We're Oversalting Our Food, And It's Not What You Think
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
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Want to learn more about the topic in this week’s video? Here are some keywords/phrases to get your googling started:
soil salinity - when soils have high salt levels that have adverse effects on plants
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Credits:
Created by: Henry Reich (@minutephysics)
With the MinuteEarth team:
Alex Reich (@alexhreich)
Emily Elert (@eelert)
Ever Salazar (@eversalazar)
Kate Yoshida (@KateYoshida)
Omkar Bhagat (@TheCuriousEnggr)
Peter Reich
Script Writer: Peter Reich
Script Editor: Kate Yoshida
Video Illustrator: Omkar Bhagat
Video Director: Emily Elert
Music by: Nathaniel Schroeder: / drschroeder
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References:
Hillel, Daniel. (2000). Salinity management for sustainable irrigation: integrating science, environment, and economics. Environmentally and socially sustainable development series. Rural development*ESSD Environmentally & Socially Sustainable Development Work in Progress. Washington, D.C. The World Bank. documents.world...
Pitman, M. G., & Läuchli, A. (2002). Global impact of salinity and agricultural ecosystems. In Salinity: environment-plants-molecules (pp. 3-20). Springer Netherlands.
Qadir, M., Quillérou, E., Nangia, V., Murtaza, G., Singh, M., Thomas, R.J., Drechsel, P. and Noble, A.D. (2014). Economics of salt-induced land degradation and restoration. Natural Resources Forum, 38: 282-295. doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12054
Schofield, N. J. (1992). Tree planting for dryland salinity control in Australia. Agroforestry Systems, 20(1-2), 1-23.
Image Credits:
flickr user brewbooks
Henry Hemming
Paige Rajnus
USDA NRCS South Dakota
Damn this is why we have agricultural schools. Farming ain't no simple thing
agricultural annoying dog confirmed
+Nawake idiot piece of pig turd detected
agricultural schools don't always teach the right stuff though
Except in most of America! America places no value on education anymore D: it's terrible....I think all schools should have agricultural, finance/banking, and home (i.e. how houses function) classes. So many Americans don't understand very, very basic farming, or how investments work. Even worse, they don't even understand what asbestos is, how insulation works, or even how and why you need building permits
Being a farmer is like being a vet, but for plants.
gotta give you credit. it really wasn't what I thought!
I am sure, because it was incorrect.
Please explain
What you mean...
Because as salt dissolves, it doesn't form molecules to "clog the pipes" of plants picking up moisture with their roots. That's actually a terrible way of explaining why plants dehydrate in the presence of higher than tolerable concentrations of salt.
There's some truth to the water-tables rising for a lack of deep rooted vegetation, and that crop rotation tends to even fix the soil qualities disrupted by agricultural concentrations (using only one crop where it had been naturally diverse before farming)...
There's a few reasonably good posts around here (like at the very top) to explain (partially) what's really going on at the chemistry level, but it's not just as simple as MinuteEarth people put out. Admittedly part of that is due to time-constraints on the video, and production requirements...
However, if we just keep blaming agriculture for everything wrong in the environment WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO EAT? There are seven billion (7,000,000,000) people in the world who want to eat at least once a day. It has to come from somewhere, so someone has to grow it.
Yeah, I thought it was that we were eating to much salt
Kudos to you
Several people have written to complain about the inaccuracy of our depiction and explanation of soil-root water relations. Given that our MinuteEarth videos are, already, "longer than a minute" we sometimes are forced to represent processes in very simplified fashion. Explaining soil and plant water potential and resulting hydraulic flow completely and clearly and in plain language in a mere sentence or two is perhaps impossible, but at the very least was more challenging than we were able to do. What we tried to represent in the very simple drawing was the notion of a semi-permeable membrane that would allow water to pass into the plant, but not salt, and simultaneously that would illustrate that when salt levels were high in the soil solution this would act to slow the flow of water into the roots. Yes, a more detailed explanation would be that the water potential gradient is the driving force (and water always moves from high to low water potential); when soil water is fresh (not salty), water potential is more negative in the root than in the soil solution, and more negative yet at the leaf than root, and more negative in the air than the leaf- creating a gradient that “pulls” the water upwards through the soil-plant-air continuum. When solutes, like salt, are in high concentration in the soil water, that lowers the water potential in the soil water to levels that can be as low or lower than the water potential in the roots, slowing or stopping the influx of water.
