Biome carbon cycle management

[Trakar]

Any thoughts on biochar and carbon sequestration RBF, Trakar, Macdoc?

I haven't really researched this in regard to sequestration issues, but I stumbled upon a variant of this decades ago when I was gardening in soils with really low pH, and was always amending the soil with wood ashes to raise the pH. I noticed that plant roots seemed to penetrate and permeate all the little chunks of charcoal that were mixed in with the ashes from the burn piles. I started separating out all my charcoal clumps and soaking them in compost/vermiculture teas for several weeks and then allowing them to completely dry before amending them to the garden soil in the late winter/early spring (usually a couple of weeks before planting). I didn't run any controls, so my assessment is more subjective than scientific, but I've always managed to produce bountiful and delicious results.

Even in relatively dry springs and summers, my gardens seem to hold moisture extremely well and require much less frequent watering than those of neighbors in this area.

 

[macdoc]

I've read some interesting articles on bio-char and certainly the combined benefit of sequestration and soil enhancement seems brilliant.
This was the article I think
http://www.scientificamerican.com/p...=can-charcoal-slow-climate-change-an-10-08-08

What can be done on the agri-industry scale tho I'm not certain.
Much of this revolves around connecting the dots between our fossil fuel use and somehow recapturing that C02 at the power plant level and using it to aid fertility but I think we are a long ways away.

 

[macdoc]

Now this is good $3 gal biodiesel vegetable based

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/15/3164111/boeing-renewable-diesel/

 

[macdoc]

How much is land use management/issues covered in the IPCC reports?

 

[Trakar]

How much is land use management/issues covered in the IPCC reports?

As well as most natural and anthropogenic factors.
Anthropogenic factors may provide some noticeable, but minor, signal as long ago as the first large scale agricultural efforts in the ME and southern Asia some 5-8000ya.

The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago - http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004577.17928.fa

...This hypothesis is based on three arguments. (1) Cyclic variations in CO2 andCH4 driven by Earth-orbital changes during the last 350,000 years predict decreases throughout the Holocene, but the CO2 trend began an anomalous increase 8000 years ago, and the CH4 trend did so 5000 years ago.(2) Published explanations for these mid- to late-Holocene gas increases based on natural forcing can be rejected based on paleoclimatic evidence. (3) A wide array of archeological, cultural, historical and geologic evidence points to viable explanations tied to anthropogenic changes resulting from early agriculture in Eurasia, including the start of forest clearance by 8000 years ago and of rice irrigation by 5000 years ago. In recent millennia, the estimated warming caused by these early gas emissions reached a global-mean value of ∼ 0.8 °C and roughly 2 °C at high latitudes, large enough to have stopped a glaciation of northeastern Canada predicted by two kinds of climatic models...

Early rice farming and anomalous methane trends
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379108000760

The anthropogenic explanation for the increase in atmospheric methane concentration during the last 5000 years requires large CH4 emissions from human activities beginning early in the Bronze Age. This paper presents a compilation of 311 archeological sites in rice-growing regions of China. The number of new sites between 6000 and 4000 years ago increased almost ten-fold compared with those during previous millennia...

The Holocene CO2 rise: Anthropogenic or natural?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006EO030002/abstract

In view of the wide attention received by the suggestion that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) over the last 8000 years is anthropogenic rather than natural in origin [Ruddiman, 2003], this claim should be carefully examined.The basis for the claim is that following each of the three preceding glacial terminations, the CO2 content of the atmosphere peaked early on and then underwent a steady decline. By contrast, following the end of the last glacial period, while it also peaked early the decline bottomed out around 8000 years ago, and since then the atmospheric CO2 content has steadily risen.

By analogy with previous interglaciations, Ruddiman estimates that in the absence of human activity, the CO2 content of the atmosphere would have dropped to 240 ppm. Instead it has risen to 280 ppm. In a recent article, Ruddiman [2005] proposes that this 40 ppm human-induced rise prevented the onset of another ice age.

Note: the author is speaking pre-industrial human land use contributions to atmospheric CO2 levels.

Many more that is just a quick grab of papers, there is a lot of forest felling, swamp draining, irrigation, agricutulture, etc..

 

[macdoc]

Thanks....y'know sometimes I forget the Holocene optimum is well within archeological time frames.

