How can the Murray Darling System be saved for ever?

I suppose some saw the recent Catalyst show on this? Very scary programme.
SEE
https://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/murraydarling/

* The eighth largest river system in the world.Almost gone.
* Areas turning to almost pure sulphuric acid.
Killing all life (including micro-organisms that 'revive' in flood times,and that kick start the flood food chain)
* The biggest River system in Australia
* Over 30,000 lakes and swamps essential for wildlife, especially birds- turning toxic
* Half of Australian bird species in danger
* Many town and communities predicted to become 'ghost towns
* One eighth of the Australian landmass at risk.'

A petition
https://rivermurray.com/about-the-murray ... ing-basin/
https://rivermurray.com/html/petition/on ... ition.html
A prayer
https://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 325640.htm

I have made a couple of posts on another thread that by rights belong here
OK if I duplicate moderators? (Could you also pls fix spelling of Murray/Murry in title?







--
Michael
"What could possibly go wrong?!"
DOCTOR WHO

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

missed half the system in your map

easiest way is to stop irrigators

but then what do we eat?

I'm old enough to remember the darling, Bidgee, Murray, macquarie, lachlan, bogan etc etc etc to have been in major flood

flooding happens - because of the totally controlled river systems, but not the full floodplain floods of my childhood.

I remember catching a murray cod - 64kg - on a boiled egg - -but that was in the early 70's and probably one of the last big ones caught on the Bidgee

blowing up the dams and weirs will work for a while (and get me arrested for suggesting it) but they would be replaced and the same problems happen very quickly

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

paradisi
Can you please tell some stories of those days on the Murray Darling?


Transferred from can we feed Australia
How serendipitously strange.
I was just directed to this website.
Incredible Sahara Forest Project to Generate Fresh Water, Solar Power and Crops in African Desert

https://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09 ... roject.php

How would one of these go distilling seawater at the headwaters of the Murray Darling?
Would the Clarence river be the closest link between the coast and the headwaters of the system?

https://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03 ... s_from.php
or one of these?



https://www.solarpanelsdot.com/news/spai ... urope.html

or one of these over the dividing range?

https://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06 ... es_nev.php

What about one of these 100 miles long?

You could perhaps adapt the idea ?

Whatever; we need some money spent on some inovative ideas NOW.
The above pictures are not futuristic concepts they are working in other countries now.
Where is Australia's equivalent?
We need the vision and the money and the engineering and the determination and the overseas expertise that gave us the snowy system
This time with great environmental sensitivity

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 384917.htm
It is OK being Up beat if that beating on the Tom Toms brings some rain.
i think we need to insulate this system from the vagaries of weather.
It is just too important a system to let go to chance.

https://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 02,00.html

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

The system depends on the vagaries of the weather, on having dry years as well as wet ones.
A complete secession of irrigated agriculture in the basin would be enormously unpopular, cause food shortages and probably just move the problem to another river system.
The only practical solution is to try to adapt our farming practices to the vagaries of the weather, climate and river health. This means abandoning some traditional irrigation crops (i.e, rice, cotton, dairy & beef) and growing more dryland crops like wheat in the cooler months, or perhaps olives, pistashio nuts etc...
By farming better and smarter we could greatly reduce the water required for irrigation. On many of these farms the land is structreless, has very little organic matter and consequently dries out very easily and needs lots of irrigation. This is the result of poor farming on a very large scale.
Improving the structure and increasing the organic matter content to >3% can reduce irrigation needs by 75%.
By growing higher value crops farmers could reduce the land they farm while maintaining their incomes. The excess land could then be bought (or leased) by government in order to initiate large scale reforestation and landcare projects along the edges of the basin.
Decades of work has been done by the Demeter biodynamic organization to apply biodynamics to large areas and thereby adapt it to Australian farming conditions. Demeter Australia is now the largest BD organization in the world in terms of hectares. It is my hope that as the crisis worsens more and more farmers will turn to this method as a last resort.
IG

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

There is a Gov report/study being done on the Murray/Darling sytem as we speak. After that they'll do another and another....and so on. SA will blame it on up-stream irrigators in Vic who in turn will blame it on someone else. Some more mud slinging will go on ... oh I mean dust lol. Meanwhile yet another pipeline will be built off this poor river.
The Murray River was once my livelyhood. But although it caused me much pain I decided if I was to get on with my life I would need to leave the River and all it's problems behind me. I think there is nothing but bad news for the River Murray in the near future.

