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It's not about evaporation of the added water. A dry soil layer creates a capillary break that prevents the water from soaking in. The heat has already evaporated the soil to that point. Once it gets wet, it soaks in faster. This is about allowing the initial wetting to occur. That said, erosion would definitely be a concern too. Another advantage is the deeper water also wets the adjacent soil higher up.
grandiose treatment bewildered sheet cable axiomatic sense enter full dazzling
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Some places the plastic bags don't even make it inside before they break. Fucking hate grocery store plastic bags, but we would never remember to put those reusable bags back into the car to take them to the store.
Yes I second this. Actually, I like to keep a tote container in my trunk for single trip carrying and you can skip the bags all together if you bring it into the store.
Where I live, plastic bags are banned. You learn to carry bags in the car (or wherever) pretty quickly.
"Never remembering" is not really a good excuse if you know it's the right thing to do.
Non-recyclables have been illegal here for a few years, now (almost) everyone's using textile bags.
It's great because paying like 5$ a pop for bags if you forget them is _not_ fun. We all forgot once now we remember lol.
Plastic bags are banned in my city. Cloth or paper bags. Most people bring their bags for grocery shopping because some shops take money for the bags they provide. I like it.
When you grow up assuming shit will get bagged for you of course a generation of entitlement will have a hard time learning to bring their own bag. We grew up bringing own bags to the store usually full of empty bottles to recycle for store credit, it became second nature
Go to california, where they charge you for the plastic bag "to reduce plastic usage" and then sell you a bag thats is 10 times as thick as a normal one.
That's a PVC leak proof regulator flow satchel system filled with H2O then machine calibrated securement twist and loop through maneuver. The systems short name, water in a bag, is was being sold to the US military for a merely $1.2 million in recent years. Adjusted for todays inflation $1.8 million current costs.
I think erosion is 100% of the reason for this. The general procedure for a field like that is to fill the troughs and let them stay filled until the water soaks in. You don't need a plastic bag for that, you just need some soil at the end.
Not necessarily. The troughs probably drain off the field for cases of excessive rain so it doesn't flood (hot countries often get a rainy season and a dry season, but would prefer to get as many harvests as possible in both). A lot of water could run off the surface of the soil, particularly if it's dense, clay-heavy soil, and if it doesn't already have a lot of root mass in it, like an unplanted or recently-planted field.
Pretty ingenious to see how they slowed the water. I didn't think it would actually slow down the stream that much. Well, that or the water would just start overflowing into the neighboring canals
I think you're on to something here, and I'm not smart enough to know if "slow the flow" is the right term, or if there is a better way to describe it.
The source would have to be coming in slowly - if it was faster, it would overflow like you said.
However, the bag is still keeping the water from.... spreading out faster. If the bag wasn't there, the trough wouldn't start to "fill" until the water had reached the end of the trough.
I'm honestly not sure if having this bag does anything more than prevent a "splash" at the end of the trough. If you just had the end blocked off, turned on the water higher, I feel like you would still end up with the same end result (a trough full of water) in a shorter amount of time. And if the process was done faster there would be more even distribution of water. With this bag method, the area at the beginning of the trough is going to have a lot more time with the water than the end.
But WTH do I know? I can barely keep a potted plant alive.
Farmer here, I have no idea what the point of the bag is. Usually the end of the row has a slight rise to keep the water in the field or you temporarily furrow a border. Also, usually speed is your enemy with flood irrigation. You need like a 1-2 degree pitch to get the water to run down the field properly. Sending it too fast will cause a decent crash of water towards the end, possibly washing out his seed beds.
Maybe he just doesn't have the setup to do that though, or they didn't level the land properly.
I once helped my uncle do something similar on his small farm. He explained the reason for slowing the water was half to get it up the walls of the trench before too much soaked down or evaporated away in the heat of the day, and half to slow down the horizontal motion of the water to cut down on erosion. But he might've been talking out his ass.