A wide array of archeological, cultural, historical and geologic evidence points to viable explanations tied to anthropogenic changes resulting from early agriculture in Eurasia, including the start of forest clearance by 8000 years ago and of rice irrigation by 5000 years ago.

and China has been a "settled civilization for at least 5,000 years. North America is so young by comparison. Still fighting over the 13,000 year Clovis limit for any humans at all tho I think that barrier is pretty much gone.

 

[macdoc]

I really like this concept - even if not directly related to biome carbon management there are lots of knock on positive effects and a high tech version of what CUba had to do bringing food production into cities.

Vertical farms sprouting all over the world

16 January 2014 by Paul Marks

Leader: "Fruit and veg, fresh from the skyscraper"

URBAN warehouses, derelict buildings and high-rises are the last places you'd expect to find the seeds of a green revolution. But from Singapore to Scranton, Pennsylvania, "vertical farms" are promising a new, environmentally friendly way to feed the rapidly swelling populations of cities worldwide.

In March, the world's largest vertical farm is set to open up shop in Scranton. Built by Green Spirit Farms (GSF) of New Buffalo, Michigan, it will only be a single storey covering 3.25 hectares, but with racks stacked six high it will house 17 million plants. And it is just one of a growing number.

Vertical farms aim to avoid the problems inherent in growing food crops in drought-and-disease-prone fields many hundreds of kilometres from the population centres in which they will be consumed. Instead, Dickson Despommier – an ecologist at Columbia University in New York City who has championed vertical farms since 1999 – suggests that food should be grown year-round in high-rise urban buildings, reducing the need for the carbon-emitting transport of fruit and vegetables.
The plant racks in a vertical farm can be fed nutrients by water-conserving, soil-free hydroponic systems and lit by LEDs that mimic sunlight. And they need not be difficult to manage: control software can choreograph rotating racks of plants so each gets the same amount of light, and direct water pumps to ensure nutrients are evenly distributed.

The whole apparatus can be monitored from a farmer's smartphone (see "Farming from afar"), says GSF's R&D manager, Daniel Kluko. He says the new farm in Scranton will grow 14 lettuce crops per year, as well as spinach, kale, tomatoes, peppers, basil and strawberries. Its output will be almost 10 times greater than the firm's first vertical farm, which opened in New Buffalo in 2011.

Proponents see vertical farming as a way to feed a global population that is urbanising fast: 86 per cent of the people in the developed world will live in cities by 2050, the United Nations predicts. It could make food supplies more secure as well, because production can continue even when extreme weather strikes. And as long as farmers are careful to protect their indoor "fields" from pests, vertical farming needs no herbicides or insecticides. They also conserve water far better than earthbound farming.

GSF's first farm was inspired by the long-term drought that has been afflicting many parts of the US. "Water is a big issue," says Kluko. "We have designed our vertical farms to recycle it, and they use 98 per cent less water per item of produce than traditional farming." That's done in part by scavenging water from the grow room's atmosphere with a dehumidifier. It's a machine with a dual role, as excess humidity can lead to problems like leaf mould.

more

http://www.newscientist.com/article...prouting-all-over-the-world.html#.UtwCbHn0B_w

one of those million mini Manhattan Project solutions to get more sustainable.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I really like this concept - even if not directly related to biome carbon management there are lots of knock on positive effects and a high tech version of what CUba had to do bringing food production into cities.


more

http://www.newscientist.com/article...prouting-all-over-the-world.html#.UtwCbHn0B_w

one of those million mini Manhattan Project solutions to get more sustainable.

It is interesting, and probably has its place. But compared to this?

Ron Finley

Not everything in the vid is completely accurate. And just because it could be done, and would help in transportation carbon costs, it doesn't necessarily mean the land would become a carbon sequestration sink. You still have to do it correctly in order to make the land a net sequestration sink. But Ron does a fantastic job of of at least getting people to open their eyes to possibilities available to them right now, without huge government programs or tax bills.

 

[Trakar]

I really like this concept - even if not directly related to biome carbon management there are lots of knock on positive effects and a high tech version of what CUba had to do bringing food production into cities.


more

http://www.newscientist.com/article...prouting-all-over-the-world.html#.UtwCbHn0B_w

one of those million mini Manhattan Project solutions to get more sustainable.

Agreed, I've always liked this idea. Growing conditions are optimized, little to no need for pesticides and weed combating herbicides, and the food is grown very near to the populations that will be consuming them. You eliminate a lot of the carbon that is normally connected to crop production and distribution. As long as your power is generated from a non-fossil fuel power plant it is really a green farming technology.