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

Nice. Where the tidal system allows, large greenhouses could be constructed over tidal canals in order to collect fresh water, while the sides of the greenhouses could grow crops with this collected water. The system could be set up using technology that ran by itself without the need for human monitoring...Gaviotas has the technology to create passive watering systems using the soil moisture itself to regulate the inflow of irrigation water. https://www.dharma-haven.org/five-havens/gaviotas.htm

I suggest the Aussie govt. get Paolo Lugari, founder of Gaviotas or some of their engineers down to the Murray to work on the problem. The three main problems are 1.Dying source water, 2.Salination of soils and increased % of salt in river water, 3.Pollution from chemical fertilization and urban/industrial pollution. The solution must address all of these and not simply flush the problem out into the ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarasvati_River —The center of Vedic culture in India was along the Sarasvati...as the iceage water from the Himalayas ran out...the river and culture disappeared. The mountains supporting the Murray need to be reforested wherever possible in trees that bring in snow/rain. I just read that firs were planted in Tlemcen valley in Algeria on the verge of the Sahara and this bought in snow every year. Trees associated with the rainforest and with snow need to be planted. NOT desert plants like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus the aromatics of which probably repel rain in the atmosphere...(anyone got some information on this).

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

There needs to be a review of the tree spectrum in Australia prior to the big asteroid hit 250 million years ago. Chances are that if that asteroid hadn’t have sterilized the Australian landmass then the present flora would be far more diverse and more like that of South America. That hit and the ongoing desertification of Oz has left the Eucalyptus as the dominant survivor species. And I suspect that the volatility of the aromatic emissions of the Eucalyptus coupled with the pressure thermal movement of the upper atmosphere caused by the dry heated desert actually causes air currents to push ocean moisture away from the sunbaked land. The electric charge of the emissions of volatile organic substances may indeed “break up” the formation and condensation of raindrop particles in the upper atmosphere preventing rain clouds from forming. Leading to permanent desertification, which will only serve the hardy Eucalyptus itself and other species as resistant to drought as they. This Survivor Plant Spectrum lead to ongoing desertification and failed to build up the humus or provide the cloud seeding and rain attraction necessary to keep Australia in lush tropical rainforest.

Nursery Rainforest Greenhouse
Obviously at the mouth of the river where it is at its widest, the greenhouse could not span the river itself, but would be run either side with gravity fed channels of river water through the greenhouse structure. Planting in the greenhouse would include canopy trees (Neem, Moringa, and spreading Amazonian trees) toward the “height” of the middle, then understory trees either side and food crops at the edges. The five mile long greenhouses would probably be of either blue or green plastic depending on which nurtures the flora/fauna of the river and provide the least light-reflection (as such huge structures would alter the local climate). The greenhouse structures would provide temporary pseudo-rainforest to re-establish the natural river tree canopy—so they would start out at the mouth of the river and every five years the greenhouse would be moved along to another stretch of the river until the river is forested right up to the source again.
Simultaneously while re-establishing the mouth of the river, the tributaries in the hills need to be reforested with Caribbean Pine (Pinus caribea), Firs and rain attracting species. Mychorizae produce a fourfold increase nutrient uptake to plants thus establishing a powerful root system in order to withstand salination and hold the riverbanks together. Mychorizae also keep the moisture in the river reforestation stable thereby preventing redesertification and breakdown of the integrity of the riverside structure.
https://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/su ... 746133_ITM


The trees would reinstate the natural shade and evaporative cooling system of the water…and help to keep the river water cooled toward the ideal 4°C as established by Schauberger. Schauberger himself may not agree with the idea of glasshouse structures “over top” of river systems due to the heating of the water…however these systems might be able to be engineered such that they actually cool the river stream with air currents rather than heat it. Over time the increased rainfall in the region would help to wash the salts down into lower regions out of the tree and crop root zone…the build up in humus and soil microbe life would help keep nutrients and nitrogen in the soil rather than leeching into the river and out into the ocean. The increase in biomass in the soil along the river would act as a sewage treatment plant for the transformation of pollutants, in a similar way to healthy bacteria in the intestines keeping pathological putrifying forms of microbe life at bay…and create necessary nutrients for the health of the whole.

