LAND

Have you ever wondered what has happened to rainfall? Walter Jehne armed with an arsenal of science delivers a lecture that spans the math of global warming, the biology and evolution of soil and plant life, and the physics of water and heat cycles with the promise of a cooler planet by engaging the same processes Mother Nature has used throughout millenniums.

How to cool the planet? The presentation goes through the math of solar radiation, re-radiation, the role healthy soil play in fixing carbon and retaining water, plant transpiration in Earth’s water cycle, cloud formation and rain. If we could increase cloud cover by 2% through healthy soil and plant transpiration we could offset an additional 3 watts per square meter of solar radiation.   

Part 2 the A, B, C of healthy soil and its dividends. Over 1,000 farms in Australia are participating in the program and report: 100% crop yields, 300% nutritional integrity, 300% reliability and 500% soil regeneration. Healthy soils are spongy and plant transpiration removes heat from the soil by approximately 85 watts per square meter.

The issues related to industrial agriculture are significant. Poor soil conditions make it more difficult to grow nutrient dense food and when soil is lifeless we lose our ability to feed ourselves. Soil degradation also reduces our ability to mitigate climate change ….

A few years ago, a report from the UN Food & Agricultural Organization warned that at the current rate of soil erosion we have only 60 harvests left! We urgently need to address the mismanagement of our lands and soil…..

A cattle rancher growing top soil at 0.5 to 1% annually and increasing the cattle the ranch can support by 5 fold in 3 years. Growing healthy soil by 1% permits one acre to hold 25,000 gallons more water.

‘Herbivores play an essencial role in building soil that can store more water, absorb more carbon from the atmosphere and produce nutrient rich food’.

Discussion of techniques in regenerative farming systems in growing blueberries, blackberries, red and black rasberries, strawberries and aronia berries.