+MinuteEarth If you know that you won't be able to properly or correctly explain processes and topics in the short amount of time you based your channel's theme on, maybe don't cover that topic in the first place. I believe us viewers rather miss out on a complex topic than see one presented improperly on this knowledge and science channel.
Maybe you could create TenMinuteEarth to cover what won't fit here.
+2nd3rd1st Or you can find the joy of studying by reading more about the topics elsewhere, also developing critical thinking by affirming the knowledge from multiple sources.
A minute will never be enough time to actually 'teach' new things, they bring up new topics for people to wonder and get interested in. And the best way to teach in youtube video, is by affirming what people already know
+MinuteEarth "Saltwater dehydrates plant roots the same way it dehydrates us, by sucking out water." I think this "simplification" is more of misinformation.
+TheN0XUS The problem here's that the video's misinformation doesn't warrant any more research, as the false explanation seems to explain the process just fine.
+MJ P why do you think that? if I understand correctly, the principle of osmotic gradient is the same
I understand that you didn't want to explain about concentration gradients and how they effect root water absorption, but please don't spread disinformation/misinformation about "Salt molecules clogging up the plants plumbing".
+1
@@jakubkleban369 add 99 to that.
Eah man
Osmosis
😒
Please don’t use the word disinformation if you don’t know what it means
Couldn't farmers use pepper? Salt and pepper go together.
LOL
Salt and pepper are a mixture, the pepper will do nothing to the salt. Even then, the pepper is bigger than the salt molecule, so it would kill even more of the plants.
cyber_dragon_123
Then maybe it's time for ground cinnamon to be tried.
I think it's finally cumin's time to shine
but how exactly would we grow the cinnamon?
"if we salt our food before we taste it, we might not be able to taste it at all"
damn son.
bars
I’m salty about that
Salt is essential for life Sugar is not
@@ketoonkratom well thats different for other animals(especially insects like ants) on sugars
So that is why the Knights who say Ni wanted a shrubbery.
+Schwarzer Ritter That was random. :)
nnnNi!
Ni?
He might have been referring to Na or sodium
Y'all need to watch yourselves some Monty Python if not for the pop culture references, then for learning how to protect yourselves against fruit and killer rabbits. :)
***** I don't know how that slipped past me, I feel so ashamed
Uhh, clogs up?
No, it reverses osmosis?
Anston, Musician
It’s called simplifying so everyone can understand it.
@@NoFlyZone31 yeah
German Gecko it’s not rly simplifying, it isn’t true that they clog roots
TheBeaverBabas Sometimes simplifying things can cause the information to be wrong, at least they’re raising awareness of how this is a problem, even though some factually incorrect facts are present.
@@Indoraptoad Terry Pratchett coined this term called "Lies to children", where what you say isn't technically correct, but it gets the point across in an easy to digest manner. Later on, the "children" will learn of the specifics of how things really work but they will have the overall picture already set.
It's a really helpful method of teaching, getting gradually more complex but more correct with each iteration.
SCIEEEEENCE RULES!
Bill bye the science guy?
DavidParody bill bill bill billl bill
bill
Lol
,Djalma. lol”,
Well thats one thing soil and women have in common. When you don't go deep enough, they get salty
+Masai Lewis You won the internet for today
+Masai Lewis lol xD
+Masai Lewis Loose women*
+Masai Lewis You won a new car
+Masai Lewis this person breaks every scientific explanation about salt and soil
This saltiness is nothing compared to my teammates on CS:GO....
I like this joke
*"WHO THE H*LL JUST FLASHED ME?!"*
That’s why I yell at them mostly my friend and they’ll them stop or we all leave or kick they stop
CYKA BLYAT!
Sophia Nguyen
HEY *_random name in chinese,_* STOP HACKING BRO! I SAID STOP! STOOOOOOOP!
I'm a crop and as I'm watching this video I feel very insalted :/
Someones salty
I sense the salt levels rising...
*Triggered*
natalie9978 if your a crop why do you have an account and a why CAN YOU FREAKIN TALK!?!?!??!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!