 

[macdoc]

It is interesting, and probably has its place. But compared to this?

Ron Finley

Yes - what Ron has done is what Cuba had to do ...

In 1989, over 57% of Cuba’s caloric intake was imported from the Soviet Union. When it collapsed, Cuba became, virtually overnight, solely responsible for feeding its population – including the 2.2 million in the city of Havana. [1] What happened next is an incredible story of resilience and innovation.

As our world becomes increasingly urbanized, our farms increasingly endangered, and our reliance upon fossil fuels increasingly undesirable, the question of how we will feed billions of future city dwellers is no mere thought experiment – it’s an urgent reality.

The story of Cuba offers us an interesting question: What would our cities look like if we began to place food production/distribution as the primary focus of urban design? And what will it take to make this vision a reality?

http://www.archdaily.com/237526/urban-agriculture-part-i-what-cuba-can-teach-us/

But to get it fully in gear it's not a guerrilla movement that is needed but industrial applied to urban settings.

That means building codes and regulation. I could see Portland with it's Sustainability Department acting on this.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Yes - what Ron has done is what Cuba had to do ...


http://www.archdaily.com/237526/urban-agriculture-part-i-what-cuba-can-teach-us/

But to get it fully in gear it's not a guerrilla movement that is needed but industrial applied to urban settings.

That means building codes and regulation. I could see Portland with it's Sustainability Department acting on this.

The most important part of the link you posted is this:

What it required, however, was the complete and forced removal of its previously entrenched food system.

That I believe is key. Eliminate in some way the destructive practice, and sustainable will fill the vacuum easily. And just to prove Cuba is in no way unique, all you have to do is go back to WWII.

According to wikipedia:

Although at first the Department of Agriculture objected to Eleanor Roosevelt's institution of a victory garden on the White House grounds, fearing that such a movement would hurt the food industry,[7] basic information about gardening appeared in public services booklets distributed by the Department of Agriculture, as well as by agribusiness corporations such as International Harvester and Beech-Nut. Fruit and vegetables harvested in these home and community plots was estimated to be 9-10 million tons, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables.

And that quote from wikipedia hilites the other big problem. The USDA, which currently is beholden to the policies that originally drove the family farmers off the land and replaced them with non-sustainable industrial models. So much so in fact that the USDA-NRCS often has conflicting policies with the USDA. It is literally a house divided, with policies and regulations sometimes diametrically opposed to each other.

 

[macdoc]

No argument from me but how to get there is a huge problem.

The food processing industry is too vertical and oligarchic - only the government has enough power to counter it and they are far too much in big agri pocket.

This is one case where it may have to be market forces ( as effectively it was in Cuba ) that bring about a change.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

No argument from me but how to get there is a huge problem.

The food processing industry is too vertical and oligarchic - only the government has enough power to counter it and they are far too much in big agri pocket.

This is one case where it may have to be market forces ( as effectively it was in Cuba ) that bring about a change.

If it was just market forces there would be no problem to begin with. The problem isn't market forces. The problem is the government subsidizing unsustainable and polluting practices on purpose. That goes for energy as well as agriculture. As I said, it is a house divided.

It has always been my contention that farmers are the most concerned about soil health, animal welfare, pollution, nutrient and water cycles etc... The question therefore isn't whether farmers will do the right thing or not, the question is whether farmers will be given the information and tools to do the right thing. No farmer wants to destroy his land. No farmer wants all his animals sick and miserable. No farmer wants to produce toxic food. Farmers are simply using the tools and methods developed by horticulturists and agronomists to the best of their ability and following USDA recommendations built on a business model that is actually quite antiquated. Anyone who thinks farmers actually want to spend all that money on nitrogen ferts and pesticides simply doesn't understand farming at all.

You have to understand, there was a time when we needed to free up man power to fill the cities, to provided labor for factories and war. If you take a population from one with 52% of the population in agriculture, and reduce it to where 2% can now farm the same land, then you effectively just doubled the population and power of your country in a very short period of time. That's what happened, and it wasn't an accident. That's also why haber process nitrogen was so important. We needed to have a peacetime use for the chemicals needed to produce explosives. So if war came, we had the manufacturing capacity to produce the materials and labor for war at a moments notice, without starving the population at the same time. It was a legitimate concern. Then during the cold war, corn and wheat was also used as a political tool as well. Also a legitimate concern.

