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.

  • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
    English
    1·
    6 months 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·
      6 months 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.