Rey Angelo Prile, r/woooosh
we did it. we craved the mineral too hard. it's ruining us.
how dare you bring back dated jokes
+Mason Luttrell *snort*
+cadr003 ifunny
+cadr003 Well duh, salty water has got what plants crave! What do you suggest we put water from the toilet on them?
Rabid Rabbit Rabbi lmao I bet 99% of people have no idea what you're talking about. idiots
Small correction: There's not something like a salt molecule.
+Teus NaCl?
+Teus They probably know that but it's easier to use 'molecule' over 'ionic compound' given that the majority of people will be more familiar with the former even if it isn't entirely accurate.
+Connor Shea It's an ion compound, it does not have a covalent bond, hence it's not a molecule. Also when dissolved, it's in aqua-ion form, which means that Na+(aq) and Cl-(aq) are separated completely.
***** By that comment you demonstrate that you don't know even the basics of chemistry. To make it simple: if the ion stayed as it is, then when you poured salt in water then they would sink to the bottom as the crystalline pieces as they were.
***** Here you go:
en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Solubility#Solubility_of_ionic_compounds_in_water
Very informative video. This was something I didn't know prior. I probably learned what one would normally learn in an hour class in just 3 minutes.
Sodium chloride does not generally form individual molecules except in the gaseous state. Solid sodium chloride is an ionic crystal, which is why it can effectively block the path of water.
Hi, informative video despite the inaccuracy in the osmosis part. I want to ask a question regarding the water level inside the soil. As stated in the video the salt in wet climate the salt get dissolved by the rain water and washed down to the underground water system. Would the amount of rain water added to the soil (which is clearly much more substantial than that in drought areas) push the underground water level up and with that all the salt within the soil? Why does this happen with crops in dry areas and not in wet climate, or in other words. why does the water in the ground of wet climate areas go away while that of dry areas accumulate, taking with them the salt in the soil? Also, by planting deep rooted plants as a solution for salted rising water level, would those plants be affected by the salt water?
Thanks in advance for anyone who's kind enough to notice this comment and spare a few seconds to answer it
The reason why they don't is when a ton of water it gets flushes it down and disolves the salt entirely and I think that's why
The overage of salt is from the tears of my csgo enemies.
*Teammates
+Ezio133798 XD
rush b
That one guy that tries to one deag every freakin round.
Nah it's the Riven mains who misplayed and blames their jungler.
wow very informative and i never knew something like this could happen ... i love learning new things
MRInuzaki me to
me too, but even better when they give examples of people who have found a simple way to fix the problem :)
Too bad it's not accurate
Salts do not clog roots. They reduce osmotic pressure. Get your science right.
Christopher Fryman
It’s called simplifying, try it
@@NoFlyZone31 it's not simplification if it's incorrect
@@NoFlyZone31
Blocking the roots sytem like a plug is very different from reducing osmotic pressure.
Not like she meant it actually clogs it
@@NoFlyZone31 What kind of people doesn't get osmosis?
Those farmers need to add sulfur to the soil to break down the salt then.
+M Dubzem dumbo
+M Dubzem wouldn't that be harmful for plants and soil? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Stingy Greindger well w/e
+Stingy Greindger It wouldn't, sulfur is deadly to humans, but yumy to plants. ;)
Mystogan Edolas
oh okay
Salt doesn't block roots. This is incorrect.
Salt decreases the water potential in the soil. The water inside plants now have higher water potential than the water outside of it. This causes water to move from the roots to soil instead of from soil to the roots.
Just stating the real facts about salty soil water.
Esequiel Tovar nice necro
Thats not how Osmolarity works.
Edit: Osmosis*
+Wander Milder Well it's not quite clear wther the problem is osmosis (which I thought to) or salt crystals that actually do "clog the pipes"
+Gustaf Engström Plants don't have open "pipes". Plants have pores that absorb water. If salt crystals could clog up a plant's pipes then any old hunk of stuff could like say, the soil itself. They are completely wrong about it clogging because of size. It works because the plant's salt concentration is lower than that of the ground so it cant absorb the water.
+Hippocatamus So if it is osmosis, the why would MinuteEarth say it's because the salt grains clog pores? Are they stupid? Do they think we're stupid? Is it possible they're actually right?
iamihop I agree that osmosis sounds like the better explanation for this kind of thing, same reason why salt water dehydrates you even though 96.5% of the stuff is pure water. I was just wondering if *maybe* there was some way MinuteEarth was correct. But probably not.