The world has changed a lot since then. Unfortunately the antiquated policies, industry and business models are largely entrenched. Now the biggest threat to society is no longer those great wars like WW I and WW II. The biggest threat now is in paying the price those short term policies had on the environment and the ecosystem services degraded as a result of those policies. The carbon cycle causing AGW is but one of the ecosystem services nearing a breaking point, but it is a big one.

The good news is that biology is self healing. Scratch a car and it stays scratched. it even gets worse over time as rust sets in. But scratch your skin and it will heal by itself. Provide some help and it will heal even faster. Ecosystems are no different. Scratch them and they will heal on their own. Help them and they will heal even faster.

Most farmers instinctively know this about their farms. Always have. Even if they don't express it in those terms. They would be MORE than willing to provide that help in healing the land. All that is needed is to remove the antiquated policies that caused it to begin with and teach them how to improve and heal the land as well as the carbon, water, and nutrient cycles, at the same time as make profits. (and BTW we do know how to do it already) Watch how quickly and enthusiastically even large hard nosed conventional farmers will embrace integrating and incorporating methods originally developed by organic science into their conventional business models. And that isn't even really about AGW. The AGW mitigation is merely a beneficial "side effect". Undercover farmers

You do that and the market forces will force agriculture to a new sustainable equilibrium in very short order. Maybe it makes me too much of an optimist, but I truly believe it would happen incredibly rapidly the moment the pressure induced by those policies are removed. As fast or faster than it happened in Cuba, and without making anyone go hungry. Unfortunately we have become a society of Luddites and the new Luddites are VERY much more powerful. They will not let those policies change without a fight.

 

[!Kaggen]

If it was just market forces there would be no problem to begin with. The problem isn't market forces. The problem is the government subsidizing unsustainable and polluting practices on purpose. That goes for energy as well as agriculture. As I said, it is a house divided.

It has always been my contention that farmers are the most concerned about soil health, animal welfare, pollution, nutrient and water cycles etc... The question therefore isn't whether farmers will do the right thing or not, the question is whether farmers will be given the information and tools to do the right thing. No farmer wants to destroy his land. No farmer wants all his animals sick and miserable. No farmer wants to produce toxic food. Farmers are simply using the tools and methods developed by horticulturists and agronomists to the best of their ability and following USDA recommendations built on a business model that is actually quite antiquated. Anyone who thinks farmers actually want to spend all that money on nitrogen ferts and pesticides simply doesn't understand farming at all.

You have to understand, there was a time when we needed to free up man power to fill the cities, to provided labor for factories and war. If you take a population from one with 52% of the population in agriculture, and reduce it to where 2% can now farm the same land, then you effectively just doubled the population and power of your country in a very short period of time. That's what happened, and it wasn't an accident. That's also why haber process nitrogen was so important. We needed to have a peacetime use for the chemicals needed to produce explosives. So if war came, we had the manufacturing capacity to produce the materials and labor for war at a moments notice, without starving the population at the same time. It was a legitimate concern. Then during the cold war, corn and wheat was also used as a political tool as well. Also a legitimate concern.

The world has changed a lot since then. Unfortunately the antiquated policies, industry and business models are largely entrenched. Now the biggest threat to society is no longer those great wars like WW I and WW II. The biggest threat now is in paying the price those short term policies had on the environment and the ecosystem services degraded as a result of those policies. The carbon cycle causing AGW is but one of the ecosystem services nearing a breaking point, but it is a big one.

The good news is that biology is self healing. Scratch a car and it stays scratched. it even gets worse over time as rust sets in. But scratch your skin and it will heal by itself. Provide some help and it will heal even faster. Ecosystems are no different. Scratch them and they will heal on their own. Help them and they will heal even faster.

Most farmers instinctively know this about their farms. Always have. Even if they don't express it in those terms. They would be MORE than willing to provide that help in healing the land. All that is needed is to remove the antiquated policies that caused it to begin with and teach them how to improve and heal the land as well as the carbon, water, and nutrient cycles, at the same time as make profits. (and BTW we do know how to do it already) Watch how quickly and enthusiastically even large hard nosed conventional farmers will embrace integrating and incorporating methods originally developed by organic science into their conventional business models. And that isn't even really about AGW. The AGW mitigation is merely a beneficial "side effect". Undercover farmers

You do that and the market forces will force agriculture to a new sustainable equilibrium in very short order. Maybe it makes me too much of an optimist, but I truly believe it would happen incredibly rapidly the moment the pressure induced by those policies are removed. As fast or faster than it happened in Cuba, and without making anyone go hungry. Unfortunately we have become a society of Luddites and the new Luddites are VERY much more powerful. They will not let those policies change without a fight.