SALT
As stated by Callum Coates, the trees allow the fresh rain water to infiltrate the soil....and here is the important bit. The presence of a forest cover has each tree acting as a solar pump. Gravity is trying to force the fresh water down but the trees (plants) are reversing gravity's effect and holding the fresh water up. As fresh water is less dense than the saltier water below it, this creates a fresh water lens which sits as a high water table in a fully functioning landscape pushing the saltier water-table further down out of reach of the vegetation. All plants require salts to grow and water to grow and Haikai Tane described this system in the Aussie floodplain system as a stepped diffused system of broad acre hydroponics.....feeding just the right balance of salts and minerals and water to the green cover above. Bare ground with over'head irrigation will produce saline conditions because there are no solar pumps operating to keep the fresh water in place.

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 170819.htm —Aspirin-like chemical given off by stressed trees. Plant to plant communication occurs on the ecosystem level through emissions of volatile organic substances like methyl salicylates which act like immune system communication to prepare the plants for the stress of drought, fluctuations in temperature, insect attack or disease. A stressed plant gives off these threat chemicals and consequently warn others of the danger, thereby helping them resist and recover.

Hi Tom and Alex,
Nice work on the aspirin-like chemicals.
I wonder if you would give your learned opinion on the idea that the emissions from eucalyptus trees in Australia maybe actually increasing the desertification of the land, as explained in this excerpt of a piece on the demise of the Murray River in Australia at the bottom of the attachment I sent you.

Hi Jana,
It is an interesting idea. Eucalyts have one of the highest volatile
organic compound (VOC) emission rates of any plant species. Trees can
control clouds/rain through these VOC because they form cloud
condensation nuclei (CCN) that provide a starting point for all cloud
droplets (i.e. a surface for water to condense on). We typically think
of forests increasing CCN and thus more clouds/rain. But at some point a
large number of CCN will actually decrease rain because you have many
surfaces and not enough water- so the result is many small droplets that
are too small to fall to the surface.
cheers,
Alex

https://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/ ... 1_1255.mp3 —Ken McCracken predicts a 20 year cooling period connected with an absence of sunspots on the sun…part of a 2300 year cycle. If this solar max is cooler then we can assume that this 20 year cooling trend is in effect. This puts another spin on the upcoming 50 year Solar Max which supposed to be larger than normal.

 

Re: How can the Murray Darling System be saved for ever?

Some plants do this anyway The White Willow and Meadowsweet (the original inspiration for 'Aspro' -old botanic name Asperia odorata)
traditional horticulturists would soak their cuttings in water containing Willow Sticks. This promotes root growth. You can do the same with a tiny bit of of an asprin tablet. it is also said to help preserve cut flowers.

I read a research article on this a while back about how Amazonian trees literally produce rain. (Maybe deliberately an 'consciously"??)
I have not been able to find the article since.
Do you have a reference for trees producing rain please?
I have found two but somewhat contradictory
The fist showing the increase in rainfall from one side to the other of the Rabbit Proof Fence in Western Australia (more rain on the bushy, uncultivated side)
The other article on how, after a severe bushfire in the Victorian Alps,trees prevent water run-off into the MD River

.

[/quote]
From what I have read this cooling effect of the sun will only last 3-5 years
See also
https://links.org.au/node/683
The world economic meltdown is bound to put the environment and/or planet on the "back-burner" ( a good pun- no pardon asked for )

BTW
Walnut Trees Emit Aspirin-like Chemical To Deal With Stress
"Your wife, your dog and walnut tree.
The more you beat them the better they be"
Thomas Tusser (in his gardening book) c. 16C?

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

The cooling period is a mini iceage dip in solar output connected to a 2300 year solar cycle...the Ken McCracken talk explains this. NASA was expecting a 50 year large max...so in the next few years we will see who is right...if Ken McCracken is right this gives us another 20 years grace to transform to a postcarbon culture.

Mollison mentions trees seeding rain all thru his work. For starters they hold water on the land and in the water table instead of letting it run off into the rivers and ocean. They give off bacteria, pollen, spores, and chemicals...which attract water molecules and build rain drops. Then there is probably an electromagnetic biophotonic, ionic (life-energy) ORMUS effect which we don't really know much about yet, but you can get a glimpse of by studying Viktor Schauberger and The Secret of Life by Georges Lakhovsky.

