Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

http://www.mnn.com/leaderboard/stories/ ... -and-fewer

I've known about this method of rice growing for some time and have followed its development with interest.

The approach that these guys have in particular Asif Sharif of getting naturally developing ecosystems within farming operations to support agricultural production while using the best of modern technology is fabulous. That is what I believe is one of the main potential benefits of AP especially when AP systems include the complexity that you find in GBs or to a lesser extent DWC. This is in marked contrast to hydro, RAS and those AP systems that integrate the two production systems but maintain the mechanistic, absolute operator control philosophies that dominate the mind set of those proponents that have originated in either the AQ or HP industries.

Stuart you start off with a nice article, which to me demonstrates that there was a very poor understanding of rice growing and soil biology and there is the development of technology to assist.

From there you draw a long bow in relating this to AP; now that is starting to sound like tree hugging hippy crap.

I've had a related chat with Ryan about the desire for sterilisation equipment in RAS and HP systems which are less or not appropriate in DWC systems.

There is a reasonable amount of evidence that a number of pathogens are less prevalent in DWC AP systems and even less prevalent in systems that contain a significant media component.

One of the theories that has been suggested to explain this observed phenomenon is the complex biological systems that develop in AP systems.

Also it is regularly observed that older more mature systems produce more than "young" systems. Again is has been suggested that the ecosystem that develops over time in AP systems whether DWC or GB based is responsible, at least in part, for the increased production of "mature" systems.

Given that I see it as a very short short high quality bow, possibly a Mongolian recurve because they are so cool.

This bit:



and this bit in particular was what I was talking about

Holy moly, got hooked on that "MNN" site for hours, learnt about:- how to eat an apple, child birth, bras, duct tape, baby names, neanderthals, some guy how stole 13m gallons on water, and lots of other useless information.

But in relation to the SRI rice growing, just level out the field, plant further apart, use less chemicals and water ?

Masanobu was doing very similar things a few decades back..

there is no information there, but i think it is basically going back to old style agriculture where the soil health is put first.

Actually part of the point is that many traditional methods were not as good as they should have, could have been.

There are documents out there that explain SRI in detail including some of the cons as well.

Hippy do not hug trees, they use them to wipe the crap off they're bum.
Or...... to roll a joint!

AP is a recirculating water based system; if your point is we know very little about the micro flora and fauna and their interaction you may have the cool bow.