This conference was held in early 2020, just before COVID-19 became a household word. The speaker insights are as relevant today as they were then. You can view playbacks on our sister site, at endofite.com. Watch the Playbacks Good Nutrition Begins On Farms and In Gardens. Hipocrates once recognized food as the best medicine. Of … Read more
Brackish Water is Toxic To Crop Plants About 97% of the fresh water on the earth is considered too brackish (too salty) for most agricultural use. Desalination, or purification, is of course possible. Mechanical desalination processes are widely known. But making desalination cost effective and environmentally friendly can be challenging. The National Acadamies tell us … Read more
Nopales, or Prickly Pear cactus, include numerous species of the genus Opuntia which thrive in poor soils and arid lands. These cacti can be grown and harvested for their tunas, or fruit, and for their pads. They thrive in deeper, well drained soils, and can tolerate pH levels as high as 7.8. California researchers have investigated … Read more
Few ideas may seem less intuitive to bring together than global warming and nutrition. Yet, when you remember that health begins in living soil, and all life is stressed by too much heat, the logic starts to fall into place. Scientists correlate climate change with nutrition According to a recent report in Science Advances (summarized in the Vox) … Read more
What is a Disruptive Innovation A disruptive innovation is an innovation that enters the market inconspicuously, at the grass roots, so to speak. Adding remarkable value, often at a low cost, the innovation quickly transforms the marketplace. For more than a century, agricultural advisors have focused on the chemical needs of soils, often at the … Read more
Stop Turning Your Compost Composting offers a terrific way to culture native microbes that benefit your soil. However, there is more to a good compost than simply building a pile of manure and yard waste. Proper aeration is important to prevent overheating and to ensure that aerobic bacteria-bacteria that consume oxygen, dominate the mixture. While … Read more
Recently, I was invited into a discussion on the potential for “solar powered nitrogen factories”. The dialog dealt with using legumes and grasses as cover crops to increase soil fertility. This is of course, a great strategy which farmers are adopting at large scales. As the cover crops grow, they release sugars that feed … Read more
Few characters I dealt with in my years as as a researcher were as colorful as Chuck Redman. Chuck was a retired solar energy technician who had dedicated many lab hours during his career to exploring the movement of adsorbed water. After retirement, Chuck had become fascinated with the hypothesis that significant amounts of … Read more