The point is to plant alpine trees in the hills of the river tributaries, and rainforest trees along the flood plains, not desert species, and to plant enough trees percentage wise to counteract the volatile-dispersing effect of the eucalyptus emissions.

SALTIFICATION
In the youtube Drylands Permaculture video Mollison says you can reduce the salting of the soil problem in Australia by reforesting to lower the watertable. Callum Coats in YouTube - The Beauty of Water he says that reforestation prevents the runoff and rapid evaporation and allows the rain to sink in, washing salts down into lower soil regions. Rising salt levels in Oz is killing the rivers and lakes also.

It looks like reforestation is the most important human enterprise at this point in our human experiment...to cool the planet, reduce water vapor levels and consequent wind speeds, cool the rivers and water flows, reduce erosion, capture carbon, increase humus, create oxygen, provide food and resources, slow global warming and prevent the next iceage.

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

Still the research on both issues is equivocal.
i would like to believe it but i need to convince hard nosed scientists.
Do you have ANY research links. Please?

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

Forests affect climate in three different ways: they absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and help to keep the planet cool; they evaporate water to the atmosphere and increase cloudiness, which also helps keep the planet cool; and they are dark and absorb a lot of sunlight, warming the Earth. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 220936.htm

Antidotal evidence mentioned here:
Tlemcen valley in Algeria on the verge of the Sahara and this bought in snow every year. https://www.kheper.net/topics/Theon/Alma.html

The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono

“Trees are known to evaporate more water than even lakes, due to the surface area of the leaves. So the more deforestation the less evaporative cooling of the land…the slower the evaporation cycle and the more droughts and flooding occur. Because there is less evaporative cooling this means a hotter more humid climate. By planting more trees, evaporative cooling is increased, speeding up the evaporative cooling cycle, so the more trees, the cooler the land and the more rain. By speeding up the evaporative cooling cycle we can slow down the carbon dioxide global warming taking place.” Brett de Courcy Harris, Speeding up Evaporative Cooling to Minimise the Symptoms of Global Climate Change

Algae could be included in the greenhouse reforestation-desalination along the river bank by growing algae in the manmade water channels diverted off the main river that cut through the greenhouses which provide the water for distillation/condensation.

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

Thanks. If you ever trip over anything else please let me know.
It is annoying me, that having read the article, now I can't find it The web is such a huge "Haystack"

You might like to look at this thread for some info on farmers growing Algae
https://hypography.com/forums/terra-pret ... log-2.html

WA Wheatbelt tries seaweed as cash crop - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
PS
I often think of my father talking about "Bulls in a china shop" when it comes to the way we blunder around Gaia-Earth
Look at these for example:- (I have been seaching though Science Direct
https://www.sciencedaily.com/search/inde ... all&page=9
But my lifetime is too short.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 064922.htm

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

"Buying Back the River"

https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/

Some Viewer Comment
https://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Mess ... =1&te=True

Surely more water= more life, more food, better communities more wildlife??
is there no way that the border rivers (the best rainfall areas in Australia) can contribute?

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

I am going to paper send my piece on eucalypt/drought and the regeneration of urban trees to Peter Garrett and a few others.

Awesome stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkLp5f8g ... re=related —David Sereda
Water is it conscious? Filmmaker and mystic ecologist David Sereda discussed some of the amazing properties of water-- it may actually have memory and consciousness,
https://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2...
https://voiceentertainment.net/store/
https://www.lulu.com/DavidSereda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_...
https://www.hado.newww.voiceentertainmen ... ucts_id=73 DVD: ‘Water The Great Mystery,’ Saida Medvedeva Also sold at the Bleep Store and on Amazon

Here's a direct link to the flash frozen water that was restructured by the
Sound of the Sun as recorded by NASA
https://www.coasttoc oastam.com/ gen/page2769. html?theme= light

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

https://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/conten ... 396896.htm

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

Hi M,
I started a thread on this at a ecology forum, if you want to check it out...windguy in particular is the big picture man worth following.

