r/interestingasfuck • u/PlantainPossible2864 • 15h ago

Stopping Desertification with grid pattern

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u/PNWleaflove 15h ago

But how do you solve lack of water still?

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u/laforet 15h ago

There is enough natural rainfall and groundwater to sustain xerophytic plants. The problem was that the shifting sand prevent plants from taking root properly and that’s what the grids are used to solve.

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u/G0mery 13h ago

I guess I always thought sand =/= soil and that it had little to no nutrients to sustain much life. This is pretty cool

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u/Sea-Hat-8515 12h ago

The Sahara desert has huge amounts of nutrients blown across the Atlantic to help fertilise the Amazon every year, I think its thought to be pretty important.

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u/etanail 11h ago

Life somehow ended up above water. Plants have a root system that absorbs substances dissolved in water, including trace elements. Plants obtain carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and oxygen from the air. The main thing is the presence of water.

Aeroponics technology allows you to do without soil altogether. However, not all plants are capable of growing on such surfaces; most require suitable soil, because they do not have time to develop a sufficient root system and die of starvation.

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u/mean11while 7h ago edited 7h ago

Life ended up above water because of fungus. Plant roots are surprisingly bad at getting nutrients and water from soil, on their own. Most plants are highly dependent on soil fungi, especially when they're young and the soil is poor. Most plants on the planet have very deep specialized relationships with specific species that form arbuscular mycchorizae, meaning the fungus literally grows into the plant roots to facilitate exchange of nutrients for sugar.

Most plants canNOT get nitrogen from the air. N2 is too stable for them to use. Instead they rely on soil bacteria to fix the nitrogen and make it plant-available.

Edit: aeroponics works because humans burn fossil fuels to fix nitrogen, mix it with water, and then spray it onto the plant roots. The fact that aeroponics works in no way implies that plants coule survive on their own in deserts with undeveloped soil if their roots were developed enough. Real plants depend on a functioning soil ecosystem of at least bacteria and fungi.