
This all sounds like a good reason to use plants that make their own pesticide or resist being killed by herbicides, but just what happens when you ingest these plants that have been modified is you get exposed to things that we would normally not eat. BT was never meant to be a part of the food we eat nor plants that can now resist being killed by herbicides.
what is now going on is insects that now can eat corn that has Bt bred in it, and weeds that can withstand being sprayed with stronger and stronger herbicides this is what is happening in countries that believed what Monsanto told them.
"This is the good info" the really dark side is what is happening to people that are fed food products that have been modified, from mothers giving birth to still born babies, genetic malforities, blindness, intestinal holes, stomach ulcers and mental retardation, brain tumors and various Cancers that are higher in people that are exposed to herbicides and pesticides both of which are chemically related in many formulas.
If you feel think that farmers are saving money by feeding their livestock GMO Feeds think again. As Cattle, Pigs, Chicken and Lambs are affected just the same as humans are and many have seen a large loss in their live stock much like what people in poverty stricken areas, Still born animals, tumors, and cancers that their live stock would not normally get.
If you feel that GMO is safe then go ahead and eat them and feed your children them I have nothing against you doing that, I'm not trying to make you do anything you don't want to that is your right.
I'm just trying to give you information that Monsanto, and other Companies that work to create more GMO's won't tell you, you don't have to believe me, but its all on the Internet, page after page after page on all that is going on with using GMO's.
 
queequeg152 said:
so you acknowledge organic farming methods are not productive enough to feed the planet? "big" farms are the farms that are making soy and corn cheaper then it has ever been allowing more people to afford more food then ever in human history.
Click to expand...

Are you sure you don't work for Monsanto or the local county extension agent? Your zealous defense of some of the most back assward 'progress' in farming would be alarming if I didn't know so many who agree with you. What has come before is not sustainable regardless of results. How many bushels per acre is irrelevant when the land is dying. What your daddy did and my grandpa did for years and years worked most of the time, and when the new strains and fertilizers came out yields increased - at the expense of our collective health.

Forgive me the hippie prose and please check out anything by Joel Salatin and the Omnivore's Dilemma. Buffalo for the Broken Heart is also a keeper - all non-sensationalizing books that can help shed some light on the direction we need to go in: a better direction for all involved.

Please also see:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/a-simple-fix-for-food/

That article is about a study funded by the Department of Agriculture in conjunction with the University of Iowa. More fertilizer is the chumps way to keep agribusiness in power. Ditch fertilizer and encourage proper land mgmt and crop rotation; its the only way small farmers will ever see fair wages for their labors.

LAST: We like hot peppers. We're also polar opposites on what farming should be. That's ok too.
 
I still say growing in a greenhouse (or Polly Tunnel) collecting and filtering rain water from the greenhouse roof then using a gravity fed drip system is the best way to grow. If you add some Mycorrhizae and beneficial bacteria to your growing medium add potash or bone meal you will increase the yields. If you grow your plants year round in the greenhouse you could get a few years out of each plant harvest the seeds so you don't buy new seeds every year or plant every year. With the plastic/glass keeping most bugs out (Vent screens and plants around the greenhouse or IPM practices) you won't need to spray as much and by planting in containers you can easily pull weeds if any show up.

Soil and Myco Blast Trial Kit Price:$5.00 (excluding tax)
http://www.supremegr...-trial-kit.html

Rooftop greenhouse takes organic to new heights (Grocery store roof)

Grow Bigger, Healthier and More Food by using Mycorrhiza in Your Garden
http://youtu.be/QP5A14ufQa0
 
Going along with the idea of big farms mean a better future is not always the best way to go, sure they can feed the masses, but they can be some of the worst polluters as it is much harder to get rid of waste products, chemical pesticides,herbicides, animal steroids and medicines in ways that are cost effective and are some times illegally dumped, or spread back onto the soil. Although this way of thinking is slowly changing as they learn better and heather ways to take care of waste management.

