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Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

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Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#51
post #36

Seed Balls Kenya is another reforestation initiative that looks impressive. They recycle charcoal dust to not only form a protective shell around seeds embed within it but also provide necessary nutrition when those are planted in degenerate areas. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44044267 http://www.seedballskenya.com/

I really love this idea. There's a part of me that wants to take this idea of biochar seedballs to support reforestation elsewhere. I live in the PNW, and it would be really interesting to see what it would take to convert lumber scrap/timber waste into biochar/syngas, produce energy from the syngas, and use the biochar to support planting trees (and possibly sequester some of it as well.)

I have a solid method of producing biochar without any infra at a small scale.

I'd be willing to do the lab and field work if somebody wants to help build experiments and test theories.

So far I don't see any negatives to where I have applied biochar.

The positives could be anything but my guess is the trial needs to be long term.

Hit me up on YouTube or my contact page on my blog (link in my profile).

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/RussellBallestrini

TL;DR lets test ideas on growing food together, subscribe if you are into this stuff.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evaporate the brine and sell it as artisanal sea salts?

Already there is a backlash against sea salt in the artisanal-product-buying community because it has more microplastics than certain mined sources.

I have suspected this, but have not read any specifics.

I can actually recommend this, which should not have the micro-plastic issue:

https://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/

“Our brine is naturally sourced from an ancient, untouched sea called the Iapetus Ocean (predating the Atlantic) trapped below the Appalachian mountains. Our salt is free of contaminants and heavy metals that may be found in other oceans. Gleaned from the earth by an underground brine aquifer, the salt is then processed naturally using the power of the sun and gentle mountain breezes.”

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#53
post #17
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is 380 times larger. Unless they are massively underutilizing the current wastewater stream, they need to multiply the irrigation water use efficiency that much, unless they think of forest is going to alter weather systems in such a way that brings rain to the area.

> unless they think of forest is going to alter weather systems in such a way that brings rain to the area. I am not an expert, but based on books and articles I've read[1], forests tend to do that. I think you don't even need a large patch of forest for it to attract rain, anecdotally. [1] Get an old copy of The Forest and The Sea by Marston Bates, if you can. "In 1960, he published the ecological science book The F…

[deleted]

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already there is a backlash against sea salt in the artisanal-product-buying community because it has more microplastics than certain mined sources.

This sounds very interesting. Do you have sources for more reading on this?

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/micro...

Global Pattern of Microplastics (MPs) in Commercial Food-Grade Salts: Sea Salt as an Indicator of Seawater MP Pollution

Ji-Su Kim, Hee-Jee Lee, Seung-Kyu Kim, and Hyun-Jung Kim Environmental Science & Technology 2018 52 (21), 12819-12828 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.8b04180

Resolves to:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b04180

Karami, A., Golieskardi, A., Keong Choo, C. et al. The presence of microplastics in commercial salts from different countries. Sci Rep 7, 46173 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46173

Resolves to:

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46173

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#55
post #34
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the current forest that was started in 98. The one that they're starting now is 100 million hectares (1 million sq km).

Have you got any English source for this?

It's in the linked article?

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#56
post #39

There's a better way to do it.. Trees can be planted in deserts without irrigation using technology developed by a Dutch company called Groasis [0]. They have also recently come up with a new version of their Waterboxx that can use any kind of wastewater to plant trees, even sea water. [1] Looks like it works via solar condensation which then wicks into the soil so the roots can follow it down to the deeper capillary…

Not sure if this way is better. After some in-depth searching, I find the key piece in this solution is a "wick", a capillary rising water tube that takes water (of any quality) and feeds it into the ground.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#57
post #39

There's a better way to do it.. Trees can be planted in deserts without irrigation using technology developed by a Dutch company called Groasis [0]. They have also recently come up with a new version of their Waterboxx that can use any kind of wastewater to plant trees, even sea water. [1] Looks like it works via solar condensation which then wicks into the soil so the roots can follow it down to the deeper capillary…

I was speaking with a land manager who was using these to dramatic results (80% vs 20% survival) in a very arid environment.

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#59
post #39

There's a better way to do it.. Trees can be planted in deserts without irrigation using technology developed by a Dutch company called Groasis [0]. They have also recently come up with a new version of their Waterboxx that can use any kind of wastewater to plant trees, even sea water. [1] Looks like it works via solar condensation which then wicks into the soil so the roots can follow it down to the deeper capillary…

Wow, thanks for pointing this out. This simple yet very powerful technology will definitely make planting easier. With apparently no need for water supply. This thing amaze me really

Re: Egypt has managed to plant trees in the desert using wastewater

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Already there is a backlash against sea salt in the artisanal-product-buying community because it has more microplastics than certain mined sources.

I have suspected this, but have not read any specifics. I can actually recommend this, which should not have the micro-plastic issue: https://www.jqdsalt.com/our-salt/ “Our brine is naturally sourced from an ancient, untouched sea called the Iapetus Ocean (predating the Atlantic) trapped below the Appalachian mountains. Our salt is free of contaminants and heavy metals that may be found in other oceans. Gleaned from…

If that isn't a fantastically deceptive piece of marketing then I don't know what is. It writes as if other salt deposits didn't originate in some kind of ancient body of water, and it uses the fact that they're harvesting a brine to imply that the entire bloody ocean is still hiding under the Appalachians, so that by buying their salt you're buying "sea salt" (and all the naturalist voodoo that might entail) but without any of the contaminants of modern oceans. Being low in mercury and whatnot seems like a good thing, and their salt is probably fine, but that marketing is something else.
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