#irrigation techniques

[cselandscapearchitect]

Natural Turf vs. Artificial Grass: Battling the Urban Heat Island Effect in the Low Desert

The low desert region faces the challenges of the urban heat island effect, where urban areas experience significantly higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas due to human activities and the built environment. As we strive to mitigate this heat island effect, one key consideration is the choice between natural turf and artificial grass. Both options have their own advantages and…

[zpires]

we're reading project hail mary by andrew weir and there's so many Numbers in this book. important numbers. this main character is a science teacher who is straight up doing basic physics to puzzle out his situation after waking up attached to a bed on a wall in an unfamiliar place. doesn't remember his name at first, but he's dropping pencils off of tables to deduce local gravity (he does not wake up on earth) and tracking sunspots to determine what star he's looking at (nope, not the sun, but he's surprisingly close to this one).

hardest sci fi we've ever read by far, and we're only on chapter 7. excited to see where it goes next because he just introduced Intelligent Aliens (probably, i've only got to the part where there's an alien spaceship). i expect weir to have figured out their cells' metabolic processes in full or i'm returning the book. i mean, he's already done that for the non-intelligent aliens, so it's only fair.

[farmerstrend]

Furrow irrigation, a time-tested agricultural practice

Furrow irrigation is an ancient and well-trusted way of watering crops that has been practiced for a very long time. This method involves creating small channels or furrows between the rows of crops to efficiently deliver water to the plants. It has proven to be especially effective for various crops like corn, soybeans, cotton, and vegetables. The basic idea is to make these channels alongside…

[krishilearning]

[greenskeeperpa]

Learn how to identify symptoms of water stress in your grass, and take proactive steps to save your precious lawn from drying out. Don't wait until it's too late – gain valuable insights and expert tips to keep your green space healthy and vibrant. For top-notch lawn care services in Pennsylvania, trust GreenskeeperPA, a highly-rated provider. Call us today at (215) 938-8440 to ensure your lawn remains lush and well-maintained.

[bansheesofinisherin2022]

why did they phrase it like that 😭 dude sounds like an agricultural villain

[headspace-hotel]

data about where carbon emissions are coming from is so frustrating cause there's all kinds of huge, sprawling, just fucking vast breakdowns of What Causes The Most Carbon Emissions Out Of All Everything In The Entire World, but those are aggregations of numerous smaller but still vast aggregations of data, which are processed and polished from various aggregations of crunched numbers, which are patched and pieced together from various studies, estimates and calculations, which are sieved out of numbers crunched from various measurements, estimates and records, which have been collected, estimated or otherwise conceived through an unspeakably huge variety of methodologies with unspeakably huge variety in limitations, reliability and margins of error.

Even if some of the data was very fine-grained at the beginning, it was filtered through some very coarse number-crunching techniques for the sake of the coarse data, so the results are only as good as the wrongest thing you did in any part of this process, but the plans of action are getting thought up from the top down, which makes the whole thing a hot fucking mess.

For example. And I just made this example up. Say you want to know whether apples or potatoes have a worse impact on climate change. So you look at one of these huge ass infographic things. And it says that potatoes are bad, whereas apples are REALLY good, the BEST crop actually. So it's better to eat apples than potatoes, you think to yourself. Actually we should find a way to replace potatoes with apples! We should fund genetic engineering of apples so they have more starch and can replace potatoes. Great idea. Time to get some investors to put $5 billion towards it.

But actually. Where'd they get that conclusion about apples? Well there's this review right here of the carbon footprint of all different fruits, seems legit. Where'd that data come from? Well it's citing this study right here saying that tree-grown crops are better because they sequester carbon, and this study right here about the distance that different fruits get transported, and this study right here where different fertilization systems are compared in terms of their carbon footprint, and this study over here that sampled 300 apple, peach, and orange farmers comparing their irrigation practices and rates of tree mortality, and this study...wow, okay, seems really reliable...