Going Organic is not taking a step backward and has a good future as many farmers find that the public likes knowing that they can buy products that are not sprayed with a lot of chemicals even if they may cost more.
I for one try and be as organic as possible, and it can be maddening when I'm overwhelmed by pest and disease. I do grow many hybrids along with OP or heirloom varieties, and use well composted manures that have been well treated to kill any pathogens. I have never gotten sick from eating my own vegetables. The soil in my raised beds are full of red worms so I know that the soil has a healthy flora.
I don't have a gripe about the use of pesticides, just the over use of them to the point that the land becomes dead and lifeless.
As pointed out there are areas that are dead by natural causes, but I have seen areas that will no longer grow anything, do to over use of chemicals also that will take many years to recover if at all.
I feel very strongly about the use of GMO's as I feel that they are not safe and their has not been any long term studies that show that they are safe and have read about what has happened to people that have grown them as stated in my other post. If anyone wants to grow them or feel that they are the future thats fine with me, just don't expect me to follow suit with you.
I wish I could live long enough to see the time when pollution no longer was a problem and our food was safe for our children to eat, but I fear that, that time will not come in my life time nor my children's life time.
I think sadly that it will take several periods of extreme agricultural and environmental catastrophes, before we learn to take care of the land that we live on and not abuse it.
We've come a long way in just a short time, but we still have a long way to go and a lot more that we must learn, so that we don't end up on the endangered list.
We all have to work together find the right solutions and not destroy what we have, nor destroy the future of our children.
 
Self-Pollinators That Need Protection

Self-pollinating plants whose flowers are open during the time pollination takes place (such as okra or peppers) can either fertilize themselves or be pollinated by other plants (and so they do need some protection from crossing). Since they will self-pollinate, however, they can be caged without worrying about letting insects into their cages to pollinate them.
If these types of plants are grown out of the wind where bumblebees can't reach them (i.e., in a greenhouse or coldframe, etc.), it will help to gently jiggle the plants a time or two per day to mimic the wind and bees. This helps to move the pollen around within their flowers.
http://howtosaveseeds.com/isolate.php

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an effective and environmentally sensitive approach to pest management that relies on a combination of common-sense practices. IPM programs use current, comprehensive information on the life cycles of pests and their interaction with the environment. This information, in combination with available pest control methods, is used to manage pest damage by the most economical means, and with the least possible hazard to people, property, and the environment.
The IPM approach can be applied to both agricultural and non-agricultural settings, such as the home, garden, and workplace. IPM takes advantage of all appropriate pest management options including, but not limited to, the judicious use of pesticides. In contrast, organic food production applies many of the same concepts as IPM but limits the use of pesticides to those that are produced from natural sources, as opposed to synthetic chemicals.
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/ipm.htm
 
With the amount of poison in the water right now it is already a solid catastrophe. Pharacuticals, and petroleum....And not to mention that communities seem helpless to even remove toxins like Flouride. If can't even get flouride removed from your water supplies, then how would you even have a tiny bit of control on getting the big players out, like Gas, acid, petroleum, and biotoxins and plastics. We can all grow plants, but for how much longer, when the water is beyond technology to clean. Right now, with great effort, on the scale of the whole of the armed and unarmed forces of the world, we might be able to turn islands of plasic waste into floating cities, before those bits and bobs of plastic are found in the gut of every dead sea animal in the world. Serious problems need serious people.
 
I agree with you hotty, it will take a lot of very serious work by dedicated people, to clean up our waters, not just the oceans, but our lakes and rivers.
Here in the U.S. we have had some serious weather catastrophes that has caused a lot of contamination in some of our rivers and lakes along with serious contamination of our beach fronts and ocean waters.
The BT oil spill will haunt us for many years along with ongoing Nuclear waste slowly leaking out of underground holding tanks. The Tsunami in Japan where whole towns were washed out to sea is still being washed up on our shores and will continue to cause ocean water contamination for years to come.
There are parts of China that are so badly polluted that they have become toxic waste zones.
Even Europe has areas that are severely polluted to a point that it will take years to clean up. Russia has several areas that will forever be contaminated by toxic waste that may never be cleaned up and will have severe repercussions for years.
 