Well said

 

[Trakar]

Well said

Most emotional appeals are moving, unfortunately, I don't think such an approach will prove effective in getting a critical mass of people or politicians (note the distinction) to act in a manner that will be sufficient to thwart the loss of life and treasure of a magnitude that could easily bring about an extended Dark Ages for our civilization.

 

[macdoc]

http://modernfarmer.com/2014/01/two...n-farmers-inspired-community-failed-business/

 

[macdoc]

Was too tired to comment on the link above

In the spring of 2012, two students at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, surprised their landlord with an unusual request from a pair of college kids. Sam Frere and Dan Warren lived in one of those sprawling old houses converted to a college rental, and they’d come up with a plan to turn up every last bit of its front, back and side yards into a farm.

When their landlord OK’d the idea, they moved ahead full-throttle with their scheme. Before long, the bedraggled patch of grass out front erupted into a forest of sunflowers, kale, basil and melons. Around the side, their tomatoes went berserk on a regimen of vermicompost that Frere and Warren harvested from their worm colony in the basement. They had onions, carrots, pole beans, squash and much, much more, with big ambitions to match. The two had bonded as freshmen over an intense interest in innovative horticulture and planned to earn full-time livings farming less than a tenth of an acre.

Frere and Warren named their farm Collicello Gardens after their street (I live a few blocks down; I got to know them after the farm caught my attention and I started writing about it on my own blog). They began selling their produce through a CSA, and in their first year, got up to 11 customers. They also claimed confidently that, with succession planting, clever use of vertical space and other bio-intensive techniques, they’d be able to supply several dozen customers with weekly produce deliveries and be raking in a handsome amount of money.

http://modernfarmer.com/2014/01/two...n-farmers-inspired-community-failed-business/

Maybe we will see detroit as the new vertical farming capital of the midwest....I dare say and acre there is cheap

 

[Red Baron Farms]

@macdoc,
To use that example and still fit the topic of the thread....... Intensively farming such a small area requires heavy inputs and rapidly burns off the natural fertility of the soil. "Natural fertility" may seem somewhat vague, but in essence, the carbon in the soil acts like a sponge, locking the nutrients needed for plant growth.

Those kids "unlocked" that fertility and had a blaze of growth in 2 years, that then overwhelmed the system. They would have either lost fertility or have been required to replace it with massive inputs of fertilizers and carbon. That costs money and takes a lot of effort/energy. In essence they took grass which is a carbon sink and went to a sort of farming/gardening that made the land a carbon emissions source.

On the other hand, likely their veggies displaced commercially grown veggies that for the most part are also grown in such a way as to be an even bigger emissions source. The article doesn't mention how they were replacing that fertility beyond the vermiculture. It would take an analysis with quite a bit more data to figure out if the concept scaled up would yield a net carbon benefit or not. My guess is not much, if any.

I am working on a low input experimental system that is a net carbon sink and profitable and scale-able to any size from garden to full size farm. Last year I managed to prove it works at the scale of 1/10th an acre. This year I am planning the expansion to 1-2 acres. (with proper documentation of the data needed) With-in 5 years I hope to have it ready for 1 section (640 acres) trialing. We will see. I wouldn't even try to make claims yet on a untested project, especially on a skeptics forum!

 

[macdoc]

A very large part of the carbon footprint for food tho is transportation and what Cuba did was intense composting as well to maintain fertility.

There is certainly abundant composting material in any city and many cities have the resulting compost for free.

The big gain is not having to transport.....fertility is easier.

Cuba turned 1 calorie of food needing 12 calories of fossil fuel to produce and transport to completely inverted.

12 calories of food per calorie of fossil fuel.

They almost starved doing so but that's thanks to idiotic policies by the US.

There are villages in China that have been really closed cycle for thousands of years and feed thousands with fish ponds and careful management of the nutrient chains to maximize re-use.