...what's the first study citing? oh, okay, here's a study about mycorrhizal networks in orchards in Oregon, saying that there's a super high density of fungal mycelium in the 16 orchards that they sampled. And here's a study about leaf litter decay rates in Switzerland under different pesticide regimes, and...okay...relationship of tree spacing to below ground vs. aboveground biomass...a review of above and below-ground biomass in semi-intensively managed orchard plots...

...That one cites "Relationship between biomass and CO2 requirements...carbon immobilization in soil of various tree species...mycorrhizal fungi impact on carbon storage...

...wait a second, none of these are talking about apples, they're about boreal forests...and orange trees...and peanut farms! They're just speculating on roughly applying the non-apple data to apples. You have to go backwards...

Yes! "A review of belowground carbon storage in orchard cropping systems!" Seems like overall the studies find potentially high carbon storage in orchard environments! Walnuts...pears...oranges... intercropping walnuts and wheat... intercropping apples and wheat... wait a second, what about orchards with only apples?

Time for you to go back again...

"New method of mulching in apple orchards can lower irrigation and pesticide needs..." okay but if it's new, most farmers aren't doing it. "Orchards with high density interplanted with annual crops show way more mycorrhizal fungus activity..." "Mycorrhizal associations with trees in the genus Malus..."

...And pretty soon you've spent Five Fucking Hours investigating apples and you've got yourself in this tangled web of citations that demonstrate that some orchard crops (not necessarily apples) store a lot of long-lasting biomass in their trunks and roots really well—and some apple orchards (not necessarily typical ones) have high amounts of mycorrhizal fungi—and some techniques of mulching in orchards (not necessarily the ones apple farmers use) experience less erosion—and some apple trees (not necessarily productive agricultural apples) have really deep root systems—

—and some environments with trees, compared with some conventional agricultural fields, store more carbon and experience less erosion, but not apple orchards because that data wasn't collected in apple orchards.

And you figure out eventually that there is no direct evidence anywhere in the inputs that singles out apples as The Best Crop For Fighting Climate Change, or suggests that conventional apple farming has a much smaller carbon footprint than anything else.

The data just spit out "apples" after an unholy writhing mass of Processes that involved 1) observing some tree-grown crops and deciding it applies closely enough to all tree grown crops 2) observing some apple orchards and deciding its applicable enough to all apple orchards 3) observing some tree-including environments and deciding its close enough to all tree-including environments 4) observing some farming methods and deciding it applies closely enough to all farming methods

And any one of these steps individually would be fine and totally unavoidable, but when strung together repeatedly they distort the original data into A Puddle of Goo.

And it wouldn't be that bad even to string them together, if trees didn't vary that much, and farming didn't vary that much, and soil didn't vary that much, and mycorrhizal networks didn't vary that much, and regions that grow apples didn't vary that much, and pre-conversion-to-apple-orchard states of apple orchards didn't vary that much, and economic incentives controlling apple farming didn't vary that much, but all of these things DO vary, a Fuck Ton, and if the full range of variation were taken into account—nay, intentionally optimized—the distinction between apples and potatoes might turn out to be be MEANINGLESS GOO.

anyway big size piles of data about Farming, In General, make me so bitchy

[probablyasocialecologist]

Zuni farmers in the southwestern United States made it through long stretches of extremely low rainfall between A.D. 1200 and 1400 by embracing small-scale, decentralized irrigation systems. Farmers in Ghana coped with severe droughts from 1450 to 1650 by planting indigenous African grains, like drought-tolerant pearl millet. Ancient practices like these are gaining new interest today. As countries face unprecedented heat waves, storms and melting glaciers, some farmers and international development organizations are reaching deep into the agricultural archives to revive these ancient solutions. Drought-stricken farmers in Spain have reclaimed medieval Moorish irrigation technology. International companies hungry for carbon offsets have paid big money for biochar made using pre-Columbian Amazonian production techniques. Texas ranchers have turned to ancient cover cropping methods to buffer against unpredictable weather patterns. But grasping for ancient technologies and techniques without paying attention to historical context misses one of the most important lessons ancient farmers can reveal: Agricultural sustainability is as much about power and sovereignty as it is about soil, water and crops.