Video 2: Chili plant "Locato" (PI 387838) outdoor and greenhouse comparison.
Using compost to manage salinity and disease
http://youtu.be/28kwtGnHcaA
 
wildseed57 said:
The difference between Natural BT and plants that have been modified to make BT to kill insects are as different as night and day. Also Round Up Ready plants have been modified to resist the chemical herbicide Round UP which is chemically quite closely related to Agent Orange, "its not the same as agent orange" but some of the same chemicals are used in it. Some of my heath problems have been confirmed to be caused by Agent orange that I was exposed to when I was in Vietnam.
Many herbicides that have been outlawed here are still used by many other countries including China, which now is undergoing a agriculture nightmare do to the over use of many herbicides and pesticides which are linked to the strange disease that has completely killed off all the Bees in large parts of China which has spread to Australia and the US.
This all sounds like a good reason to use plants that make their own pesticide or resist being killed by herbicides, but just what happens when you ingest these plants that have been modified is you get exposed to things that we would normally not eat. BT was never meant to be a part of the food we eat nor plants that can now resist being killed by herbicides.
what is now going on is insects that now can eat corn that has Bt bred in it, and weeds that can withstand being sprayed with stronger and stronger herbicides this is what is happening in countries that believed what Monsanto told them.
"This is the good info" the really dark side is what is happening to people that are fed food products that have been modified, from mothers giving birth to still born babies, genetic malforities, blindness, intestinal holes, stomach ulcers and mental retardation, brain tumors and various Cancers that are higher in people that are exposed to herbicides and pesticides both of which are chemically related in many formulas.
If you feel think that farmers are saving money by feeding their livestock GMO Feeds think again. As Cattle, Pigs, Chicken and Lambs are affected just the same as humans are and many have seen a large loss in their live stock much like what people in poverty stricken areas, Still born animals, tumors, and cancers that their live stock would not normally get.
If you feel that GMO is safe then go ahead and eat them and feed your children them I have nothing against you doing that, I'm not trying to make you do anything you don't want to that is your right.
I'm just trying to give you information that Monsanto, and other Companies that work to create more GMO's won't tell you, you don't have to believe me, but its all on the Internet, page after page after page on all that is going on with using GMO's.
Click to expand...
i threw up a little... in my mouth.. when you suggested that plants somehow grow BT bacteria inside them. i had to stop reading entirely when you go on to claim that glycophosphate =agent orange. sorry.. this same tired dogmatic uninformed crap is so tiresome.

please take the time to understand why the above are so entirely wrong as to make me ill. if you do not want to take the time to understand why agent orange caused so many problems please dont bother.

see agent orange contamination issue.

thanks.

SmokenFire said:
Are you sure you don't work for Monsanto or the local county extension agent? Your zealous defense of some of the most back assward 'progress' in farming would be alarming if I didn't know so many who agree with you. What has come before is not sustainable regardless of results. How many bushels per acre is irrelevant when the land is dying. What your daddy did and my grandpa did for years and years worked most of the time, and when the new strains and fertilizers came out yields increased - at the expense of our collective health.

Forgive me the hippie prose and please check out anything by Joel Salatin and the Omnivore's Dilemma. Buffalo for the Broken Heart is also a keeper - all non-sensationalizing books that can help shed some light on the direction we need to go in: a better direction for all involved.

Please also see:
http://opinionator.b...e-fix-for-food/

That article is about a study funded by the Department of Agriculture in conjunction with the University of Iowa. More fertilizer is the chumps way to keep agribusiness in power. Ditch fertilizer and encourage proper land mgmt and crop rotation; its the only way small farmers will ever see fair wages for their labors.