But... This isn't the first time MinuteWhatever has gotten the facts wrong. Just check out their video What Is Sand? and you'll see all the geologists deriding the video for its inaccuracies. I just want to know why MinuteWhatever keeps messing up their facts. These kinds of videos can't be *that* hard to make, right?
Not sure why I'm asking you. You're not on the MinuteTeam.
+Jordan Shank They're dumbing it down intentionally for the audience, they don't actually think that salt clogs the plant's 'plumbing'. Either that or they use the correct explanation: "Osmosis reduces the hydraulic head gradient that allows plants to draw water from the soil."
Imagine how many people that sentence would confuse instead of inform.
These are my favorite videos, about problems that are affecting us now and how we can or are solving it. Gives me hope for humanity
>salt
>molecules
Nice job guys. Nice job.
Great video. Brings up lots of interesting information about the topic.
Paranoid1996 and a lot of false information too
Wow, I didn't know that! There are so many problems under the surface that we don't see unless it's affecting us so much that it can't be unseen! Thanks MinuteEarth! Great video! :D
Omg im from Uzbekistan. I'm really happy finally some american's know about my country
We don't :(
0:58 I hope that's just oversimplification and the reality isn't as simple as that.
It's an inaccurate oversimplification, yeah
yeeeeeeeaaoopp
Why?
@@aienbalosaienbalos4186 Well, what actually happens is that water "moves" between the plant and the outside easily, but it moves *more* towards the one that has more molecules in it (has more tonicity). Normally plants use this to their advantage~! By having their inside with lots of molecules (electrolytes, etc.) the water goes into the plant. But when there's too much salt *outside* the plant... The water *leaves* the plant and goes outside. No water for plant. Plant sad.
Something similar happens with us, too, it's why you can't quench your thirst by drinking salt water, you instead get thirstier (and maybe puke :))
@@cybershadow136 The question was why would he hope it's not real.
"Does it have too much salt?"
"Na"
One time I was exploring Google satellite maps for fun. I was looking around Egypt, and in the middle of the desert I saw loads of green circles. I was confused, but now I know. Thanks!
Someone explain to me what those circles are at 2:31? Are they crops? Why are they so perfectly circular? I saw them on Google Earth and I was very confused by them. Wouldn't they wanna be square or rectangular instead of circular instead? There's that diamond shape between the circles that makes it look like a waste of space.
Sorry, I just have had these questions for a while.
+CrispyChicken44 Indeed, the american fixation on packing things in squares is ridiculously wasteful. Packing the circles in a hexagonal grid would be much more efficient.
+CrispyChicken44 Those are the famous crop circles made by aliens landing their UFOs.
BosonCollider The reason most of them are packed in squares is because their land is adjacent to other plots they don't own. Then you have the potential for Demi circles.
And then there's the matter of the trenching of the water lines now taking turns instead of being straight. It's just not worth the effort for the efficiency.
Because circles make it easier for crop rotation.
*Ba dum chht*
they use a watering system that rotates around it's center point. So only a circle gets water and therefor only there are crops growing
i dont oversalt my food. i only put an extremly tiny amount of salt allthough my sister.....
This was a truly fantastic animation to explain something mildly complicated into laymen terms.
My high school biology tells me that through osmosis only water and other small molecules can diffuse through the partially permeable membrane so if it was too big it could not enter the plant
0:12 What I'm more worried about is that fact that there are salt containers in the soil..
Wow! I thought the major agricultural issue was decreasing water tables. That's how it is in much of the US. And a major salt problem (the only problem, I thought) is saltwater intrusion into groundwater due to rising sea levels. Glad I saw this video for something I never knew.
I actually just learned this in school.
I doubt you learned something in school
I doubt you listen in school
I doubt you go to school at all.
+daniel117100 is what stupid people say
wow that's awesome koekeritis! What country's that in?
After some thought, I do agree with the others. The picture of salt clogging the roots is fundamentally incorrect: higher concentrations of salt outside the roots change the osmotic pressure and make water move out of the roots instead of into the roots.
