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Nacktmull ,

Humanity could already be well fed without stuff like genetic manipulation and eSoil. We have all the agricultural methods to produce enough food for everyone. Fair distribution is the actual challenge, not production.

applesfirst ,

People will do anything to avoid composting.

Sir_Simon_Spamalot ,

I don’t understand why. It’s a great way to get rid of your victims.

ExLisper , (edited )

Years ago I was following “alternative science” channels (for fun) and one of their ideas was to put metal rods in a field and apply current to increase plant growth. Their other ideas were intelligent plasma generating free electricity and using water as fuel so I dismissed the “electric soil” idea as another idiotic experiment although the least crazy one. Could they be on to something after all? Not with the intelligent plasma of course, just the electricity and plants.

cley_faye ,

It’s hard to say without reading the actual paper, but summaries (from other sites, the earth.com site is terribly lacking) describe their approach as an alternative substrate for hydroponic cultivation, which would be both easier/more eco-friendly to produce, and allow conductivity. In any case it is far from “sticking a metal stick around”.

batmaniam ,

So I’m trying to find an academic article, but it’s not just the substrate. They blew right past it in the article but there is electric potential applied, and the substrate is slightly conductive which is what allows it. They seem to imply that leads to better root growth but like I said the article barley mentioned the actual e of the e soil lol.

But bioelectrochemistry is a thing. I work on the other end, where microbes are depositing electrons, but I am aware of different technologies where the bugs use a potential as an energy source for specific reactions, usually around remidiating some nasty stuff in the ground.

Im less aware of it affecting a plant directly (I’d assume it changed the soil bugs or something) but it’s not hard to picture. Good be something as simple as the potential changing the osmotic pressure and making it easier for the plants to take up nutrients or something.

But yeah, pretty far from a rod in the ground, although in some cases that is basically all you’d need. The bioelectrochemistry field always had junk science to contend with.

onlinepersona ,

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

If this allows growing trees inside, that’d be amazing. Imagine mango, banana, guava, and other exotic fruits being grown in the north or in vertical farms.

Case ,

This makes me miss a bar I used to go to, and was the favored watering hole for most of the staff at a previous job.

It had had several owners, and it’s name changed on official paperwork every time. Locals still called it Big Tree.

Why?

It was built around a big tree that went out of the roof lol.

It was bought and demolished, the tree removed.

Nothing has been done with the lot since, and it’s been a couple years.

Damn shame.

redcalcium ,

Barley seedlings, traditionally not grown in hydroponic systems, exhibited a 50% increase in growth over 15 days when their roots were stimulated electrically using eSoil.

I didn’t know barley is such a masochist plant. I wonder if it’s just barley being weird, or if other plants also like being (lightly) electrocuted.

LapGoat ,
@LapGoat@pawb.social avatar

mushrooms!

phys.org/news/2010-04-lightning-mushrooms.html

they arent plants tho.

sugartits ,

they arent plants tho.

ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

BreadstickNinja ,

What? Mushrooms aren’t plants. They’re fungi. Different kingdom.

sugartits ,

I’m a funguy too but you don’t hear me bleating on about it.

dylanTheDeveloper ,
@dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world avatar

I’m feeling a bit fungi about this

KISSmyOS ,

This reads like a news story at the beginning of a disaster movie.

oakey66 ,

Subscribe to your esoil account. Brought to you by Kroger, for the low introduction price of $39.99.

qooqie ,

You know what our body uses as a natural battery sort of thing? Salts! You know what is loaded with salts/electrolytes? Gatoraid! The conclusion is clear

hittheskids ,

It’s got what plants crave

coach ,

Brawndo IRL!

bobs_monkey ,

Go away, baitin

whodatdair ,

Welcome to Costco, I love you

RagingRobot ,

Let’s salt the earth!! Lol

01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

It’s full of electrolytes. Plants need electrolytes.

Amazing movie!

echo64 ,

This is really only a useful technology for hydroponics, which is really only a useful technology in places that are short on arible land, but the realities of globalization means good luck beating the costs of importing from places that have more arible land than you.

Still neat, I would have liked to have seen an explanation for the change

rdyoung , (edited )

Hydroponic/aeroponic is way more efficient than growing in dirt. You can stack it as high as you want and grow way more per acre. On top of that you have the reduced amount of fertilizer and water and the increase in growth rate.

There is a reason why the best weed is grown via hydroponic/aeroponic.

kozy138 ,

Hydroponics, when combined with indoor, vertical farming, is the reason that the Netherlands are one of Europe largest exporters of food. Even though they’re one of the countries with the least amount of farmland.

LibertyLizard ,

Only if you want to use incredible amounts of electricity and occupy a lot of building space. Ignoring those things it may be more efficient but not when you look at the whole picture.

rdyoung , (edited )

It doesn’t actually take that much juice these days. On top of being able to use solar and wind generated power we also have leds that barely use any electricity to run.