[whencyclopedia]

The Sumerians were the people of southern Mesopotamia whose civilization flourished between c. 4100-1750 BCE. Their name comes from the region which is frequently – and incorrectly – referred to as a “country”. Sumer was never a cohesive political entity, however, but a region of city-states each with its own king. Sumer was the southern counterpart to the northern region of Akkad whose people gave Sumer its name, meaning “land of the civilized kings”. The Sumerians themselves referred to their region simply as “the land” or “the land of the black-headed people”. The Sumerians were responsible for many of the most important innovations, inventions, and concepts taken for granted in the present day. They essentially “invented” time by dividing day and night into 12-hour periods, hours into 60 minutes, and minutes into 60 seconds. Their other innovations and inventions include the first schools, the earliest version of the tale of the Great Flood and other biblical narratives, the oldest heroic epic, governmental bureaucracy, monumental architecture, and irrigation techniques. After the rise of the Amorites in Mesopotamia, and the invasion of the Elamites, Sumer ceased to exist and was only known through references in the works of ancient writers, including the scribes who wrote the biblical Book of Genesis. Sumer remained unknown until the mid-19th century CE when excavations in Mesopotamia unearthed their civilization and brought their many contributions to light.

[lazyyogi]

My Upcoming Research Study: The Effects of Yogic Breathing on Chronic Sinus Symptoms

This week I have been putting together a presentation that I will be giving about my new research project. It's a study of a yogic breathing technique called Bhramari Pranayama as an adjunctive treatment for people with chronic nose and sinus issues.

Essentially the premise is this:

Our sinuses produce nitric oxide, which then in turn effects our nasal airway and our lungs. The nitric oxide can improve nasal airflow, up-regulate mucociliary clearance, and enhance anti-viral immune activity. Additionally, humming actually temporarily increases the amount of nasal nitric oxide released by about 15 fold. Therefore my study is intended to examine the effects of this pranayama technique that utilizes humming on patients with chronic nose and sinus symptoms.

Typically for patients with these symptoms, we start them out on a steroid nasal spray (flonase) as well as sinus irrigations (something like a neti pot).

I always hear from people outside the medical field about how no one studies these things--non-pharmacologic interventions, the beneficial effects of non-proprietary supplements, or other alternative medical options. People often think that if big pharma (or someone expecting to profit) isn't paying for a study, it cannot happen.

This really isn't true likely 90-99% of the time. The problem isn't funding. I'm conducting a prospective randomized control study with human subjects in order to evaluate the benefits of yogic breathing for patients--something that if found to be helpful will bring in no additional monetary profit for anyone. How much will my study cost? $0.

But do you know what it did require?

Two things: interest and opportunity.

Firstly I, a resident physician, had an idea. I learned about nasal nitric oxide and thought it was cool. I read about how humming has a bolusing effect by transiently increasing nitric oxide output by 15x. And then I recalled that there are pranayama techniques that utilize humming.

With my interest piqued, I spoke with one of my bosses, an attending physician at an academic medical center. He's the head of our Rhinology and Skull Base Neurosurgery division and he is cool as hell. He's all about healthy lifestyle and benefiting patients as much as possible. He loved the idea immediately.

And lastly we roped in a medical student. Med students are very helpful with doing the grunt work of collecting the data into spreadsheets, running the statistical analyses and such. Sometimes they bring some excellent ideas of their own as well. In return for their work, med students are often given a significant portion credit upon publication of the study and this allows them the opportunity to add some scholarly publications to their CV. I don't really need more publications under my name, but they do.

My point with sharing all of this is that people often claim there are health benefits to doing or imbibing certain things but that they'll never be studied because there's no money to be made. And it may be true that private companies such as those in the pharmaceutical industry may not have such interest; their existence in a capitalistic economy relies on profitability. But this is part of why academic institutions are so important--because learning and discovery is part of the essential mission there. Profit doesn't dictate their avenues of research.

When it comes to the study and validation of alternative/complimentary medicine, the focus really needs to be on raising awareness and interest. Talk to your doctors, nurses, physician assistants, etc. The good ones listen. The younger they are, the more likely they are to be open-minded about it too (the older ones are hit or miss--some are so cool and some are very old school).