It’s an oversimplification so shut up nerd (ironically I’m a nerd too)
now im very salty :(
same
João Pedro Costa Ferreira It's okay we're all salty most days 😐
Thank you for not making this into a 10 minute video like many other channels would have
You're way too salty; you need some milk
Lmao
What?
Even though it might be expensive, we could destilate the water before putting it on the fields. So the salt in the ground gets dissolved and the water levels are rising without any salt added. Of course we could put stuff in the water which helps the plants to grow.
"Molecules of salt"
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
The simple solution is to bring agriculture indoors. This has numerous benefits, including the ability to remove pests and weeds without expensive/toxic chemicals, the ability to layer production, taking up less room, removing the influence of weather and seasons, and the ability to easily automate food production. The Japanese are making a lot of progress with this technique, with a single indoor farm there producing 12,000 heads of lettuce a DAY.
Also interesting about this technique is that no sunlight is required--light is produced by LEDs. Adoption of more robust power sources like thorium and fusion reactors mean that crop production can easily become unlimited, making healthy fresh foods very inexpensive and readily available.
Does this work outside Australia too?
+TomHasVideo No, all these things just cease to function outside the area of the landmass known as Australia.
The video already gave an example outside Australia!
Extra info, there's another way that's been developed in South Eastern Australia to control this too, called "pasture cropping", where they leave the native grasses in place & plant crops straight into them after grazing them hard with sheep twice to stunt their growth.
That method's been tested by the WA government & works on the sandy soils there & is now being taken up by permaculture farmers around the world (native grasses can have 1metre deep roots & because they're more plentiful than tree roots, there's a lot more soil carbon created & so far more water retention & so equal or more water table holding ability despite less depth of roots)
Salt molecules do not block 'narrow junctures of plants pluming' too much salt outside causes an inbalance of the salt concentrations which means water does not diffuse into the root hair cells via osmosis. Normally a plant actively transports Na+ ions into its root hair cell to lower the water potential meaning water diffuses into the plant from the soil, as water moves from an area of lower water potential to higher water potential. Had to be said
Molecules of salt?
+Jun Nishikawa NaCL
+IceNoob88 probably referring to the fact that salts aren't molecules but come in a grid of ions
***** True, but it's not like it ruins the whole video
+The Dweller Of Lone
Suomi mainittu. Torilla tavataan
I had to learn about this in geography in year 10. We spent several weeks worth of lessons learning it and I still didn't understand. I just watched a 3:21 video which explained it perfectly. Although I did remember the part about planting trees (I live in Australia)
Seems to me that the problem is the change of forest to farm lands.
I've only had a few courses in plant ecology and soil sciences but I'm pretty sure that salty soil causes dehydration in plants because it raises the water potential of the soil, making less water accessible to the roots, not because it gets stuck in the pores of plant roots.
Interesting; I wasn't aware of that
I have my doubts. From my understanding, the water table is lowering in significant agricultural areas, not rising. Irrigation (at least in the US) comes from groundwater, not rivers. The Ogallala Aquifer is the main source of water for a third of the agriculture in the US. It declined by about 10% from the 1950's to 2005. And given the "salt clogs plant pores" thing that so many people have pointed out, I think this is just some BS packaged to fool people who don't know enough about the subject.
There is a planting system called Palawija in Indonesia which doing cycle of planting various kind of plant one after another to maintain soil nutrient and balance
Jesus Christ Marie, they're MINERALS!
Short break: So less trees or plants with deep roots, bring groundwater to rise which includes salt. Would it make sence then to dug deep fountains for use, and let it vaporize in special pools. So this way the salt is trapped and the water is in the air and comes somewhere down as rainfall, which again is less salty ?
"Molecules" of salt? You might have meant ions...
Ions are molucules.
Not really, ions are positively or negatively charged atoms. Salt doesn't exist as atoms individually bounded to each other. It's a mass of ions dissolved in whatever solvent it's in.
crnobijeli13 I know, but individual atoms are molecules aswell
Not in salts. Only noble gasses.
crnobijeli13 Ions are charged atoms, and thus charged molecules.
I was just about to write that we also have this problem in Uzbekistan, but then... I'm glad that we did at least something to fight this.
Guess you could call it... aSSAULT!
I’ll go home
I love your videos because you communicate everything so simply and clearly! Thank you for your efforts!
So... What can I do as a normal person to stop this?