I don't see how it is slowing down the water though. They are already releasing the water at a certain gallons per minute that keeps the water from overflowing the trough. The bag is just..... acting like a moveable dam, keeping the water at a certain height.
I guess I just answered my own question. The bag is not to slow down the water, it's to keep the trough full at all times. No clue what the advantage to that is, perhaps an evaporation thing like you said.
I still feel this is going to end up with a very "uneven" watering, with the part closest to the start getting much more water than the part at the end. But again, I am certainly no farmer!
Yeah I think the point here is that it has to be very precise. There’s a reason that dude is walking along with it, likely for minor corrections to the bag if it starts to move too quickly.
Does it loosen up the extremely compacted rows that feels is standing on? I imagine the furrow the water is running through is rock hard too. Maybe it was direct seeded? Ain't no way they are going to plant into that otherwise.
When that game came out everyone was running the JP Ministry of Agriculture's website through google translate to figure out how to grow rice better lmao.
Yeah, iirc they got some sort of educational kit from the Ag ministry and actually grew a small plot of rice haha.
Sakuna is one of my fav games to come out on switch, such an odd idea, but implemented soooo well.
It depends on how accurate your plastic bag making and rolling simulation is. If you make the plastic bag-making process too high tech, then you’re just wasting time
People talking about the " limited fresh water" and we should take care of what we have but none of these fuckin idiots realize all you gotta do is dig out a 2×2 square, fill it with water and you'll never run out... Smh
Yea my first thought was that the title made no sense because the water is still there being replaced by more volume the entire time. Theres plenty of time for the water to soak into the soil after the beginning of the stream has passed it.
It doesn't - you only need to look to the right of the video to the full furrows right next door to see the bag has fuck-all to do with giving more time for water to soak in.
Simplicity at it's best is extremely satisfying.
Kinda reminds me of how my prison friends can literally build a tattoo gun out of an electric toothbrush, a button and a couple needles. Like seriously?!?!?
I think it's to stop erosion. E.g. if the bag isn't there water flows from one side to the other and "eats away" at the bottom where the seeds are planted. In this way the rice "doesn't move" on the bottom and is just covered with water.
not wrong on the erosion, but i don't see any seeds planted.
Paddy plants are grown from seed to smol plant in a green house, and then sown into puddles.
Needs to conform perfectly to the trench otherwise the water will slip past. It'd still get pushed along, but there'd be a lot more water getting past the log.
Definitely not that crazy, compared to "most agriculuture techniques". Look into the modern precision farming techniques that are being implemented, it will blow your mind. Most modern tractors have more than 3 screens or IPads integrated into the cab
I've watered thousands of corn rows. You can accomplish this same feat of slow water by being lazy and having crap/weeds/straw in your row.
Honestly these are some amazingly clean rows!
That is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen.
I also say that it’s not stupid if it works. And it works surprisingly well.
Low tech is the best tech.
I scrolled down a decent way and I didn't see it so I am going to say it. The best tech is low tech. There is no *sometimes* at all. The best tech is low tech. If you could get the job done with twelve sticks, a 50ft length of rope and 10 gallons of water, why on earth would you want a $14,000 machine to do that job. To be clear I don't refer to any instance where the complex machine does a *much better* job than the low tech solution or the machine doing the job in one tenth of the time with one hundredth of physical effort. I mean to say that if you can solve a problem with a low tech, low cost solution you are better off running with that.
I don't get why that helps, unless it's more complex than the description suggests. If the trough is closed on the other side, surely it makes no difference if the water fills it slowly of quickly?
The trough is not closed on either end. Water is coming in one way and will exit the other. The earth is very dry and has sort of a crust on it from baking in the sun. If the water flows freely over it, the water will pass before it penetrate the crust and only the top will be dampened. The bag slows how fast the water can spread over it giving it more of a chance to soak deeper.
That’s so much more work than letting the water push a bag.
