Air quality worsens as drought forces California growers to burn abandoned crops
latimes.com
latimes.com
Californian farming practices have always been extremely paradoxical.
Some of these farmers are the same morons who expanded their planted acreage by 20% or more AFTER depleting their groundwater to the point where it's too brackish to use.
Then they line the highway with signs blaming politicians for the lack of water. I kid you not.
In Chile you need to do that, otherwise the good earth is blown away in days, and restore it need's years.
Even in "wet" Switzerland you have to plant some special grass to protect the field when it's "resting".
> agricultural burning remains a major contributor to pollution, despite a law banning it in 2003.
There's this:
> It costs about $500 an acre to burn crops, but more than $1,000 an acre to chip and shred them.
> In August 2021, the San Joaquin Valley air district accepted $178 million in new state funding to incentivize alternative methods of managing ag waste, including grants to repurpose dead or abandoned crops into mulch.
I bet a lot of that $178MM went into matches and gasoline.
https://www.amazon.com/100-Almond-Barbecue-Grilling-Pellets
$40 for 40lbs
100% Pure Almond Wood Barbecue Grilling Pellets
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Go ahead, try and rewrite that marketing copy for what's left over in a vineyard, as described in the article.
"San Joaquin Valley air regulators have struggled for nearly 20 years to outlaw the practice of agricultural burning, encouraging farmers instead to grind up forsaken crops in wood chippers and spread them as mulch. But amid a third year of drought, some fear a resurgence in large-scale burning because it’s cheaper than grinding, and because so many acres are being abandoned due to drought."
Fertilizer runoff is what causes the yellow/green algae blooms in runoff ditches and holding ponds. That high of a concentration of nitrates, nitrites, phosphates, etc are bad for the environment in that concentration, on a similar level to the waste holding areas of a pig farm. It's a net negative for plant and animal life, including humans in the vicinity.
Holy cow, have you hit a nerve in me! I lived years in two Mexican cities adjacent to Texas, and I swear they burn the sugar cane when the winds are southbound, so all the contamination ends up in Mexico. Early winter you can see greyed skies and small amounts of ash and soot everywhere. Burning the cane makes it easier to harvest, but there are machines now that do that job, and as a bonus, you don't dehydrate or sterilize the upper soil.
To be fair, some farmers also burn their crops in this side too, seeing how little environmental regulation there is. December and January are hard for your lungs there.
Also the idea of getting California to approve a wood-burning powerplant is amusing.
"In summary, the soil temperature increases that occurred with burning were higher in sand soil than in muck, and this effect dampened with soil depth. Transient (short-lived) soil temperature increases that occurred during the field burning events were smaller than the naturally occurring diurnal soil temperature swings that occurred throughout the growing season. This observation indicates that burn events likely have minimal impacts on soil microflora and microfauna. Young shoots emerging through the green cane harvest trash blanket during winter months will encounter colder air temperatures. This consistent microclimate effect will either delay growth or, in some cases, lead to frost damage, which translates to a loss in seasonal yield potential. Crop canopy damage by frost is more likely to occur with green cane harvest than with traditional burnt cane harvest. Therefore, switching from traditional burnt cane harvest to green cane harvest may have trade-off value for the growers. In the long term, green cane harvest may add organic matter in the soil (important in sand) and reduce soil loss (important in muck). However, there may be some short-term yield losses through delayed growth and frost damage in young plants.
The proper management of the excessive trash may reduce the negative effects of trash blanket on sugarcane growth and yield.
The ongoing research on trash management includes the evaluation of trash incorporation into the soil through disking, through raking of trash from the row and leaving it in the inter-row space, and through partial removing of trash from the field."
emphasis is mine.
However, you will find no such agreements because society does recognize the practice as being a problem to society.
It is the same with tillage. Conventional farming sprays synthetic fertilizers, only to do tillage which resets the soil and basically throws all the money they put into their fertilizers away, necessitating even more fertilizer usage.
Orchards don't die and decompose in one year. Presumably they want to put the land to productive use next year.