+The Raven Urinate on crops
Okaaaaay...... Any other suggestions?
+The Raven Make, yourself more educated, start a garden, connect with like minded people, ask people on CZcams what to do, etc. Make connections.
I'm not really sure, other than I know that growing native perennial grasses achieves the same result, so if you eat grass fed meat instead of grain fed, that will certainly help encourage farmers to increase their use of this sort of system.
Also eating the foods that are more suitable to grow in dry areas, such as sorghum instead of corn will also help (and some sorghum is a perennial with long roots & native to dry areas, so is capable of doing the stuff spoken of here. I'm sure there's a lot of similar plants too, look at the less standard plant foods available in your area & check their growing needs & eat if they look useful for the land :)
YES! This is so good. We're so stupid for cutting down trees expecting the land area to behave the same. Planting deep-rooted trees specially in-between areas with crop would be good for the ground, good for the environment, good for the crop, and good for us. Don't try to force nature to work for us, work with nature to benefit everyone.
let's just go gmo and make agricultural crops that are salt-tolerant or have deeper roots
Lets not! You have NO IDEA how this works!!!!!
This is 1 symptom of a much wider problem that GMO is ADDING to NOT fixing! Do you realise that each person on earth requires around 1/2 a tonne of food per year? Do you realise that current farming practices are resulting in 10 tonnes of soil per year being removed from farmland for every person on earth?
The mixing native plants in & using their roots to stop the water table rise has a side effect of securing soil & reducing that massive erosion that is destroying farmland & oceans. This is a MUCH better solution to the problem than using GMO to treat a symptom while ignoring the disease
We don't need a lot of crops, most of it goes into feeding livestock which we could just skip and get most of our calories from plants, not livestock.
Native grasses also do exactly the same thing as the shrubs shown here, so we could just feed the cattle grass instead of growing crops for them too
The salt is real
That was excellent. Great info, easy to understand.
Why u salty, earth?
😂😂😂😂😂
Too many humans ruining the environment.
all your videos are always beautifully illustrated
YA SALTY
The salty water has a lower potential than the fresh water we use to water crops. The reason water goes up a plant in the first place is that water flows from high potential to low potential(from the roots, where a lot of water is, to the leaves, where not as much water resides). Solutes in the water lower the potential of the water in the ground, and this will decrease the flow rate. Eventually, the flow rate can be halted. If there are too many solutes, the water in the plant might have a higher potential than in the ground, so the water would flow from the plant back to the ground to decrease the solute concentration, dehydrating the plant.
Just went over water potential in ap bio, does this sound correct?
Yes. the issue is osmosis, not 'salt clogs roots', which is lunacy.
Plus sodium isn’t the only “salt” that’s a problem in soils. Fluoride is a salt we use in municipal waters and is not a salt most life forms can readily utilize, which means it can just keep accumulating. Furthermore, fluoride tends to replace calcium in some organic processes which tends to cause malformation or brittleness in the organic structure. Then there’s other salts introduced as agents in fertilizers and even some pesticides, such as chloride or engineered salt compounds such as dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate.
How does the water table rise. I thought she was talking about dry and arid soil environments where there is a lack of water. Plants only manage to grow because of the human irrigation
I remember years ago seeing on the news & various shows how there were salt crusts developing in croplands in the area near where I live (South Eastern Australia) & destroying crops & raising serious issues as to the future of the farmland. It was worse in the drier areas, but as they lost cropland to this, it followed them & continued spreading. I never actually heard what happened to that salt issue until this video, I knew it appeared to have been halted, but never knew how until now. So I guess planting acacia trees & salt tolerant native grasses has fixed the problem (some species of acacia trees/bushes & native grasses in Australia can grow in even absolutely arid/desert areas, as long as they get an inch or so of rain every few years they survive)
salt doesn't clog roots. it's dissolved in an ionic solution in dynamic equilibrium that draws fresh water from the plant back into the ground
I can't believe I've never heard of this issue before. Thanks for the education!
Its about osmisis and how salt creates a hypertonic solution to the root hairs... Not size and "plugging" of the "plumbing."
No one is probably reading this 5 yr later, but I thought beneficial plants to raise your water table is the goal is there another piece of this proses I’m missing?
