The ghost of farming future

[dontknowanything]

So what you're saying is that after another roughly 27,570 storms the numbers will match up.

Or to put it another way, 20t of TNT is equivalent to 413,500mm of rain.

Seems like the hyperbole train has left the station.

 

[martian]

".......In one year, the rainfall is equivalent to 20t/acre of TNT."

That's more plausible

I'm glad someone read it! He's very good, old Rolf. Doesn't say what the annual rainfall was though.

http://notill.org/sites/default/fil...ess-of-water-infiltration-by-rolf-derpsch.pdf

the most uptodate reference in this is 2002 quickly looking , the huge factor it completely omits is how biofilm formation can have a very rapid and profound effects on water infiltration

Might be worth trying to interest the Army in biofilm, if it can keep out TNT?

 

[Feldspar]

So what you're saying is that after another roughly 27,570 storms the numbers will match up.

Or to put it another way, 20t of TNT is equivalent to 413,500mm of rain.

Seems like the hyperbole train has left the station.

I'd like to see her calculations. There will be more complicated effects when a raindrop hits the soil surface. Not all the kinetic energy at the moment of impact will be transferred to compaction of the soil. Broadly, though, the three orders of magnitude difference between the numbers suggests that it's a bit of exaggeration.

 

[bactosoil]

Might be worth trying to interest the Army in biofilm, if it can keep out TNT?

You really shouldn't joke they are already working with biofilms (but maybe not as a blast layer admittedly )

 

[The Ruminant]

You really shouldn't joke they are already working with biofilms (but maybe not as a blast layer admittedly )

Or we could just keep adding organic matter to our soils: dirt-cheap, simple and effective, as demonstrated by worldwide trials conducted by nature since the last ice-age