permaculture

[Chris Wardle <cjwardle@gmail.com>]

Questions on timelines and strategies for bio-remediation

20180817: After three months of intensive study on Moringa cultivation in
Nepal, I am currently in Pakistan to learn more about local approaches to
marketing and the development of value-added products.

Sadly though, with significant pesticide and chemical fertiliser use in
this country, I think it unlikely that it will be easy to find
uncontaminated land as I pursue my dream to see more Moringa grown
organically here.

Yesterday, it was my good fortune to learn of a federal government facility
in Peshawar which offers free testing to assess the presence of pesticides
and chemical fertilisers in food. It strikes me that for low-income
farmers, this could be a reliable proxy and a good alternative to the high
cost of applying for and maintaining formal organic certification.

Hence, I am interested to avail this testing service not only as a mean of
assessing the quality of my food, but also as a monitoring tool for the
bio-remediation of land which has more than likely been exposed to such
toxic hazards.

However, I am hoping to learn about similar monitoring experience from
other contexts, as well as effective natural strategies to free the land
from contamination. For example ...

1) To what extent (if any) can chicken tractors, burning off, flooding,
planting of particular species, earth worms, mulching, the application of
compost, or other techniques help in returning the soil to a healthy state?
- and

2) In what sort of time frame have you been able to achieve effective
bio-remediation of contaminated land?

I'd be grateful if readers could share details of strategies employed and
results achieved, and/or offer pointers to studies demonstrating timelines
for effective bio-remediation?

Thanks in anticipation.

PS: please feel free to respond in this forum, and/or at the original post,
here:
bit.ly/bio-remediation
===
Chris (Hamza) Wardle
Online at SlideShare/Facebook/Skype/Twitter/LinkedIn: cjwardle
Pakistan mobile: 0302 2333340
===