Floating fields tree and plant production

9th IGRSM International Conference and Exhibition on Geospatial & Remote Sensing

地球科学;计算机科学

Sidloski, Rodney^1 ; Suparta, Wayan^2

P.O. Box 181, Weyburn

SK

S4H2J9, Canada^1

Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta

55282, Indonesia^2

关键词: Food security;    Industrial timber supply;    Plant production;    Production cost;    Research goals;    Tree plantings;    Vascular plant;    Water;    savings;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/169/1/012116/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/169/1/012116

学科分类：计算机科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

The challenge of lowering tree production costs to address depletion in global forest cover and timber supply is addressed. Research was driven by the desire to develop a system of tree production so inexpensive that trees could be produced by government and private nurseries at inconsequential cost for free or low cost distribution for mass tree planting to help world-wide tree supply catch up to demand. The research goal was to lower to two pennies the cost of tree production during the critical 90 day period after a cutting or bare root seedling is planted in a nursery to the time the plant grows into a field ready seedling. The research followed rigorous objectives to achieve vast reduction in infrastructure, maintenance, chemicals, irrigation technology and labour to create high-volume, high-density outdoor and indoor tree production. Costs during the 'critical ninety days' were brought down to near zero in some trials. Key to this achievement was proving the hypothesis that sub-irrigated plant production is possible by placing tree cuttings and bare root seedlings into buoyant planting blocks floated in a wide variety of outdoor water bodies and indoor water pans. The system also proved until for production of a wide range of forbs, vascular plants, grasses and select vegetables. The extreme water saving characteristic of the floating fields system was a subsequent discovery not hypothesized. Successful floating field production of trees, grasses, vegetables and a wide range of aquatic and dryland plants suggest that sub-irrigation in general and floating fields in particular represents a major breakthrough in agriculture. Larger implications of this discovery are expected to show dramatic lessening of the cost of plant production worldwide with desired consequences for the planet including but not limited to improved forest cover, greater industrial timber supply, and improved food security.