Blogs & Ecology

Wireless Soil Sensors to Improve Farming
Researchers at Iowa State University have developed wireless soil sensors that could bring agriculture in the information age (more than it already is) and make farming much more efficient.

The goal would be to put these sensors about 1 foot underground in a grid pattern (80 to 160 feet apart) and have them gather information about how water moves through a field, soil moisture, help understand the carbon and nitrogen cycles within soils, which nutrients are present or missing, soil temperature, etc. Read on for more details....

via University of New South Wales

Yellow journalism is expected from supermarket tabloids and local television news casts, but the once venerated Slate shocked with a recent headline. "Rusted Roots: Is Organic Agriculture Polluting Our Food With Heavy Metals?" it screamed. The article hardly gets started before it's obvious that the author, James E. McWilliams is stretching a bit too far to make the connection that organic agriculture is causing heavy metal contamination in food. ...

I wasn't sure if we’d covered Earth Weave’s wool and hemp carpets, but I was wrong. Years ago, Kara had mentioned them in a nice little primer on Finding Solutions to Toxic Carpeting. What makes Earth Weave noteworthy is that they claim their Bio-Floor to be different to any other North American produced carpet.

Image source: Getty Images

Images courtesy of author.

This article is continued from yesterday looking at how Bonterra winery is the leader in organic grape growing, and just how do they keep their plants healthy and the bugs away without the help of pesticides.

Image courtesy of author.

This is the first of a two-part article looking at how the largest maker of organic wine in the US was able to make so much wine using biodynamic and organic methods.

Image: Notcot.com

Straight from Minnesota comes Prairie Organic Vodka, made from a coop of over 900 farmers “who share ownership of the brand.” Prairie describes their vodka as “beautifully smooth. With hints of melon and pear on the nose, creaminess on the palette, and a bright smooth finish…” ...

Larger version of illustration at Globe and Mail

Turning waste into fertilizer in Boston

We have written before about the need to change our waste water system that mixes black and gray water and flushes it away; commenters were not impressed and wrote "Composting toilets are NEVER going to make it into the main stream market. Debating it is silly." But the debate is happening anyways; Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow writes an excellent article in the Boston Globe on the subject.

In Ontario, Canada, they get a lot of sewage sludge out of the treatment plants; 120,000 tonnes are spread on 37,000 acres of agricultural land. Some farmers love it because it is free, while other fertilizers are getting very expensive; others refuse to touch the stuff. The Star is running a fascinating series on it, starting with the scary ingredients:

"Feces, urine, vomit, blood. Synthetic hormones, heart pills, antibiotics, illicit drugs, Viagra. Bacteria, viruses, E. coli, parasites. Household cleaners, shampoo, solvents, pesticides and traces of arsenic, mercury, cadmium, lead, dioxins and flame retardants."

...

Tomas Munita for The New York Times

For thousands of years, seabirds ate anchovies and then crapped all over islands off the coast of Peru. It got up to a hundred and fifty feet deep and was the world's best fertilizer; wars were fought over it as thousands worked the quano mines. Soon they hit rock, Fritz Haber invented synthetic fertilizers and the party was over.