Enter... The GREEN NINJA!

Okay... so he might not have a cool name like Wolverine or Nova; or fight the likes of Dr. Doom and save the world from crime, monsters and stuff, but he does help serve the greater good: Teaching kids how to reduce their carbon footprint!

The Green Ninja project (TGN) is a collaborative effort between scientists, educators, and artists to create compelling experiences that illustrate the connections between humans and our changing climate. The mission of the project is to promote informed personal choices and reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions by educating the community through webisodes hosted on Youtube. TGN is also a great tool for teachers to use in their curriculum to help bring awareness of global warming to their students. Children on average are quite unaware of climate change and hardly ever learn about it in their classes, TGN may be a good way to remedy that.

See The Green Ninja in action in the video below, a man's feet grow to an unbelievable size due to his large carbon footprint and The Green Ninja is there to help! (Now that I think about it, if that's all it takes to increase the size of one's feet I may try to increase my carbon footprint, by a shoe size... I never seem to find shoes I like that fit... hmm....)



For more information on The Green Ninja Project, visit their website.

~ James
Garden Media

New Technology to Help Quench Thirsty Crops

Under last year's drought, many of the nation's crops withered. Since then Michigan State University's researchers have been testing a new technology in water-saving membranes to help yield a larger crop this year. So far they have dramatically increased their corn and vegetable production on their test farms by almost 175%.

Developed by Alvin Smucker, MSU professor of biophysics, this subsurface water retention technology uses contoured, engineered films, placed at different depths below the root zone of the plant to retain soil water. Internal drainage is permitted during excess rainfall by proper spacing, which also helps with root growth.

Smucker and Kurt Thelen, along with horticulturalists Mathieu Ngouajio and Ron Goldy will lead teams of scientists, engineers and industrial agricultural experts in implementing the new technology on farms in irrigated sandy regions of southwestern Michigan and the arid regions of the southwestern and the mid western U.S.

The prototype can be used on a broad range of agricultural crops, as well as feedstock and plants grown specifically for fuel production, on marginal lands. SWRT-improved irrigated sands produced 145 percent more cucumbers than did the control fields without the water-saving membranes. As mentioned above,  researchers also dramatically improved irrigated corn production, increasing yields 175 percent.

With last year's drought conditions covering as much as 2/3 of the U.S. Crop yields were cut dramatically and it is believed that chronic drought may become the new normal for the U.S. due to the increasingly changing climate. Fortunately, these researchers are making headway with this new technology, so there's still hope yet to aid in this issue.

James
Garden Media Group

Creating a Lifetime of ‘Black Magic’ for your Soil

Biochar has been improving soil for thousands of years. 

In 1541, Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana, led a famous expedition down the Amazon river.  He returned boasting tales of a massive golden empire and areas of rich, black earth.  

Check out those lush banks!

Expedition after expedition hunted for evidence of these Mayan civilizations, but each came up empty handed.  This ‘Legend of El Dorado'  was thought to be a myth, until recently.

Soil science has proven that de Orellana was not hallucinating. By burning woody biomass, creating a char-like substance, and burying it in the soil, these Indian farmers created extremely fertile soil.  Today, this char-like substance is called biochar.

In a recent article in GOOD, Sarah Laskow writes that "biochar can capture carbon and improve soil."

She goes on to explain, "Biochar doesn’t feed plants directly, but it makes soil a friendly environment for biological life. It helps soil retain water and communities of microbes that benefit plants. It keeps nitrogen—necessary for plant growth—from leaching into ground water. Overall, it’s been shown to raise crop yields. This isn’t a secret: Amazonian farmers used this techniques thousands of years ago to prepare thin soils for planting."

Leading the US industry in producing biochar for consumer use, Soil Reef™ is using proprietary technology to create a superior product for the garden. 

Soil Reef™ creates biochar with an age-old process called pyrolysis that bakes uncontaminated wood by cooking it at high temperatures with no oxygen in a controlled container. This process sequesters about half the carbon in the biomass and reduces it to pure biochar, one of the key ingredients in rich soil.

According to biochar pioneer Lopa Brunjes, Director for The Biochar Company, LLC and TEDx speaker, “Soil Reef ultimately increases crop yields, grows healthier plants that are more resistant to disease, and reduces annual dependency on fertilizers.

Soil Reef™ is now available at www.soilreef.com.

AND- if you're in Seattle and want to meet other biochar aficionados, make sure you check out this upcoming biochar stove workshop on March 31. 

-Katie
Garden Media Group

Tune in to #GardenChat tonight at 9pm EST

If you haven't tweeted with #GardenChat yet, you don't know what you're missing.

But, if you tuned in last Monday for the garden trends discussion, THANK YOU!  It was so much fun to hear what you thought of our trends and hear many new ideas!!

Tonight's topic is BioChar Soil Reef (TM)!

Do you what biohar is?
Do you know how biochar is created?
Do you know how long biochar lasts?
Do you know how biochar can add to a sustainable future for our planet?

Come learn, grow and tweet with us tonight at 9pm EST to find out the above answers and much, much more!

How #gardenchat Connects: A topic is picked and a guest host specializing in that topic is usually present to help answer  questions and add to the conversation. Questions are submitted in advance. Everyone attending the chat is encouraged to share their experience and answer questions as well.  A transcript is saved after each Monday event that can be downloaded from the transcript page.

Pilot Project Announced at Longwood Gardens

We just learned that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the American Public Gardens Association (APGA) have announced an innovative pilot project at Longwood Gardens right here in Kennett Square, Pa., that links NOAA’s climate services and APGA’s public gardens.

According to NOAA, this new partnership will focus on educating gardeners and garden enthusiasts about the possible effects of climate change on America's gardens, landscapes and green spaces. Sounds like a great idea to me!

The information that is obtained from the project will be able to help gardeners, landscapers and farmers identify which plant species will best survive in certain conditions. To learn more about this project, click here.

(photo courtesy of Longwood Gardens)

-Stacey

GMG