When I first heard this story, I thought it was about composting….turning dessert into soil. You know that massive piece of chocolate cake you just couldn’t finish. I guess you know where my head is at!
Alas It took more than ten years of research, but at a Chinese University they figured out how to change desert sand into soil. Since they started their first field experiment in the desert in China, the team has successfully soilized deserts in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Sichuan in China, and regions in Africa and the Middle East. But I have to ask–is “soilized” a thing? I googled it and found out that indeed it is!
“Soil is a particulate matter, it can be converted between solid and rheological (the study of the flow of matter) state and preserve water, nutrients, and air,” explained the deputy dean of the Institute of Desert Ecology, at the university.
The team extracted a fiber adhesive from plants, which can enable the sand to convert between solid and rheological states like soil and have similar functions. Sorghum, peppers, radishes, potatoes, watermelons, and melons have been successfully planted in the transformed desert, and the production was impressive.
“The bigger the root, the larger the production. In ordinary land, soil in the deeper layer is more firm, so that the roots can hardly grow there. In the desert, we only turned the top 20 to 30 cm deep of sand into soil, underneath which there is a lot of space, so the root of desert crops is very developed.”
Isn’t it interesting what you learn by subscribing to The Dirt!
Leave a Reply