Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Right, Amanda, five gallons was the old standard. I'd like to see the
toilet tank that holds 20 -30 gallons - that weight would sink right
through the floor ;-) 

And an important point: irrigation water for growing cattle feed must be
counted in the total cost of raising cattle. Though alfalfa hay normally
isn't fed directly to cattle, it is added for many animals' feed in various
processed products like byproduct pellets. 

Here in central NM I can see round fields of that ammonium nitrate green
from my front deck, and wouldn't you know it, their sprinklers are running
full blast at high noon in the summer heat.  It's alfalfa. And I have to
wonder about our acquifer. We're on a well. 

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------
The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all
our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to
foster its renewal is our only hope.
   - Wendell Berry 
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 6/19/2006 at 10:41 AM Amanda Peck wrote:

>The amount per flush sounds way way way too high.  Don't think that's the 
>amount a standard toilet tank holds--maybe three gallons--less than five, 
>certainly.  Lower flow toilets are now mandated.  Composting toilets are 
>certainly available.
>
>People around here do feed hay to their cattle in the wintertime, and in
>the 
>summer when it hasn't rained.  The area generally gets enough rain to make

>at least one hay crop in the fields that the cattle aren't grazing right 
>then.  So there's not much irrigation of hay fields.  But that may be 
>because people don't sell much hay.  There IS a farm the next county over 
>where I've seen the irrigation sprayers going at noon on a bright summer's

>day--putting the water in the air to evaporate.
>
>It's probably true that our water comes straight from a river, not from a 
>well.  But particularly on the Ogalalla aquifer, it may be more than our 
>grandchildren will wish we had consumed.
>
>I've read somewhere that the water usage for alfalfa irrigation in 
>California is  the biggest use of water in the state.  Not sure if that's 
>true, but....
>
>Even if it isn't, it's still true that irrigation water also has to be 
>counted as water used in raising the cows.
>............
>Ryan Albringer wrote (snipped into nothingness--including another part I'm

>replying to):
>Considering these figures per unit produced, it is a drop in the bucket 
>compared to the average toilet consuming something like 20 or 30 gallons
>of 
>potable water per flush.
>
>
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