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Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

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Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#41

Post by idopmstuff »

melling wrote: post #36
TheRealPomax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep pretending that we can only focus on one industry at a time? News flash: WE CAN ADDRESS MORE THAN ONE AT A TIME. What about coal? You tell me, what part of fixing rice production interferes with shutting down coal mining? Because as far as anyone can tell, the answer is not a single part.

We already are seeing climate issues. We could have been off coal by now. “A 100 years of coal emissions is 1000 years of rice” By not addressing the big problems sooner, we have shortened the window to seeing significant problems. We’d have more time to solve the smaller problems, or they may take of themselves. For example, the population in China will drop significantly in this century. Unfortunately, it sounds li…

Nothing you're saying here responds to the question. Everyone knows we're seeing climate issues.

Why does making agricultural improvements prevent dealing with coal?

> By not addressing the big problems sooner, we have shortened the window to seeing significant problems.

This is true of all problems, not just the big ones.

> We’d have more time to solve the smaller problems, or they may take of themselves.

If we dealt with all of the smaller problems, we'd have more time to solve the larger problems, or they make take care of themselves. For example, the population in China will drop significantly this century, reducing the need for power consumption from coal plants.

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#42

Post by quonn »

lars_francke wrote: post #29
melling wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aviation sector is about 2%. Sounds like another premature optimization problem, as applied to climate change. “Premature optimization is the root of all evil“ https://wiki.c2.com/?PrematureOptimization= What about coal? What about coal?

This is not an either/or thing. Germany emits 2% of all CO2, not worth us doing anything then?

Depends on the action. Gluing oneself to the street in order to prevent 5% of 2% of an industry that is rapidly shifting to EVs is questionable, for example.

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#43

Post by atleastoptimal »

chris_va wrote: post #18

(disclaimer that I manage a climate group, but not a rice expert) They touch on, but don't get into the details on one of the more interesting aspects of perennial rice. Rice fields are actually a huge emitter of methane. Depending on the accounting, they contribute as much to global warming as the aviation sector. The fields emit methane when flooded, the stagnant water gets oxygen depleted, and the biomass in the s…

Damn is there any commodity crop that isn't an environmental disaster?

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#44

Post by eulgro »

knodi123 wrote: post #35
melling wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aviation sector is about 2%. Sounds like another premature optimization problem, as applied to climate change. “Premature optimization is the root of all evil“ https://wiki.c2.com/?PrematureOptimization= What about coal? What about coal?

I litter frequently. Some people criticize me for it, but I rightly point out that my own litter is a tiny fraction of city-wide litter, and if I stopped, no one would even notice the difference. I'm not even the biggest contributor! Mechanized recycling trucks hoist the bins high in the air and let stuff fall into a hopper on the back, and on a windy day, every single bin they pick up produces a few pieces of litter…

I kill people frequently. Some people criticize me for it, but I rightly point out that my own murders is a tiny fraction of city-wide deaths, and if I stopped, no one would even notice the difference.

I'm not even the biggest contributor! Fast-food restaurants and soft drink companies keep promoting unhealthy diets from which people develop diseases which eventually leads to thousands deaths per year. Plus, most people conciously make awful lifestyle choices which will eventually contribute to their deaths. I don't know why I should change my lifestyle while people like that exist.

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#45

Post by xyzzyz »

chris_va wrote: post #18

(disclaimer that I manage a climate group, but not a rice expert) They touch on, but don't get into the details on one of the more interesting aspects of perennial rice. Rice fields are actually a huge emitter of methane. Depending on the accounting, they contribute as much to global warming as the aviation sector. The fields emit methane when flooded, the stagnant water gets oxygen depleted, and the biomass in the s…

> So, perennial rice may end up reduce GHG emissions substantially.

Not really. These GHG emissions from rice are in steady state with the amount of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere. They do not add additional GHG to the atmosphere the way burning fossil fuel do.

When you burn fossil fuels, the carbon atoms released into atmosphere have been captured from the atmosphere millions years ago. When weeds and other organic matter in flooded fields decompose, released carbon atoms have been captured only a couple of months or years earlier.

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#46

Post by efitz »

My wife is from Thailand. My father in law is a rice farmer.

I’m unclear about the definition of “subsistence”, because you need more than rice to live, but he grows more than they need to eat and sells the rest to eke out a living.

The questions in my mind are:

1. How expensive would these perennial rice strains be (patents)? The cost would have to be ridiculously low by western standards for rural Thai farmers to afford this.

2. How sustainable is it from the standpoint of soil nutrients? Would farmers have to fertilize since they usually plow under after harvest and let the field lie fallow for 6 months? Fertilizer would likely be a show stopper.

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#47

Post by [deleted] »

chris_va wrote: post #18

(disclaimer that I manage a climate group, but not a rice expert) They touch on, but don't get into the details on one of the more interesting aspects of perennial rice. Rice fields are actually a huge emitter of methane. Depending on the accounting, they contribute as much to global warming as the aviation sector. The fields emit methane when flooded, the stagnant water gets oxygen depleted, and the biomass in the s…

[deleted]

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#48

Post by squokko »

xyzzyz wrote: post #45
chris_va wrote: post #18

(disclaimer that I manage a climate group, but not a rice expert) They touch on, but don't get into the details on one of the more interesting aspects of perennial rice. Rice fields are actually a huge emitter of methane. Depending on the accounting, they contribute as much to global warming as the aviation sector. The fields emit methane when flooded, the stagnant water gets oxygen depleted, and the biomass in the s…

> So, perennial rice may end up reduce GHG emissions substantially. Not really. These GHG emissions from rice are in steady state with the amount of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere. They do not add additional GHG to the atmosphere the way burning fossil fuel do. When you burn fossil fuels, the carbon atoms released into atmosphere have been captured from the atmosphere millions years ago. When weeds and other organ…

Not true between CO2 and methane. The total amount of carbon is the same but in methane form is worse for greenhouse effect.

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#49

Post by anthomtb »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #31
seifertca wrote: post #14

Perennials are such an intuitively appealing idea but a plant expends a lot of energy ensuring it can make it through the fallow/winter season successfully. Thus perennial cereals only make sense where the cost of seed and planting exceeds the impact on yield. My understanding is even at the theoretical minimum energy needed for most cereals in most growing regions to have a 90% chance of surviving perennially you ne…

> make it through the fallow/winter season successfully most rice grown by substance farmers is in tropical areas

I think that's why they used "fallow". Tropical climates do not have cold winters but may have dry seasons where, I would assume, a plant would enter a dormant state.

Re: Perennial rice: Plant once, harvest again and again

#50

Post by pfdietz »

melling wrote: post #23
chris_va wrote: post #18

(disclaimer that I manage a climate group, but not a rice expert) They touch on, but don't get into the details on one of the more interesting aspects of perennial rice. Rice fields are actually a huge emitter of methane. Depending on the accounting, they contribute as much to global warming as the aviation sector. The fields emit methane when flooded, the stagnant water gets oxygen depleted, and the biomass in the s…

The aviation sector is about 2%. Sounds like another premature optimization problem, as applied to climate change. “Premature optimization is the root of all evil“ https://wiki.c2.com/?PrematureOptimization= What about coal? What about coal?

Are you enjoying your whataboutism?
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