LAST: We like hot peppers. We're also polar opposites on what farming should be. That's ok too.
Click to expand...

yea i work for monsanto, sucks that they make me pay for deruiters seeds tho.


wildseed57 said:
Going along with the idea of big farms mean a better future is not always the best way to go, sure they can feed the masses, but they can be some of the worst polluters as it is much harder to get rid of waste products, chemical pesticides,herbicides, animal steroids and medicines in ways that are cost effective and are some times illegally dumped, or spread back onto the soil. Although this way of thinking is slowly changing as they learn better and heather ways to take care of waste management.

Going Organic is not taking a step backward and has a good future as many farmers find that the public likes knowing that they can buy products that are not sprayed with a lot of chemicals even if they may cost more.
I for one try and be as organic as possible, and it can be maddening when I'm overwhelmed by pest and disease. I do grow many hybrids along with OP or heirloom varieties, and use well composted manures that have been well treated to kill any pathogens. I have never gotten sick from eating my own vegetables. The soil in my raised beds are full of red worms so I know that the soil has a healthy flora.
I don't have a gripe about the use of pesticides, just the over use of them to the point that the land becomes dead and lifeless.
As pointed out there are areas that are dead by natural causes, but I have seen areas that will no longer grow anything, do to over use of chemicals also that will take many years to recover if at all.
I feel very strongly about the use of GMO's as I feel that they are not safe and their has not been any long term studies that show that they are safe and have read about what has happened to people that have grown them as stated in my other post. If anyone wants to grow them or feel that they are the future thats fine with me, just don't expect me to follow suit with you.
I wish I could live long enough to see the time when pollution no longer was a problem and our food was safe for our children to eat, but I fear that, that time will not come in my life time nor my children's life time.
I think sadly that it will take several periods of extreme agricultural and environmental catastrophes, before we learn to take care of the land that we live on and not abuse it.
We've come a long way in just a short time, but we still have a long way to go and a lot more that we must learn, so that we don't end up on the endangered list.
We all have to work together find the right solutions and not destroy what we have, nor destroy the future of our children.
Click to expand...

i took the time to read a bit about this study. its suggestions seem more than sensible to an extent. it worries me that this study had not been picked up by larger journals and picked to bits, as this is what science is. id like to see this picked to death by peer viewed journals the fact that it hasn't leads me to believe it may be a flawed study? i do not believe journals like nature are in some giant ludicrous Illuminati collusion effort with chemical fertilizer companies, do not bother bringing this up.

nothing i can say will convince you how safe and effective chemical pesticides and fertilizers can be so i wont bother.





hotty brown said:
With the amount of poison in the water right now it is already a solid catastrophe. Pharacuticals, and petroleum....And not to mention that communities seem helpless to even remove toxins like Flouride. If can't even get flouride removed from your water supplies, then how would you even have a tiny bit of control on getting the big players out, like Gas, acid, petroleum, and biotoxins and plastics. We can all grow plants, but for how much longer, when the water is beyond technology to clean. Right now, with great effort, on the scale of the whole of the armed and unarmed forces of the world, we might be able to turn islands of plasic waste into floating cities, before those bits and bobs of plastic are found in the gut of every dead sea animal in the world. Serious problems need serious people.
Click to expand...

flouride huh. can we talk about chem trails insted?
 
queequeg152 said:
greenhouses dude, they are way cost prohibitive. where they DO make sense is in areas that are way cold to much of the year. canada has an amazing amazing amazing greenhouse industry. they make amazing marketable somewhat cheap tomatoes during the coldest months of the year. those greenhouses however cost millions of dollars per acre. they are not a solution for crops like soy and corn, food staples to say the least.

