Regenerative plan
Dr Gwen Grelat’s white paper on regenerative farming, appears, on the basis of this article, to be not worth reading, a lot of words telling us nothing.
Cropping deletes soil of carbon, worms and soil bacteria.
After four or five years it needs to be put back into grass farming for 10 years or so, to allow the ruminants to restock the soil with carbon, which the grass has removed from the atmosphere.
This also gives worms and bacteria an undisturbed chance to establish themselves in the soil to take any rotting lower leaves of
grass into the soil, which raises the humus levels.
Humus allows bacteria to thrive. High-humus soil retains moisture and minerals, phosphate and nitrogen.
Over the past few hundred thousands of years, ruminants have turned this planet into the fertile place it is. We need more
ruminants, less trees, they build a carbon sink in the ground not in a trunk, which has to fall to the ground and rot to achieve that. GARTH SCOWN
Whanganui
Weight limits
If the Whanganui District Council
Scientists are expecting weeks of aftershocks after yesterday’s big 7.1 East Cape quake — but the chances of it triggering something bigger than 8.5 are less than 1 per cent.
Geonet scientists have used forecast models to develop three scenarios for what earthquakes may happen in the next 30 days.
“Earthquakes that generate tsunami impacting the northern part of Aotearoa-new Zealand are possible in any of these scenarios,” Geonet said. “We expect there to be more felt earthquakes, particularly in the East Cape.”
The region considered for these scenarios extends from the central Kermadec region — north of where the 8.1 quake hit, hours after the East Cape jolt — to offshore of the East Coast.
The most likely scenario — with a 90 per cent chance in the next 30 days — is earthquakes of smaller magnitudes will drop off over the coming month. That includes potential earthquakes in the 7.0 to 7.9 range, with a more than 80 per cent probability in the next 30 days.
“Larger earthquakes are more likely to occur in the central Kermadecs, near the northern part of the sequence,” Geonet said. “Similar sequences to these have occurred in this region in the last 50 years, including a central Kermadecs 8.0 in 1976 and 7.7 in 1986.”
Following the three large earthquakes that struck offshore
New Zealand yesterday, scientists have developed three scenarios for what earthquakes may happen in the next 30 days.
Less unlikely, with a chance of 15 per cent or less, is another similar-sized quake to the largest Kermadec shake of about 8.0.
“This scenario is similar to what occurred in the 2014 Iquique, Chile, earthquake sequence,” Geonet said. “Should this occur, it is much more likely to be in the central Kermadecs but it is still possible for it to happen near the East Cape.”
The third scenario — and an extremely unlikely one, with a probability of less than 1 per cent — is a much larger quake, measuring 8.5 or greater.