"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Sam wrote:
Do people think that it's necessary to go to such lengths as described in the article?
Idle dreamer
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John Polk wrote:
If the soils cannot be made to control the flows of water, and retain it, then cattle will have to be removed from the landscape for a decade or so.
Idle dreamer
H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Removing livestock alone won't do the job in this region, unfortunately.Instead of prairie grasses regrowing, the land is being overtaken by juniper (called "cedar" here), which used to be controlled by fire. The juniper shades out the grass and allows erosion to occur. Juniper is better than bare earth, but not a solution to our problems.
Idle dreamer
"Water availability is gradually declining. Even 30 years ago we had probably twice as much water as we have now."
Mr Schur is part of the Texas Alliance for Water Conservation. Across 32 sites in two counties, the group is monitoring the rainfall and the water that is pumped, calculating the gross profit margin for every crop.
"What we're trying to do is to come up with ways to conserve water and maximise profits," says Mr Schur.
"We're using all the newest available technology for water management."
Over-watering an area can also mean using more pesticides and fertilisers than you need to - and when the crop stops absorbing them, the only place left to go is down into the water table.
The cost works out at about $1.35 per acre per month, and Mr Moeller plans to reduce that further.
"Our model is to do more of this at ever lower cost so we can penetrate more and more places on the globe.
"My mantra is: let's cover the earth with a green solution and make it a financially-viable no-brainer for the grower."
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