And now for something weird...

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,113
Very interesting ... it's probably generating ozone, and that somehow is helping the plants.
That's part of my skepticism. They could just be making nitrates from atmospheric nitrogen and not controlling for that with the experimental design. Of course it works, but commercially produced fertilizer would likely be more cost-effective. So this is all interesting but I'd want to see a lot more study and data before getting too excited about it. A 30% improvement in a crop study is nothing - unless you have huge amounts of data to show statistical significance.
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,782
That's part of my skepticism. They could just be making nitrates from atmospheric nitrogen and not controlling for that with the experimental design. Of course it works, but commercially produced fertilizer would likely be more cost-effective. So this is all interesting but I'd want to see a lot more study and data before getting too excited about it. A 30% improvement in a crop study is nothing - unless you have huge amounts of data to show statistical significance.
Right ... and electricity cost is another thing that I can't recall if the article addresses.
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
18,113
Right ... and electricity cost is another thing that I can't recall if the article addresses.
Well they did mention 15 kWh per day per hectare.

Here's a back-of-the-napkin.

A lot of people see an electricity cost of 10¢ per kWh. That equates to $1.50 per hectare day or about 61¢ per acre-day. Corn requires about 100 days to mature, so that's $61 per acre to apply electricity to the field for the season.

A really good corn crop is 170 bushels per acre. At $3.50/bu, that's a crop value of $595. So you'd need to increase the yield at least about 10% just to break even. This doesn't include getting a payback on your installation costs.

The economics should support application to high-value crops IF the yield increase is real and over-and-above current best practices. That's where my skepticism lies.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,050
A really good corn crop is 170 bushels per acre. At $3.50/bu, that's a crop value of $595. So you'd need to increase the yield at least about 10% just to break even. This doesn't include getting a payback on your installation costs.
Tariffs will take care of it.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,333

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
30,684
Michael Moore says he has a plan to escape potential persecution in the U.S.:
He's moving to Canada following the release of his latest politically charged documentary Fahrenheit 11/9 set to hit theaters Friday.
Max.
 
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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,333
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong...-jury-sent-away-decide-fate-professor-accused
A Malaysian professor was sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday for killing his wife and daughter using a gas-filled yoga ball as his murder weapon in a “premeditated and calculated” plot to get his hands on properties the couple jointly owned.
...
During the trial, Khaw never disputed taking the dangerous gas home in a yoga ball but claimed he planned only to use it on rats that were infesting his home.
 
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