i agree better irrigation is always a good investment i use netafim drippers and sprayers and i would not give them up for anything. large scale farms use somewhat inefficient methods like those giant circular creeping sprinkler systems howver these are not fertigation systems, they are simply pumping well water. fertilizers are applied to the soil directly.
i personally am a fan of fertigation chemigation techniques. i enjoy perusing this because its an excellent exercise in practical engineering! the rewards i reap are basically 0 labor and excellent control of fertilizers. i am able to run tap water or fertilized water when ever i want. my system can even detect rainfall and delay the system automatically. i dont take advantage of that however, i handle that manually. i dont have much faith in the sensors i have for detecting rain.
at some point i want to get a tipping bucket rain sensor for real quantitative rainfall measurements.
i suspect fertigation could be extented to larger scale commercial operations growing vegetables and other row crops... however its probably not suitable for the large scale grows of stuff like soy and corn that is basically grown 10's of thousands of acres at a time.
Click to expand...

A polly tunnel could be built for under $500
Low cost greenhouse farming


How easy is a Polytunnel to construct? - V71

http://youtu.be/SEA_cXjIkAg
 
ok again. 500 feet for what 100 sq feet? how many acres of corn does one typically produce? corn grows like 9 feet tall?
its not even close to viable. corn combines are what 15 feet tall? so you need polytunnels that are massively tall and strong. they will cost an absolute fortune to build. they are absolutly not suited for field crops lol, i dont understand why you keep bringing this up?

im not saying they are not good , because its great for vegs or any row crops probably if you have the climate and cash for the start up costs.

what are you going to do with all this greenhouse plastic anyway? first tornado and its all getting replaced. regardless every 5 years max its getting replaced... thats 10s of millions of tons of LDPE plastic sheating.
 
queequeg152 said:
ok again. 500 feet for what 100 sq feet? how many acres of corn does one typically produce? corn grows like 9 feet tall?
its not even close to viable. corn combines are what 15 feet tall? so you need polytunnels that are massively tall and strong. they will cost an absolute fortune to build. they are absolutly not suited for field crops lol, i dont understand why you keep bringing this up?

im not saying they are not good , because its great for vegs or any row crops probably if you have the climate and cash for the start up costs.

what are you going to do with all this greenhouse plastic anyway? first tornado and its all getting replaced. regardless every 5 years max its getting replaced... thats 10s of millions of tons of LDPE plastic sheating.
Click to expand...

This is a Pepper forum why are you so stuck on corn? (Tomatoes, Cucumber, Lettuce, strawberries) There has not been a tornado "close" to town in over 100 years I have 8MM lexan with a 15 year warranty on finish it could last up to 25 years.but greenhouses are used everywhere from areas with deserts (Arizona ,Africa, Israel) to Florida and Alaska. You said "greenhouses dude, they are way cost prohibitive."

Plastic can be recycled or reused for other things see: http://www.westcoastplasticrecycling.com/greenhouse-poly-recycling

"Yield data show that tomato production is 600,000 pounds per acre in the greenhouse, versus 60,000 pounds per acre in the field; or 60 pounds per plant in the greenhouse versus 6 pounds per plant in the field."
http://www.deltatsolutions.com/enews/ControllingTheFutureofFood.html

"Using the vertical space in your greenhouse with benches or hanging rods, doubles or triples the growing area."
http://www.grow4it.com/article-containers.html
 
im stuck on corn and soy because thats what we were talking about? with respect to monsanto anyway.

ive already stated greenhouses are nothing short of "the shit" with regards to vegstables. I have a greenhouse up right now. ive never contested your statements regarding greenhouse yields.
i have a tomato plant that is approaching 20lbs total yield so far. this plant was started in november. it is 13' tall so far. it will probably make it into early may before i chop it.

there are greenhouse cultivars that yield numbers approaching 80lbs PER PLANT. there is nothing but truth in your claim that they support far better vegetable yeilds. they are just not in any way practically applied to field crops like corn and soy.
 
Isn't the main issue inserting funky DNA into our food crops? Whether it is to "insect proof", or to prevent growing from the seeds in the crop....the unknowns involved can be way too sinister to be worth the perceived benefits.

The whole "buy our seeds every single year, or no food for you" mentality sucks ass!!
 
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