Guys the point of the video is to highlight an issue with certain agricultural practices in dry regions, it's not trying to explain exactly why salt is bad for plants. I think their analogy of 'salt blocking capillaries' works fine to get the point across, and is much shorter than having to explain osmosis.
So say we do what we should do and swap conventional crops for native plants half the time either spacially or temporally. Given that a third of our food comes from dry, salty regions, doesn't that mean we'll lose a sixth of our net harvest? How do we combat that problem?
2:06-2:22 Fascinating idea and methods!
Seems like bores would work better than shifting crops. Take the water out store it and treat it. Re-irrigate.
minecraft farming: make a fence around your crops, make a water supply, plant your food and wait for it to grow.
real life farming: pay hundreds of dollars for a fence, pay even more for machines to plant the seeds, pay EVEN MORE to get water, make sure birds and other animals dont eat your crops, go through a whole process to make sure the food is clean, and then you sell it.
Of course you could either,
1. Make deep drainage ditches that would let the salt escape as water flows out of the soil into the ditches.
2. Grow crops in what's effectively elevated beds sitting on the ground over a drainage system.
And you wouldn't need to worry about soil salt content or need to waste money and land on non-food "crops".
2.28 the ABABABABABAAAA AND THE BBBBBBAAAAAAA got me rolling XD
Yeah, you don't have this problem in the Central Valley of California. We've lowered our water table so far that it's not at risk of coming back up any time soon. In Fresno, the water table's dropped to more than 120 feet below the ground.
Very nice Video. Indeed salt is interfering with our normal human physiology aswell. It affect the blood pressure when overeating and lead to several organ damage in the long-term.
I'd never even thought of the impact of salt in soil... Although I guess I never had to care since I've only grown plants hydroponically...
wouldn't you have to care more about the salt concentration in things like tap water and the TDS to know if the plant is feeding on what you're putting in. Not to mention the PH and all that jazz?
I watched about 20 videos of yours, Minute Earth. Also I recommended my teacher to put us this videos to learn!
I'm guessing someone on the minute earth team is reading Collapse by Jared Diamond? Diamond devotes a large portion ( about 20 pages) to this very topic. It's an excellent book and I recommend anyone read it, although it falls a little short when talking about the world today, especially china, because it was released in 2004.
I think they have a small amount per square foot and then they'll plant and every once in a while they'll change half to deep root plans and half without changing and then the following year it'll be switched
That's it! I'm never eating salt again!
Wait a minute... Aren't there places that are suffering water aquifer depletion because we're pumping too much water from them? Does that mean this is a problem we can solve by... using another problem? If we build heavy pumping well operations in these regions, could we stabilize the water table?
To solve ur salt water problem cut in dry wells and fill them whit rain water only and flush out the impurities
Or maybe build more housing developments or at least wells for housing interspersed among farmland? I hear all the time about how the water table is falling in my local area due to too many wells drawing off it for human consumption.
Salt molecules AREN'T bigger than water molecules. Salt dissolves into ions, which are singular atoms. The problem is those ions causing an outward osmotic pressure which sucks the water out of plants. Normally, the plant's roots can overcome this pressure and use it's ion pumps to desalinate the water, but with too much salt this is no longer possible.
in the netherlands there is a farm that specializes in plants that can survive in salt ground. apparently makes potatoes taste better.. but they're small and I don't know much more.. it was on dutch tv few weeks (or more) ago
Yeah! That one on Texel.
that's not a problem here in California because almost all the farms are trees, whenever I go somewhere there are so many trees
Finally, Minute Earth has a new video!!!
Love you Minute Earth
Why does the groundwater rise in dry climates and short-rooted crops but not in wet climates?
It's pretty bad on the Nile! Since the Assuan Dam was build there is no more yearly flooding with fresh mut covering everything what prevented soil from getting over salted for around 5000 years.
Why isn't this a problem then in more wet areas?
You said that in the wet areas the water also gets to the bottom en takes salt with it, same as with the dry areas were non native plants are grown.
And because it is wet you would think that the water level rises more quick there, so why isn't the same process happening there?
Sure the salt doesn't accumulate on one level first, but how does that make a difference? If the salts immideately gets soaked up and goes to the bottem and then rises with the water to top isn't that the same as first accumulating at one spot and then the rising water takes it with it to the top.??
Not the kind of video I was expecting!
Thanks! Well done =)