New Food-Growth Product a Bit Hairy 243
MeatBag PussRocket writes "An article from Marketplace.org reports, 'A Florida company has developed an all-natural product that it says could revolutionize how food is grown in the US. It's called Smart Grow, but it might be a tough sell. It's inexpensive. It eliminates the need for pesticides, so it's environmentally friendly, but it's human hair. Plant pathologists at the University of Florida have found the mats eliminate weeds better than leading herbicides and can also make plants grow up to 30 percent larger.'"
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of dangerous chemicals, animal manure, or human hair, people are squeamish about the human hair?
Does it work only with human hair? (Score:3, Insightful)
What about wool from sheep or other animals? That might be cheaper...
A new use for dead people (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
The weird thing is that if it was something like wool, there would probably be no objection.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Eliminates weeds better than herbicides? (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to use sheep manure over newspaper both as a source of nitrogen (and other minerals) and as a weed barrier. It was nearly 100% effective. Given the labor involved, however, I'm sure herbicide would have been more cost-effective at preventing weed growth.
The question is whether applying a barrier against weeds is more cost-effective than herbicides, and I don't know the answer to that, especially considering the environmental impact of herbicides. Just looking at effectiveness of the material doesn't tell us much.
One other note -- sure it's inexpensive now, since there is an incredible amount of wasted human hair. But if this were ever deployed widely, I think we'd see prices of shorn hair go up, and I question whether there'd be enough to meet demand until it cost the same as other methods.
Hay's cheaper and works well, too (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea of using mulch to control weeds is at least 4000 years old. Sure, it works really well. Why use hair? Buy bales of hay, and break off 20 cm thick flakes. Put them over the ground end-to-end, leaving spaces for the crop stems.
And there's the reason people have moved to pesticides: it isn't labor-intensive. You don't win anything by having hand labor to install something that only increases your yield 30% unless you're a backyard gardener. You can spray pesticides over 50 acres in an afternoon.
I use hay to mulch in my garden. It works amazingly well. At the end of the year it's broken-down enough that the tomato roots have grown up into the lowest layer, right at the ground level, to use the proto-compost. The only drawback is seeds in the hay sprouting when it's rototilled in.
Likewise, ground cloth with holes cut out for the plants you want, works really well -- better than pesticides -- but then you have to deal with a bunch of somewhat broken-down ground cloth at the end of the year.
Slashdot to digg Conversion Project - Day 13 (Score:5, Insightful)
History up to this point:
April 28 - Tokyo Scientists Create Mobile Slime [slashdot.org]
April 27 - Air Force One Flyby Causes Brief Panic In NYC [slashdot.org]
April 27 - How To Have an Online Social Life When You're Dead [slashdot.org]
April 23 - Race Car Made With Veggies And Powered By Chocolate [slashdot.org]
April 22 - Robotic Penguins [slashdot.org]
April 22 - Yamaha Unveils Golf Cart Powered By Cow Dung [slashdot.org]
April 21 - Biotech Company to Patent Pigs [slashdot.org]
April 21 - The Taste of Space [slashdot.org]
April 17 - Philosophies and Programming Languages [slashdot.org]
Do we really want the guy behind the worst articles I've ever seen on slashdot [slashdot.org] shaping the direction of this site?
Re:Why it is human hair (Score:2, Insightful)
You're close. Actually, hair is an excellent fertilizer because it's something like 14% nitrogen. Other wonderful fertilizers include bones and blood. Imagine that, dead animals make good fertilizer! This is what nature has been doing with dead plants and animals for a long, long time.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
sadly the people of the new Generation will have zero idea what you are referring too when you talk about Auschwitz - it's very sad but other than in a history book, the common person doesn't pay attention anymore.
Re:Not so bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot to digg Conversion Project - Day 13 (Score:4, Insightful)
Go check the articles posted from 3 years ago. Go back 5 years. Go back 8 years.
These kind of articles have always been part of slashdot. Users like you have always been complaining about them.
Get used to it. If you don't like them, don't bother reading them, or the comments to them.
Re:Not so bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
We've used dog hair around the house (outside), to drive off mice, moles, gophers, etc. Just stuff a big hunk down any hole we find in the spring and it's usually good for a year. Guess rodents don't like the smell of wet dog either.
Would be interesting to see how it does with bugs.