https://www.theenvironmentsite.org/forum ... hange.html

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

Yes very interesting thanks
I think the government merely buying back the water/irrigation rights is a stop-gap measure at best. It certainly does not enrich and help MRB communities and towns.
We could really turn the whole MD basin into the food bowl of Australia if we could get more water into the system from some massive water creating programme near the border rivers (N. NSW). it always seems to be raining there anyway.
I like the long greenhouse idea. perhaps one from the sea to the river? Maybe with some hard thinking,good engineering, new technology, and political will something could be devised?
OTHERWISE Next remembrance day will be remembered for massive (animal) death and disaster other than WW1.

https://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/conten ... 420113.htm

 

Re: How can the Murry Darling System be saved for ever?

Contributing factors besides deforestation include the vegetation cover reduction due to loss of organic matter in the soil from chemical agricultural. Loss of evaporative cooling from deforestation increases ocean temperatures as well, and warming oceans hold less CO2 and grow less plankton. With regards to CO2 sequestration in biomass, the reduction in vegetation, reduction in leaf litter/soil organic matter and reduction in algae combine to be the most significant factors in liberating CO2 to warm the globe.

REMINERALIZATION
In this electrical universe minerals are key to spiritual nutrition.

In an age of degeneration, to recover our health and sanity we need to focus on remineralization and phytochemical rich superfood and wild food supplementation due to generations of nutritional decline. The accelerating soil depletion and food quality decline are rapidly eroding the nutritional foundations of our health and spirituality. In the land of plenty, despite being overfed we find ourselves tired, depleted and malnourished. Most of the environmental modification methods we use provide short-term benefits but are highly detrimental in the long term. Thus our exploitive practices are increasingly coming back to us as degenerative disease, crime, violence, drug use, loss of hope and loss of clarity. Demineralized diets affect not only our bodies, but also our ability to reason our way out of our demise and to act. Diseases are created chiefly when we destroy the harmony reigning among mineral substances present in air, water, food and—most crucially—soil. If we don't have descent “prima material”...the balanced basic constituents for building strong bodies, then we still cannot incarnate fully and live in vibrant health.

As with disease in humans, forest ecologists recognized that insects, parasites and blights targeted trees already weakened by demineralization. Our topsoils contain less than 16 of the 60-plus essential minerals. This demineralization is partially caused by more than a century of petrochemical agriculture, but also because the earth herself has reached the end of its current demineralization cycle, in the 10,000 years since the last ice age.

John D. Hamaker, author of Survival of Civilization, puzzled over the paradoxes of the "greenhouse effect" and the clear scientific evidence that the earth has gone through at least thirty 100,000-year cycles of glaciation within the three-million-year record of recurring ice ages. Major ice ages have occurred with great regularity, each cycle encompassing 90,000 years of glaciation followed by around 10,000 years of warm, interglacial periods. Ice ages are the mechanism by which Gaia regenerates herself. As the glaciers inch their way over the continents, they slowly grind mountains and rock into a powder-fine mineral dust (loess) which is then deposited liberally over the surface of the earth by winds. Besides feeding vegetation, mineral dust aerosol represents a dominant, and in some cases primary, source of nutrient iron to remote ocean areas—phytoplankton growth is limited by Fe availability. Due to the increase in plankton biomass, high dust deposition rates to the world ocean at the Last Glacial Maximum have lowered atmospheric CO2 (8-40 ppm) through Fe fertilization.

Current symptoms of warming reflect the fact that we are reaching the end of an inter-glacial period and so we are running out of the mineral fertility needed to keep carbon locked in the biosphere. As soil fertility declines towards the end of the interglacial periods, deciduous trees become diseased, just as our elms, chestnuts and maples are today. Studies also showed that during ice ages the tropics were hotter and dryer than usual—the very direction our climate is now moving in. Hamaker observed that the greenhouse gases gather in a greater concentration around the equator, where the sun's rays are most intense. The result is that in the past few decades we have begun to see the tropics heating up and drying out—as in the extreme drought and famine in Africa. As the greenhouse gases become hotter, they cause tropical ocean water to evaporate, forming moisture-laden clouds, rising tropical air sucks down the heavy polar northern air masses, creating high winds, hurricanes and tornadoes.

