On: Gene banks aren’t enough to save the world’s food

[schoen]

How did that boulevard end up planted with edible wheat?

[lm28469 → schoen]

I'd be more worried about how polluted it is

[kjkjadksj → lm28469]

You are not going to believe what they use to harvest and deliver wheat

[SECProto → kjkjadksj]

I would suggest that the edge of a typical busy boulevard features 10-30 thousand vehicles per day, whose brake and tire particles in particular end up in the soil around the road. Typical farm fields might see 30,000 trips over the span of what, 100 or 1000 years? It's not in any way comparable to an urban roadway.

[jacoblambda → kjkjadksj]

I think it's a bit of a different comparison given that there's probably some accumulation of lead from decades of leaded gasoline from urban traffic.

Obviously still worth doing but it'd be interesting to see whether remediation of some kind would be worth while.

[greetings → schoen]

It was erosion control after some new road work. I sorta suspect they did bring in new dirt for it as well. I do only use it in small amounts. Not really gonna make a difference over time in terms of pollution/heavy metals. But it was still a worthwhile project.