Just some errant thoughts this week as I work on my slide deck.

LY

[loftyillustrations]

The eternal splendour of the royal gardens was in no small part due to the forgotten irrigation techniques of the Sky Towers.

https://www.instagram.com/loftyillustrations/

[fatehbaz]

Scientific knowledge and technology played a significant role in the expansion of colonial rule in India and the consequent incorporation of the Indian sub-continent into the [commercialized, imperial] world-system [...]. The colonization of nature, territory and people in British India led to a mutually constitutive interplay [...].

By the time the East India Company managed to establish a foothold in Bengal in 1757, [...] [a]fter the acquisition of the formal rights to collect revenues in the states of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, the issue of obtaining accurate information about the extent of the produce, the population and other social statistics assumed significance. The detailed scientific surveys [...] were possible due to the large number of amateur scientists employed by the Company. Over time, these surveys played a major role in the transformation of a trading company into a colonial state [...] and the incorporation of India into the modern world-system. [...]

---

Considered the founder of British geography, James Rennell arrived in India in 1760 barely three years after the decisive battle of Plassey. Rennell’s cartographic skills caught the attention of the governor of Bengal presidency, who was ‘anxious to inaugurate some system for correcting and revising the geography of Bengal’ [...]. Rennell’s mapping out in great detail the area under the Company was indispensable for the rationalization of the extraction of surplus, administrative strategies and techniques of control. [...] In 1777 he left for England, and two years later he published the Bengal Atlas that led to his election to the Royal Society. [...] With reference to the ‘science wars’, [...] Rennell’s work was also incorporated in the key text[s] of the time, C. Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830) [...] [and] the work of [...] Humboldt and Carl Ritter. Rennell’s surveys contributed to the organized [...] surveys [across wider regions of India] that followed after the defeat of Tipu Sultan of Mysore in 1799. [...] [Mysore's] sustained resistance to British power had a major impact on the general consciousness in Britain. [...]

Thomas de Quincey extolled the virtues of the ‘British bulldog’ against [...] the tyrannical ‘Bengal tiger’ [...]. The scientific knowledge that emerged as a consequence of the surveys of Mysore contributed [...] to the consolidation of administrative power [...]. The key figures associated with the surveys [included] Colin Mackenzie [...]. Mackenzie’s ethnographic notes contributed to imperial perceptions of the [...] [people of South Asia] and the grid of anthropological knowledge through which administrative power was deployed. [...]

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Nature, culture and colonial power were inextricably implicated in the production of scientific knowledge and of colonial society. [...] The establishment the Public Works Department in 1854 provided fresh impetus for the deployment of science and technology in grappling with problems precipitated by colonial rule. Declining revenues for the Company focused attention on gigantic irrigation and other public works projects. [...]

The irrigation projects were expanded to include the railways (1849), the telegraph (1852), and the postal system (1850). Together, they represented the largest state-sponsored enterprise undertaken anywhere at that time. Lord Dalhousie, under whose tenure these projects were inaugurated, declared the railways, the telegraph and the postal system as the ‘three great engines of social improvement’.

His predecessor William Bentinck had already termed the railways ‘the great engine of moral improvement’ in a country ‘cursed from one end to the other by the vice, the ignorance, [...] the barbarous and cruel customs that have been the growth of ages under every description of Asian misrule’ [...]. Later observers were to wax ever more eloquent on the role of the railways in the modernization of India. For W. A. Rogers of the Indian Civil Service, railways ‘are opening the eyes of the people … they teach them that speed attained is time, and therefore money, saved or made’ (Adas1989: 226). The importance of a network of railways, connecting the cotton plantations of the Deccan region to the ports became significant especially during the 'cotton famine' of 1846 [...].

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Almost immediately after Dalhousie left India, secure in the belief that the double engines of moral improvement and legitimacy were at work, the rebellion of 1857 put an end to such expectations. The rebellion was partly triggered in response to the wide-ranging transformations [...] triggered off by the introduction of [these] new [colonial infrastructures] [...].

In the end, the rebellion was violently suppressed by the very technologies that had precipitated it in the first place. [...]