The topsoils become demineralized over the 10,000 year warm interglacial period. Stressed and weakened from demineralized soils trees become prone to disease, die-off and consequently fire. Trees are no longer able to remove excess CO2 from the air, causing the build-up of greenhouse gases. Just before the onset of the previous ice ages, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose exponentially—due to this demineralization/disease/fire cycle. Hamaker found those trees with the greatest leaf area were the first affected by blights or disease toward the end of previous interglacial periods. Chestnut trees have been measured at 60 acres of leaf area per tree, elms at about 40. Of course, the trees with larger leaf areas require more mineral rich soils to sustain their high nutrient demands.

The amount of energy available in an ecosystem depends on the type of vegetation the area can support. Remineralization generates thriving trees and ecosystems, so healthy they resist disease and insect attack. Besides remineralizing with rock dust we can also add blue green algae fertilizers to soils to build humus, microbe life and water holding capacity. The fast growing algae could...dispose of surplus CO2 and feed the world...To propagate blue green algae all one needs is a pond, water and rock dust as the nutrient supply. The algae would build soil humus, feed soil microorganisms thereby build up beneficial micro flora and strengthening food crops. Blue-green algae are another important source of fixing atmospheric nitrogen. In natural systems all of the nitrogen comes from the atmosphere.

Carbon and oxygen comprise the bulk of soil organic matter by weight, carbon almost half and oxygen a little over one third. Hydrogen and nitrogen are the next major constituents of soil organic matter, and comprise around 10% by weight in long lived forms. 98% of the nitrogen derives indirectly through fixation of atmospheric nitrogen by microbes, with around 2% being attributed to lightening causing the gas to go into aqueous solution. The hydrogen drives through the dissociation of water. Soil bacteria use energy derived from the oxidation ("burning") of carbohydrates to reduce molecular nitrogen (N2) to ammonia (NH3). The ammonia resulting from fixation is rapidly incorporated into certain amino acids and nitrogen-containing compounds. The nitrogen fixation in nonsymbiotic or symbiotic bacteria requires two different enzymes which contain iron and molybdenum. Free-living, non-photosynthetic bacteria depend on soil organic matter as a food source whereas the photosynthetic microorganisms may derive their food from the products of photosynthesis.

The amounts of nitrogen fixed by free-living non-photosynthetic bacteria in the soil may achieve an approximate maximum of 15 kilograms per hectare per year. More so if suitable organic matter is added to the soil. Contributions of the free-living, photosynthetic cyanobacteria to the nitrogen economy of soils are around 50 kilograms per hectare per year. Nitrogen-fixing activity of these organisms is strongly dependent on adequate sunlight in addition to favorable moisture conditions. Nitrogen fixation rates from 75 to 300 kilograms of N per hectare per year is achieved from the symbiotic association of certain micro-organisms with the roots of higher plants, such as the bacteria (Rhizobium) which characteristically infect the roots of leguminous plants (e.g., bean, soybean, clover, peanut). Most of the nitrogen fixation in marine environments (about 20% of the total amount of annual biological fixation) is attributed to the cyanobacteria but many other kinds of nitrogen-fixing microorganisms have also been found in such environments. And nitrogenase activity from non-photosynthetic and photosynthetic bacteria has been detected in the soil surrounding the mycorrhizal roots of land, marine and freshwater plants. Living plant roots release a wide variety of simple organic compounds which may be used as food by free-living soil bacteria.

The breakdown of soil organic matter occurs via biological combustion wherein the carbon is released as CO2. The breakdown is accelerated by agricultural practices such as tillage and the application of mineral fertilizers. Over the last century the increase in atmospheric CO2 is commensurate with the loss of soil organic matter. If global warming is due to increased levels of atmospheric CO2 then it can be effectively addressed solely by adopting land management practices that rebuild the levels of soil organic matter. This is the thesis of Mr Rob Gourlay and Dr Brian Tunstall at Environmental Research & Information Consortium (ERIC) in Australia. They say the increase in CO2 is an effect and not a cause of global warming. With increased knowledge on the energy balance of the earth it will be found that the cause of global warming is directly related to vegetation clearing, hence the solution involves reestablishing viable plant communities. Soil organic matter is central to the development of plant communities and hence is central to addressing global warming. The increase in atmospheric CO2 is proportional to the loss of organic matter from the soil, due to the loss of perennial vegetation through conventional agricultural practices.

