GRIPES

[facthunter]

You don't just market for the local demand. It's a world  market for a lot of things these days, We've done a lot of damage HERE in the last 250 years. Soil erosion and salinity and corruption of the WATER thing.. WE aggregate in a few cities mainly along the East Coast. The family Farm is a thing of the past..   Nev

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

We've done a lot of damage HERE in the last 250 years.

That's true about the non-urban areas, and in a different way in urban areas. However, after coming back to grain growing region after 40-odd years, I can see that the late Generation X and the Millennial farmers are taking up procedures that can either halt the degradation of the land they farm, or even better restore some of the damage. Maybe even while engaging in broadacre monoculture the crops they are growing may be doing something to restore or improve the soils. I notice that stubble burning is not so common. Maybe it's gone out of fashion, or maybe it's simply because of stricter controls over the use of fire.

 

Ye, the family farm in broadacre farming is gone. That is simply the result of economies of scale. Bigger machinery lets one person farm more country, so that person needs more land, so buys out the aging Baby Boomer and early Generation X farmers and rips out the boundary fences. 

 

As for damage in urban areas, well every person pollutes, so the more you gather people together, the bigger the pile of pollution. How much does each of us contribute to solid waste? I have a recycling bag of about 60 litre capacity which I seem to fill every week with packaging, tin cans etc., even the white paper that my fresh deli meats are wrapped in goes into the bag. This morning as I tossed an empty 65 ml Yakult bottle into the bag I wondered if it would go to landfill or actually be recycled.

[onetrack]

Stubble burning has gone out of fashion because the burning consumes nitrogen, adds to air pollution, and denudes the topsoil, allowing an increase in erosion.

Stubble burning also detrimentally affects the soil microbiome, stressing it out with high temperatures. As a result, many are trying alternative means to deal with stubble.

 

The major aim with stubble burning was to prevent tyned seeding machine blockages, this is a major hassle with heavy stubble, and some machines.

Seeding machine design has developed into designs aimed at working better in heavy stubble. However, when heavy stubble is buried, the breakdown of the stubble can also consume soil nutrients.

Baling stubble for manufacturing use or for feed additives is a desirable aim, but one that is not always readily available, especially in more remote locations.

 

https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/crops-and-horticulture/grains-pulses-and-cereals/crop-production/general-agronomy/stubble-burning

 

https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/crops-and-horticulture/grains-pulses-and-cereals/crop-production/general-agronomy/stubble-burning

[willedoo]

Burning broadacre stubble is long gone. To do it now is just burning money. In the cane industry, burning is mostly gone but you still see a small amount of it for a reason. Over time the harvesting equipment has evolved to be able to handle the trash throughput and cane varieties have been bred that produce less trash. Usually the only cane burning in this area is when they want to harvest standover cane that has stood over unharvested for two or three seasons. It grows bigger with less sugar and more trash and needs to be burnt so the harvester can handle it. Because there's no local mill any more and transport costs to the nearest mill are high, farmers will only harvest when the price of sugar is high enough for them to break even on costs. Some years they harvest, some they don't, resulting in standover cane. Cutting green cane and leaving a trash blanket as mulch is much more profitable. More moisture and plant growth, less fertiliser and herbicide.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

As a result, many are trying alternative means to deal with stubble.

 

I reckon that leaving stubble to rot, while it might initially reduce soil nutrients during decomposition, it is a means of putting carbon into our poor soils. Also, while the microbes breaking down the stubble might draw on nutrients in the plant material, individual microbes eventually die and return nutrients to the soil.

 

As for baling stubble, have you seen how short the stems of modern wheat plants are? I've seen longer stems in a suburban lawn.

[nomadpete]

9 hours ago, old man emu said:

It's not that we went wrong, it is quite simply that we have never had the population size that develops an economy that can produce the money for investment in the production of goods. It is said that no money is made unless something is purchased by the consumer. If you don't have a large number of consumers, you don't make sales and therefore don't make money.

I can't agree with your hypothesis.

 

For instance, post WW2, Japan built a massive motor vehicle industry - and it wasn't built on the back of a massive home market.

 

With our country so flush with raw materials, why aren't we manufacturing for the world market?  As a spinoff, we would have more affordable products on our shelves, and more productive employment.

[old man emu]

But Japan already had a strong manufacturing sector before WWII. All that was needed was for the factories to be rebuilt. By 1952 Japan had regained its prewar industrial output. Similarly, in Europe, the Marshall Plan was to aid in the economic recovery of nations after World War II by rebuilding the manufacturing base that had been destroyed by the war.

 

Just because Australia is raw material rich does not mean that there is the money for turning those raw materials into goods. Just think of all the Australian manufacturers who existed in the 1950s/60s but which don't now. Simply because money from overseas has bought the businesses and then closed them down and established manufacturing in countries where regulations are virtually non-existent and wages are a fraction of what is paid in Australia.