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All text above by: Zaheer Baber. "Colonizing nature: scientific knowledge, colonial power and the incorporation of India into the modern world-system". British Journal of Sociology 52(1), pages 37-58. April 2001. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[farmerstrend]

Harnessing the Power of Fruit Sizing for Kenya's Fruit Farmers: A Key to Maximizing Orchard Performance

Fruit sizing is a crucial aspect of orchard management, especially in the dynamic world of fruit farming. For Kenya’s fruit farmers, understanding and optimizing the factors that influence fruit size is essential for achieving consistent, high-quality yields. Operating in diverse environments with varying regional climates, soil types, and microclimates, the importance of fruit size monitoring…

[rjzimmerman]

A couple of days ago, I was collecting seeds from the milkweed pods in our yard. Having not done this before, but being fully aware of the fuzzy stuff that flies out of the pods, I was battling fuzz (technically, "floss") as I was pulling off and storing the seeds. Then I got smart, and decided to cut a slit in the pods and then gently pull out the mass of floss and seeds, and then just pulling the seeds off and dropping then into the container. As I was doing that, I noticed how super soft the floss was as I pulled it fresh out of the pods, and wondered........do any clothing manufacturers use this stuff? Did a Google search, and learned....yep!

Excerpt from this story from Happy Eco News:

As consumers demand more eco-conscious apparel, brands are getting creative with natural materials that keep warmth in and environmental harm out. One unlikely hero emerging from prickly planted fields is the common milkweed—yes, literally plucked straight from the wild. While best known as the sole food source for iconic, struggling Monarch butterflies, milkweed’s hidden potential is nestled right inside its fluffy, silken floss. This fleecy fiber is an amazing natural insulator and is finding a new application in jackets, parkas, boots, and ski gloves for humans.

As outdoor apparel companies race to reduce environmental impacts, milkweed clothing insulation is proving a promising substitute for conventional insulation fillers—one aligned with cleaner agricultural systems. Its hollow-cored fluff offers an animal-friendly, biodegradable alternative to goose down. Unlike petroleum-based synthetics like polyester fibers, milkweed fills garments with a regeneratively sourced material that decomposes rather than lingering for centuries in landfills.

With conscious consumerism accelerating across industries, apparel buyers now consider impacts far beyond cost and quality when evaluating purchases. An unlikely hero from both suffering North American grasslands and climate crosshairs is rapidly gaining traction as a sustainable insulation material – common milkweed floss. Beyond keeping heat in and winter out with insulating performance rivaling goose down, milkweed rates exceptionally on multiple sustainability indicators resonant with eco-conscious consumers.

As a native perennial thriving on marginal lands, milkweed flourishing requires no irrigation, fertilizers or pesticides – regrowing reliably year after year. From a toxicity and allergen standpoint, milkweed avoids issues associated with many synthetic insulations or down. And supporting milkweed crop expansion helps reverse monarch butterfly declines blamed on agricultural habitat loss. For shoppers concerned over microplastics shedding into waterways from standard fleece, milkweed offers a soft, homegrown, biodegradable alternative. In short, milkweed checks all the boxes for socially mindful consumers seeking future-focused apparel that balances functionality with ethical, regenerative supply supporting threatened pollinators.

Signaling the momentum of milkweed clothing insulation, major brands like Patagonia are incorporating the fluff through novel partnerships with companies like Vegeto Textiles. Dedicated milkweed plantings bandwidth habitat zones while fibers make their way into garments. Other types of textile manufacturers are also jumping on board, some with announced plans to insulate blankets and quilts with milkweed.

Still, despite its promise, milkweed clothing insulation remains in its infancy. Technological barriers to processing millions of floss strands into a stable textile filling have just recently been worked out. Machinery and techniques to update this long-known application concept into a scalable commercial reality. Companies have worked for years honing best practices for taking raw milkweed fluff through cleaning, drying, and fiber alignment steps to transform fuzzy floss into outdoor-ready filling. Advancements in the coming decade will further improve integration potential across diverse textile products, opening doors for milkweed clothing insulation in everything from t-shirts to winter boots.

