Hacker News Reader

I cannot find the raw data or details about it, but they must have it. The only reason I see any transition loss in productivity would be in building soil fertility/biomass vs synthetic fertilizers which are more readily absorbed. I would guess it's possible to adopt the vegetable cover part of it while keeping the traditional fertilizers without suffering the transition.

View on HN

Cover crops have been growing fast in conventional farming. It is less energy (read CO2!) to spray roundup to kill them before planting than to run a heavy roller (also soil compaction).

Experiments on soil compaction show the rolling to be better, the roll needs not to be that heavy, only to kill the vegetable. Also, you don't do a separate pass on the ground, you just roll it at sow time, so no extra gas. Also, the vegetable cover absorbs CO2 and later fix it to the ground. Here is a thorough comparison of soils and methods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A

Reply on news.ycombinator.com