

A sprinkle of compost helps rangeland lock up carbon - nkurz
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/A-sprinkle-of-compost-helps-rangeland-lock-up-5832244.php

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brianbreslin
So, I'm not a scientist, but could there be value in incentivizing land owners
and countries globally to sprinkle compost everywhere? I.e. we go into
normally arid parts of the world or sub-prime agricultural plots (parts of:
africa, south america, china) and sprinkle their territories?

From a global warming perspective, it makes sense, but also from a "how do we
feed 10-15Billion people" perspective makes even more sense.

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ams6110
How much methane is released in the composting process prior to the finished
compost being spread on the fields?

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toomuchtodo
Very low if aerobic conditions are maintained (which also minimizes nitrous
oxide emissions):

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=methane+from+composting](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=methane+from+composting)

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legulere
> This not only sequesters the carbon but improves the soil’s fertility,
> boosting plant growth and capturing more carbon while also improving the
> soil’s ability to absorb and retain water.

So this only relies on nothing else than fertilizing?

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Jedd
Fertilising is often a misleading term, as people assume nitrogen-based
(inorganic) fertilisers, which tend to be one-shot wonders, and not terribly
helpful at improving soil quality or ability to lock up carbon.

This story is hardly new, though, and there's an abundance of research that's
already been done on simple, inexpensive, long-term, highly scalable ways of
increasing carbon-carrying capacity of soils. Increasing organic matter is the
obvious play, and you can do that by sensible stock management, sensible plant
selection, application of compost (in this case as a kind of starter), and for
some spectacular results application of biochar.