Gourlay and Tunstall say the application of economic/bureaucratic solutions to global warming, such as carbon credits, serves only to produce large profits for companies at extreme costs to the community and the environment. The problem of increased levels of CO2 can be solved by widespread application of rockdust and green crops (soil organic matter), thereby building humus and microbes in the soil. This in turn will reinstate the vegetative mantle of the earth, stop desertification and erosion, pull CO2 out of the air and reinstate evaporative cooling. This has the added benefit of reducing the degenerative decline of humanity, whereupon we are better able to correctly address the other problems we have created due to our unconsciousness. If human health is to improve rather than continue its existing decline, and if global warming is to be mitigated, then increasing the levels of soil organic matter must be a fundamental priority.

Soil organic matter has been forgotten in commercial agriculture because of the mistaken belief that fertility can be attained using mineral fertilizers. The cation exchange capacity of even the best clay is much less than that for soil organic matter. The high chelating capacity of humic compounds is the main reason for the increased fertility achieved by increasing soil organic matter. Plants require a steady supply of nutrients throughout their growth hence the soil must act as a nutrient reservoir. Most soluble nutrients would be lost through leaching without effective storage in the root zone. Soil organic matter provides the necessary storage for supplying nutrients throughout the growth of a plant. Microbes supply all of the more than 60 elements needed by plants in an appropriate form and relative abundance. The elements supplied in mineral fertilizers are only a small fraction of these. With systematic application of chemical fertilizers, some of the 60 elements needed by plants become depleted because of the negative impact on microbial populations, humus-nutrient-chelation and soil structure.

Earth’s protective covering of vegetation completely depends on the functioning of soil bacteria. Vegetation depends on the effective functioning of the living organic component of soils. Organic matter rich in nutrients and readily decomposable carbon compounds produces a great flush in the growth of some groups of microbes. Soil organic matter is formed and broken down by microbes, hence the accumulation of humus is determined by factors that control microbial activity. And the population of bacteria is directly related to the organic matter content of the soil. Bacteria contribute to organic matter and humus build up in soils and can aid in improving soil structure. Microbial byproducts glue soil particles into water-stable aggregates, water holding capacity, pore size and infiltration rate of soils. Crop productivity may be enhanced when the soil is "inoculated" with beneficial microorganisms such as the improved strains of the nitrogen-fixing bacterium Rhizobium, the nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria Azobacter and Azospirillum and the mycorrhizae, fungi that enhance plant phosphorus nutrition.

The optimum pH for the growth of soil bacteria is NEUTRAL pH. Farmers need to keep the hydrogen ion concentration of their soils close to neutral because in highly alkaline or highly acidic conditions the growth and multiplication of bacteria is inhibited. Generally in heavy rainfall areas receiving 100 inches and more it is advisable to apply lime or dolomite once every two years and in moderate rainfall regions, once every four years. Appropriate levels of soil organic matter (4%) greatly increase the ability of the soil to store water in the range of potentials suitable for plants. Plus the improvement in soil aeration by organic matter greatly improves plant access to stored water and nutrients, and the ready availability of oxygen promotes root growth.

Soil organic matter and microbes have increased in importance with global warming as vegetation is significant for levels of carbon sequestration and potential CO2 fixation. Rockdust distribution and microbe inoculation in association with increased soil organic matter can help reverse global warming, reduce CO2 levels, prevent extreme weather, stop ocean warming, and counteract acid rain and the acidification of the oceans. Through remineralization and preventing global warming, the next ice age can be stopped, or delayed until we are better prepared for it. Rockdust and humus production are also the foundational mechanism for regenerating the human species towards an enlightened, reGenerous civilization in which war and disease are rendered obsolete—ie: no longer necessary as a means of waking up, for we know the mechanism of the nightmare and have chosen a different way. Mr Rob Gourlay and Dr Brian Tunstall conclude that the only viable solution for the soil, vegetation and superior food production is to return to the naturally evolved system in which nutrients are supplied to plants via microbes.


Mr Rob Gourlay and Dr Brian Tunstall - Global Implications of Soil Organic Matter by Environmental Research & Information Consortium (ERIC) – https://eric.com.au/html/news.php