[ask-obt]

Do you regret starting an ask blog, and/or would you have rather done q+a's every so often? Would you recommend doing a blog to other people?

// nah, if I regretted it I could just close up that ask box any time and wrap things up, or even just close it temporarily. I actually really enjoy it! it's a nice way to interact with fans and play around with ideas I normally wouldn't think of otherwise.

as for whether I'd recommend it to other creators, i think it depends on your preferred method of artistic communication, if that makes sense. for me I have a tendency to overthink literally every aspect of my comic's worldbuilding- which, while cool in concept, is hard to execute when comics inherently take a lot of time and effort. I can't reasonably have the characters always drop everything and turn to the screen to explain how the exact ideal conditions for growing potatoes would be well-irrigated without leaving the soil muddy, propagating them by cutting them in halves or quarters, and how they source bone meal fertilizer from local butchers and oh god oh no that explanation already took 12 pages-- so having the ask blog is great because I can dump one million words down without impacting the flow of the main comic. it also has helped me quell my buzzing brain when writing the script, which helps me keep everything concise and tight! if I start overthinking a scene, I can reassure myself that I can write my 10,000 word thesis on sewing techniques for exploration-grade bags on the ask blog, and just save the important "they're engineered to resist tearing" part for the main comic. but I also try my best to make sure the ask blog isn't required reading to enjoy the main comic, sort of like OBT dlc. just as how it helps quell the buzzing in my brain, it's also an additional source of content for readers whose brains buzz in a similar way.

that said, if you don't have the brain buzzes and don't spend a lot of mental energy on your project (which is totally fine if that's the case! I hear that among others, the fabled "neurotypical" person apparently doesn't think about their fan fiction 24/7), you might not get a lot of personal mileage out of an ask blog. it just depends!

[blueiscoool]

A 1700-Year-Old Roman Water Tunnel Discovered in Turkey

It was revealed that in the Besni district of Adıyaman province, located in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, the Romans dug a 150-meter-long water tunnel into the mountain 1,700 years ago to irrigate their lands with the water flowing from the river.

An interesting 1,700-year-old structure dating back to the Roman Period was identified in the mountainous area in the Kantara region within the borders of Geçitli (Kantara) village of Adıyaman’s Besni district.

The water tunnel, which was previously known to the villagers but was detected for the first time by the authorities, was entered.

It has been determined that the tunnel, which is 150 meters long and 80 centimeters wide, and 1.5-2 meters high, was carved out by the Romans to transport water from the Sofraz River to the fields. The water canal constructed along the riverbank joins with the excavated water tunnel and extends to the agricultural lands to the south.

In order to construct a significant number of water supply tunnels known as cuniculi in the northeast of Rome, the Etruscans adopted the qanat technique in the sixth century BCE. They later imparted their knowledge to the Romans, who built aqueducts using the qanat technique.

Romans used a method known as “fire-quenching” to break hard rocks, which involved heating the rock with fire and then quickly cooling it with cold water. Hard rock could make progress extremely slow, and it was not unusual for tunnel construction to take years or even decades.

Adıyaman Museum Director Mehmet Alkan entered the water tunnel with Geçitli Village Headman Abdullah Güllü.

It was stated that the tunnel is an important historical structure with its interesting structure. During the investigations carried out in the same region, living spaces and rock tombs dating back to the Roman period were found.

Adıyaman Museum Director Mehmet Alkan emphasized the magnificent nature of the tunnel and stated, ” We discovered that this tunnel, which dates back to the 3rd century AD, or 1,700 years ago, was built to transport water from the Sofraz River to fields on the opposite side of the living area. We have witnessed how remarkable this water tunnel, built 1,700 years ago, appears. This tunnel, showcasing exceptional craftsmanship and serving as a remarkable piece of art, is the longest water tunnel found in Adıyaman” he said.

Geçitli Village Headman Abdullah Güllü said, “We knew there was a tunnel here before, but we were afraid to go into it. Our manager came, and we entered together. We made inspections. It is a very magnificent and beautiful tunnel.”

By Oğuz Büyükyıldırım.