[spacesailor]

That " Marshall plan " didn't do much in Englands north were the children were often, Sent to bed, without food, or heating, still had  " ration books  " untill 1953. The Coronation of the late Queen ".

spacesailor

 

[facthunter]

The Labour content is going lower and lower with car assembly. Robotic everywhere. , Stable political is what is required.  as a start point..  Nev

[red750]

Further to my post of Wednesday, I got a doctors appointment and got the prescription I needed. I went to Chemist Warehouse to have it completed.

 

I took this photo to illustrate what I was complaining about, the stack of boxes of stock in the aisles. Although they have a storeroom packed to the ceiling, they have these boxes in every aisle, every time you go there. You've got to work your way past them, and the staff packing products on the shelves and customers deciding on their purchase. It looks like there is no-one in this aisle, but there was a girl crouching down behind the boxes restocking goods on the lower shelves. For privacy, I picked a time when there were no customers in this particular aisle.

 

[spacesailor]

Just like our Blacktown store .

my local ' chemist ' has just changed ownership, 

The head chemist has bought the store and the owner has bought a Cafe next door.  Looking good as of now .

So no gripes from me .🤑

spacesailor

[pmccarthy]

9 hours ago, red750 said:

there was a girl crouching down behind the boxes restocking goods on the lower shelves. For privacy, I picked a time when there were no customers in this particular aisle.

 

 

Are you sure it was for privacy and not to be alone with the crouching girl?

[red750]

Another thing that enfuriates me is pedestrian crossings with traffic lights that stop the traffic when there is no-one within a bulls roar of the crossing. As deserted as a ghost town, but the lights turn red as you approach. I don't mean at intersections, I mean mid block. You get stopped enough at intersections without that.

[spacesailor]

All traffic lights are annoying.  The posted speed limit is exactly, the speed to stop you at every blooody light.

4 or 5 k's over & every light is green .

Revenue Raising , every time , filling those Stste Coffers.

spacesailor

[Bruce Tuncks]

Surely there could be more pedestrian button switches? their lack sure is a worry.

Getting back to the problem of burning off, I once went to a seminar on the subject. A typical farmer told the audience that he never meant to stop burning his stubble, but then his yields dropped badly and he was told that there was zero organic matter in his topsoil due to his continued burning of stubble. It took years to get the land back to full productivity without burning at all, but he eventually did.

[Bruce Tuncks]

These days he goes around singing the praises of those who told him to stop burning off.

[Jerry_Atrick]

The reach of Americanism.. My niece from Aus was staying at our house.. She asked me what the difference between murder 1 and 2 was. I was a little shocked. I asked if she meant murder in the first and second degree. She said yes.. She is now back off to Australia! (well, she was going anyway, but I had to set her straight - Aus (or at least NSW) has no such distinctions.

[onetrack]

Yeah, but ... you gotta remember, "some people just need killin'!". You have to shake your head at the Americans response to their "family protection" problem. They can never see the elephant in the room.

 

Get a read of "Mauro Martinez's" attitude towards "justifiable homicide" and the Australian Michael Hewitts reply, in the Quora discussion below.

 

https://www.quora.com/What-are-Stand-Your-Ground-laws-Do-any-Australian-States-have-laws-like-this-If-so-how-does-our-system-differ-from-theirs-and-why#:~:text="Stand Your Ground" laws allow,case by case%2C emphasizing proportionality.

[Bruce Tuncks]

AND SALT NEV! in rainwater....  not enough to worry about ( ec reading of rainwater = 20 dS/m I think, anyway the 20 is correct. This compares with 30,000 ppm for seawater, or about 22,000 ec units.

But if the catchment is big enough, by the time evap etc has concentrated the salt, it is no longer negligible. For the murray-darling , this salt is significant.

How does it get from the sea?... just look at the white haze in a sea-breeze, it's salt dust. It gets into the air when sea-spray evaporates.

 

[facthunter]

A negligible amount "gets" from the sea. The salt in inland rivers leeches from the soil in each river catchment. Nev

[pmccarthy]

During the Federation drought (1895-1903) the situation became so dire that the Maryborough Council (Victoria) considered sourcing town water from the mine pumps. Dr. Howell, the Government Chemist, noted that while the water didn’t fully meet hygienic standards, it could be used for domestic purposes in extreme circumstances. However, he advised against using it in steam boilers for locomotives.

[facthunter]

Near where you have "breaking waves"  and strong sea breezes the salt will travel  further inland and corrode things. The best water I've ever consumed is at  Dinner Plain and Mt Hotham. Nev

[pmccarthy]

The best water I have ever consumed was added to a twenty-year-old whisky.

[nomadpete]

1 hour ago, pmccarthy said:

The best water I have ever consumed was added to a twenty-year-old whisky.

Agreed. Water is good to drink as long as you add the antidote.

[spacesailor]

I see Sydney Water, 

 is  now , going to give us better water.

Did they know all along,  it's was not good .

I have always noticed the smell of the chlorine in our tap water .

And Fluoride is a " forever " chemical. 

spacesailor