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louis

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 7,208

Re: Crop production and food variety

The Encyclopedia Britannica is not a dictionary. It's a reference work and the article in question was written by an academic with  knowledge of the subject. 

You still haven't given a quote from Brady to support your claim about what he said.

Here is another quote, this time from "The Regolith Glosssary",  edited by Emeritus Professor Richard A Eggleton, an expert in Mineralogy And Crystallography, Soil Chemistry (Excl. Carbon Sequestration Science), Other Earth Sciences and Geology.

(i)  The term was introduced by Merrill (1897) who wrote of the
incoherent mass of varying thickness covering the underlying rocks:
“In places this covering is made up of material originating through
rock weathering in-situ.  In other instances it is of fragmental and
more or less decomposed material drifted by wind, water or ice from
other sources.  This entire mantle of unconsolidated material,
whatever its nature or origin, it is proposed to call the regolith, from
the Greek words
ρεγο
s
(rhegos), meaning a blanket, and
λιθο
s
(lithos), a stone.”
(ii)  The entire unconsolidated or secondarily recemented cover that
overlies more coherent bedrock, that has been formed by weathering,
erosion, transport and/or deposition of the older material.  The
regolith thus includes fractured and weathered basement rocks,
saprolites, soils, organic accumulations, volcanic material, glacial
deposits, colluvium, alluvium, evaporitic sediments, aeolian deposits
and ground water.
iii)  Everything from fresh rock to fresh air

Here's a link to the Glossary:

http://crcleme.org.au/Educ/rgg/docs/Reg … ossary.pdf

Terminologies in dictionary define generally which explain in layman's term. I prefer textbook written by the expert in the discipline.
Brady is a known soil scientist in the world, and he made a several edition of the book for update.

Last edited by louis (2018-10-30 03:12:54)

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knightdepaix

Member

Registered: 2014-07-07

Posts: 239

Re: Crop production and food variety

With the abundance of carbon dioxide and argon, how about using hydrogen gas gas chromatography (GC) supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) liquid chromatography (LC) for chemical and pharmaceutical synthesis of drugs from crops and food sources. There, the idea of using unused biomass after harvest can be implemented. Then the developing sectors agriculture and chemical industry can merge with medicine and pharmaceutical ones.

Argon is used for more specialized uses.

In sum, the well developed LC and GC can be implemented after a settler base is established and the chromatographies can start contribute to check for soil, gas samples for feasible and fitting locations for greenhouse crop plantations.

If scCO2 LC works well on Mars and a floating settler base is possible on Venus, then scCO2 LC can be performed on Venus. The atmospheric CO2 on Mars is already supercritical anyway. There, the Mars settling experiment helps that on Venus cloud tops.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,428

Re: Crop production and food variety

Wow found another topic on foods...and growing of it.

Foods to Increase the Oxygen in the Blood
We need between 8 and 18 milligrams of iron daily to prevent a deficiency and since we  have no meats on mars strarting we will need to get them from the plants or in supplement vitimans.

If your diet lacks folate or vitamin B-12, eating foods rich in these nutrients might boost your blood oxygen levels. Folate, also called vitamin B-9, helps your body make red blood cells -- the iron-rich cells that carry oxygen in your blood. Vitamin B-12 helps you make hemoglobin, the protein that contains oxygen-carrying iron.

vitamin B-12 through meat, fish and shellfish -- a single 3-ounce serving of salmon, mackerel, beef, mussels, clams or Alaskan king crab will provide all you need for the day

Which means sea foods are just as important..

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,428

Re: Crop production and food variety

corn is mentioned in the first post

For anyone ... this is a little teaser that arrived in a tech newsletter primarily devoted to hard engineering ...

There was a link to a magazine, which I'm willing to provide if anyone is interested ... however, I'm hoping the teaser will generate some search activity ...

Bacteria help plants grow without fertilizer

An international group of researchers found that additional enzymes in soil can help even stunted maize varieties grow big and strong without fertilizers. This could help farmers and food producers encourage plant growth without harmful chemicals.

This sure does seem like something worth investigating for Mars agriculture.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,776

Re: Crop production and food variety

Already profit in very select set of crops.

When will vertical farming become profitable?
https://www.verticalfarmdaily.com/artic … rofitable/
Antarctic Farm Could One Day Journey to Mars
http://www.urbanorganicgardener.com/201 … y-to-mars/