Aside from the initial investment for the setup, the ongoing energy and resources needed for hydro and aero are most definitely going to be less than dirt farming especially when you factor in being able to grow year round. And don’t forget the reduced amount of fertilizer and water usage. The water isn’t lost to the ground with only a small amount of it being used by the plants.

Basically this is like ev versus ice. When you don’t factor in everything, one looks better than the other but with all things considered, ev is way better than ice.

Sightline ,

being able to grow year round

You can grow year round with low-tunnels (conduit and greenhouse plastic).

piecat ,

There’s these peaky things called “seasons” where the amount of sunlight fluctuates, sometimes dramatically based on latitude

bassomitron ,

It depends on what you mean by efficient. Cost efficiency wise, normal land farming beats out hydroponics by a mile. And really, cost efficiency is one of the top things to consider when it comes to farming on a massive scale.

rdyoung ,

This is so false it’s not even funny. Hydro is way more efficient and aero even more so.

With farming indoors you can control the day/night cycle which not only increases the growth rate it also let’s you manipulate fruiting and flowering.

Hydro and aero use a fraction of the water dirt farming does. More water is being taken up by the plants and none of it is being lost to the environment. On top of that evaporation is controlled so less is lost that way.

As mentioned above the growth rate is increased not only by the light cycle but also by being able to more strictly control and fine tune the amount of fertilizer and you use way less of it. Just like the water, fertilizer isn’t lost to the environment.

Seems like some of you need to learn more about this stuff. There is a growing number of vertical farms popping up all over the world. Hopefully one day soon we will be buying lettuce, carrots, etc that were grown if not in the same building but on the same block.

bassomitron ,

If that was the case, why isn’t every industrial farm doing it?

rebelsimile ,

The Venn diagram of farmers and early adopters is harry potter’s glasses

fruitycoder ,

Have you seen all the crazy stuff get up to? Geospatial analysis of fields, drones for spot fertilizing, the acres covering water systems, turning waste crops into ethanol, etc

rebelsimile ,

Which is why “rurality” is a synonym for modernity, and why “rural electricity/telephone/internet access” reminds you of a high tech data center. Ok.

Sightline ,

fertilizer

Or you could save $62,000/year by letting the mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria do their job.

Meowoem ,

That depends on yield per year and for certain crops it’s incredibly high compared to arable, especially with clever engineering that uses waste heat productively.

We’re certainly going to see an increase in city farms for various things over the coming decades, automation just makes it too easy and there are so many good options to explore

echo64 ,

Or you could just skip all that and plant seeds in soil, with a larger farm outside of the city

Meowoem ,

Modern agriculture is hugely damaging to the ecosystem, provides a very low quality produce, is very inefficient, and there’s plenty of better things for the land to be used for.

I get that a lot of people want to live in an idealised version of the past but the past is someone’s future, things change and grow and evolve which is a great thing. People are going to grow daily produce locally because it’s more efficient and better than daily transporting food long distances - getting traffic off the road should be a key part of our future plans, localising production is a great idea. Growing lettuce six hours drive away is silly when it loses most it’s quality in six hours even when chilled, why run a truck every day when for less power than just the transport you could grow them locally, especially if you’re getting better produce without any damage to the environment.

Year round, pest free, high quality fresh produce locally is going to be a standard thing in every city and grumbling about how life used to be different isn’t going to change that.

refurbishedrefurbisher ,

The best weed is grown in no-till soil, hence why living soil weed sells for more money.

rdyoung ,

Spoken like someone who has no idea what they are talking about. Aeroponics were what you wanted, especially 20+ years ago.

echo64 ,

Efficiency doesn’t matter when we have huge amounts of low-cost arible soil. We don’t need to make the most of every square meter when it’s cheaper and easier to just put seeds in soil. This is the problem.

Hydroponics are cool technology that is in every way “better” but useless.

rdyoung , (edited )

Again, false. Getting the equivalent of 5+ acres out of the physical space of 1 and leaving the plants to do their thing is better in every way imaginable. I’m not sure you understand just how much more efficient hydro and aero are. The use of lights instead of the sun let’s you grow year round and shorten the night so plants grow faster and fruit sooner.

Farming the way most industrial farms do things is one of the worst things we have done to the environment in our entire existence. Only outdone by the destruction of rainforests, extracting and burning petroleum from the ground, etc

obinice ,
@obinice@lemmy.world avatar

which is really only a useful technology in places that are short on arible landq

So, everywhere within the next 60 years?

:-(

Brainsploosh ,

Also quite useful for places short on water, or daylight, or clement weather, or low-value ecosystems, or where transportation is unfeasible due to accessibility, environmental conditions, market access.

Also quite good to alleviate food deserts, securing strategic supply chains, and supporting urbanisation for greenification, food supply, lowering transport and food security (with growing food also having positive mental and psychosocial effects).

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