Discovery: "Electronic soil" boosts crop growth by over 50%
www.earth.com
This research introduces an innovative approach to soilless cultivation, or hydroponics, by integrating electronic soil, or eSoil.

Breakthrough: “Electronic soil” boosts crop growth by over 50%::This research introduces an innovative approach to soilless cultivation, or hydroponics, by integrating electronic soil, or eSoil.

  • reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    I grow using a technique known as “notill” where you guessed it, I never till the soil. Or replace it. It’s organic, I even have helper bugs and worms. Inside. It’s awesome.

    • diannetea@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      It’s really weird to me that you write just like Jesse talks on the No Till Growers youtube channel

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Don’t you have to till at least once?

      I tried growing on ground that was matted deep with decades old dead vegetation. And even after raking the crap out of it and trying to dethatch it, I couldn’t get anything to stick.

      After giving it a good till and mixing in a decent bit of old herbivore manure, my plants took and grew wonderfully.

      • Pipoca@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Nope. The idea in no till is just adding stuff to the top and letting worms and roots handle the tilling.

        I’ve had good luck just dumping a foot or two of finished compost on the ground and growing in it.

        Another solid no-till approach is sheet mulching. You put down a layer of cardboard (to kill weeds), then layers of carbon and nitrogen like straw and kitchen scraps. Wait a few months, then plant. So you could do that in the late summer or fall to prepare a site for spring planting.

        A lot of these things depend on location, though. Something that works great in Pennsylvania might not work as well in Utah.