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Greening the Desert

Food Forests, Fungi, Land, Rehabilitation, Salination, Soil Biology, Swales, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh

This is just one example of how permaculture can transform the environment, and, in so doing, dramatically change lives. By evidencing the dramatic transformation possible in the world’s worst agricultural scenarios, we hope to make people stand up and listen.

Big Agribusiness would convince us that continuing with fossil fuel dependent monocrop systems and genetically modified crops is the way of the future, but with fuel, transport and fertiliser costs skyrocketing, and growing evidence that genetic tinkering is causing far more harm than good, we, instead, advocate tried and tested methods of working with nature for the benefit of man.

Below is a behind the scenes look at Greening the Desert.

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Posted on: March 1, 2007

Fungi help some trees weather acid rain, but not all

Fungi — by Administrator

A discovery reported in the latest edition of the journal Nature (June 13, 2002) — that fungi on the roots of some trees in the Northeastern United States help supply much-needed calcium in forest soils battered by acid rain — would seem to ease worries about the worrisome form of pollution.

But don’t stop worrying just yet, warns Timothy J. Fahey, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Natural Resources at Cornell University and a co-author of the report, “Mycorrhizal weathering of apatite as an important calcium source in base-poor forest ecosystems.”

“Not all tree species are fortunate enough to be associated with the types of root fungi that supply calcium,” he says, pointing to sugar maples, which in some areas have suffered serious declines in recent years. Click for more…

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Posted on: May 3, 2006