Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Chinese metal scientists announced they had developed a plow using a new steel alloy.
Plow was initially used in China over 2,000 years ago, centuries earlier than in Europe. However, Chinese farmers nowadays would rather pay over the odds for imported plows because of their better quality and durability.
The situation may soon change, thanks to the new research.
Yan Desheng, of the Institute of Metal Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the new metal was developed on the basis of boron steel, with micro-alloying elements and fine carbide added, so as to increase its hardness while keeping its high ductility.
The new material had been used to make over 1,000 farming tools, such as moldboard plows and rotary blades.
Source: China.org.cn
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @05:58AM (13 children)
Is this like carbon fiber horse buggy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:08AM
Did you just invent a better buggy? Quick, patent your idea, and sell to the Amish.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:13AM (11 children)
You need to plow for most crops. Some GMO plants don't really need it, which saves diesel fuel and soil erosion.
A plow is also good for removing land mines. :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:18AM (3 children)
My operation is 100% hydroponic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @07:11AM (1 child)
Tell us more about your marijuana business.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday May 19 2017, @10:11AM
or tomatoes https://ag.arizona.edu/hydroponictomatoes/ [arizona.edu]
or lettuce http://www.wikihow.com/Grow-Hydroponic-Lettuce [wikihow.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by c0lo on Friday May 19 2017, @10:37AM
Well, even so... how do you remove the mines?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @08:54AM
> You need to plow for most crops.
No, very few plants -need- freshly tilled soil. Plowing is a form of pest management but it's not mandatory, just orthodox. Aeration happens naturally from insects - less so if some human has dumped insecticide everywhere of course.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday May 19 2017, @05:28PM (5 children)
The ones that don't need plowing aren't the GMO crops (well, some of them are), but rather the perennials. Those you don't want to plow, at least not deeply enough to damage their roots. For a "sort of" exception, orchards are often plowed...just very shallowly. This is to control weeds. or to allow other annual plants to be planted within the orchard.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 19 2017, @07:45PM (4 children)
You'll be surprised how small a number of annual crops actually need plowing - see no till farming [wikipedia.org] for a starter, explore further if interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday May 20 2017, @12:31AM (3 children)
This is a bit of a wild tangent, but while reading your post it suddenly occurred to me that one of the oldest and longest-term ways of enriching farmland, mixing in biochar, is radically underutilized today. Which seems odd to me, considering the amount of waste that you get from many crops - all those stalks and corncobs could be converted to char and plowed back into the soil, rapidly enriching it.
At some point you'd no doubt reach "peak biochar" and want to stop before causing problems, but then your fields would be greatly enriched for the next several decades/centuries.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday May 20 2017, @12:47AM (1 child)
They'll be even more effective in enriching the soil if you just ground or cut them, even better if you mix them with mushroom micellia before use.
Charring will bring down the energy stored in chemical bonds - less energy for soil biome to use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday May 20 2017, @04:26PM
Not really actually, at least not in the long term. Dig in the plant matter and they break down and get reabsorbed very quickly. Dig in charcoal and you enrich the soil for a very long time - centuries to millenia. It's not a matter of energy, or traditional fertilizing. The charcoal doesn't get reabsorbed, it jest sits there, pretty much inert, altering the soil chemistry/ecology for centuries. I don't remember the exact mechanism, or even if it's well understood at all.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday May 20 2017, @02:35AM
Most of those stalks and corncobs become animal feed and winter bedding; they're not wasted. And fields are commonly grazed between harvest and snow, leaving lots of manure in its wake.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.