Some practices not acceptable by wimpy westerners.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6945e/x6945e09.htm

and extending further

Aquaponics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


A small, portable aquaponics system. The term aquaponics is a portmanteau of the terms aquaculture and hydroponic.
Aquaponics /ˈækwəˈpɒnɨks/, is a food production system that combines conventional aquaculture, (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks), with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. In normal aquaculture, excretions from the animals being raised can accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity. In an aquaponic system, water from an aquaculture system is fed to a hydroponic system where the by-products are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria into nitrates and nitrites, which are utilized by the plants as nutrients. The water is then recirculated back to the aquaculture system.
As existing hydroponic and aquaculture farming techniques form the basis for all aquaponics systems, the size, complexity, and types of foods grown in an aquaponics system can vary as much as any system found in either distinct farming discipline.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Components
2.1 Plants: hydroponics
2.2 Animals: aquaculture
2.3 Bacteria
3 Operation
3.1 Feed source
3.2 Water usage
3.3 Energy usage
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
History[edit]

Further information: Historical hydroculture
Aquaponics has ancient roots, although there is some debate on its first occurrence:
Aztec cultivated agricultural islands known as chinampas in a system considered by some to be the first form of aquaponics for agricultural use[2][3] where plants were raised on stationary (and sometime movable) islands in lake shallows and waste materials dredged from the Chinampa canals and surrounding cities were used to manually irrigate the plants.[2][4]
South China, Thailand, and Indonesia who cultivated and farmed rice in paddy fields in combination with fish are cited as examples of early aquaponics systems.[5] These polycultural farming systems existed in many Far Eastern countries and raised fish such as the oriental loach (泥鳅, ドジョウ),[6] swamp eel (黄鳝, 田鰻), Common (鯉魚, コイ) and crucian carp (鯽魚) [7] as well as pond snails (田螺) in the paddies.[8][9]
Floating aquaponics systems on polycultural fish ponds were installed in China in more recent years on a large scale growing rice, wheat and canna lily and other crops,[10] with some installations exceeding 2.5 acres (10,000 m2).[11]

more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics

 

[Red Baron Farms]

@Mac
I have looked at aquaculture a bit. Just not enough to express an opinion yet. Mostly because it isn't workable on the land I have available to me right now. Oklahoma isn't exactly the land of plentiful lakes and streams. So right now I am working on conserving every drop of water I can. It turns out a 1% increase in soil organic carbon causes a 2% to >5% increase in soil available water-holding capacity, depending on the soil texture. [1]
Combine that with cover on the soil at all times, and you dramatically reduce the need for irrigation and/or rain. Less water use means less leaching. But it is compounded by the fact that on top of the increased absorption of water in carbon rich soils, humus also has an ability to adsorb nutrients due to its Cation Exchange properties. [2]
Here is the brilliant part! Pay close attention. The crop can use these nutrients by exchanging free hydrogen ions. The free hydrogen H+ fills the (-) site and allows the cation nutrient to be absorbed by the root or microorganism. This is exchange is facilitated in large part by the symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and their host plants. Plants can literally control the fungi and request the nutrients it needs for growth. It then pays for that delivery system by feeding the fungi with sugars![3][4] Sugars are of course carbon based! The soil biology feeds on that with the ultimate waste product being more humus. Some of that microbiology is nitrogen fixing too![5] Bingo! There is now a positive feedback system powered by solar energy, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and sequestering it in the soil!
We get many benefits from this.
1) Higher effective water use.
2) Less leaching and more efficient use of nutrients in the soil
3) A self fertilizing system that needs minimal outside inputs
4) CO2 sequestration, reducing the AGW pressure
5) Increased productivity of crops providing food and fiber for human use

In principle it is all there. I can see it as clearly as I see my keyboard. Problem being that it is very tricky getting the balance just right in the field in a way that is actually profitable for the farmer. Many have tried, most have failed to one degree or another. Either they keep productivity up, but loose profitability. Or they keep productivity and profitability up but need ever increasing inputs. Or they keep inputs low, but loose productivity. Or they can do it small to medium scale but can't manage to scale it up to full sized commercial. The ways it won't work are too many to count! We are getting close though. Already there are breakthroughs that have solved the balance with animal husbandry. I would love to one day come on the forum and proudly proclaim I solved the crop side of the equation as well. I can't do that yet though. Sorry to say. What is already proven though is that we can make huge improvements on the conventional industrial ag business model already. Maybe already even enough to stop or delay the AGW crisis, if done on enough acreage. Most the sudies saying it isn't possible are using a current ag model. I would agree. Without changing the model it probably is impossible. Change the model........?