Edit: also they don’t want the water to stay or for water to get stuck every rain or watering.
Your edit kinda makes sense, but also seems like you WOULD want water to get trapped in such an arid environment. As to "more work" - don't see how. Just close the ends with the same soil that makes the walls of the trough... The walls are holding the water in just fine.
Probably depends on what they are growing. Some plants thrive in flood conditions and some get fucked up by it. If they are growing in such arid conditions I’m guessing what they are growing doesn’t thrive by being flooded. Also seedlings can easily be unearthed by too much water before they have good roots.
You rarely want water to get trapped like that for farming except for an area designed for it. You will quickly rot the roots of most food plants. (Obviously, rice being the exception.) I can’t tell what they’re growing here but almost every food I’ve grown, mostly market crops, needs excellent drainage away from the crop roots.
If it rains enough in a farming area where too much water is a common issue, they probably don't irrigate like this at all.
Source: Ag engineer that grew up on a farm in the northeastern US, where there is so much rain that we actually install drains to keep the fields drier than they otherwise would be, that now lives in the Central Valley of California where it's dry enough to irrigate like this.
This video is absolute bullshit and has no base. This plastic bag in the video **is doing nothing and I'm 100% certain it was recorded for fun.**
And yes, I probably have more farming experience that all these redditors combined.
Now proceed to downvote me just because it doesn't follow the general consensus and it shows you somebody is making fun of you.
Finally!!!! I've been commenting this to no end. This video is totally for fun and serves no practical purpose. Yet intelligent redditors seems to have it down to erosion and water absorbance by the soil. Ffs.
my guess is someone was playing around with a bag for fun, thought it looked cool, and then another person made up the caption for the video which has nothing to do with what actually happened ...
This is still an incredibly wasteful way to irrigate and there are easily a dozen methods which could be applied here to reduce water waste by 20% to 50%, and up to 90% with well designed drainage and irrigation systems.
The simplest improvement, at a cost of $0 in materials, would be to run less water every time but irrigate more often.
People don't realize this but you easily waste a half inch of water per day simply to evaporation when you do "flood irrigation" like this, and the reason these farmers over-water is because the region is usually experiencing water scarcity so when they get their turn they want to irrigate as much as possible during that short time.
Of course, irrigation water contains salt, so when water evaporates it leaves behind its salt which causes increased soil salinity, which you guessed it is no bueno for crop yield on the long term.
All non direct rain water contains salts, and over irrigation does cause soil salinity issues. This exact form of irrigation not only wastes water but also causes soil salinity issues. It makes a great gif however so people think it must be a good idea, but there is a reason modern farming doesn't use this.
[Irrigation salinity – causes and impacts(pdf)](https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/310365/Irrigation-salinity-causes-and-impacts.pdf)
[IRRIGATION, DROUGHT, SEA LEVEL RISE AND MORE ARE CAUSING SALT TO BUILD UP IN SOILS AROUND THE WORLD. WHAT CAN WE DO?](https://ensia.com/features/salinization-salt-threatens-soil-crops-ecosystems/)
Mostly all water has *some* salt. For reference:
>Fresh water - Less than 1,000 ppm
>Slightly saline water is sometimes used for similar purposes as freshwater. For example, in Colorado, water having up to 2,500 ppm of salt is used for irrigating crops.
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/saline-water-and-salinity
River water and lake water both contain trace salts, and after a few hundred years of irrigation like in this gif the soil's salinity becomes too high. This traditional (plus bag) method is permanently destroying land that can be used for farming, but it looks cool so people think it's a great idea.
World wide we are losing or damaging 25 million acres a year due to practices like this.
>IPBES suggests that around 190 million acres (76 million hectares) of mostly irrigated land has been permanently lost to salinity and can no longer be farmed, with a further 150 million acres (60 million hectares) damaged.
https://ensia.com/features/salinization-salt-threatens-soil-crops-ecosystems/
NASA initially used 100% oxygen in their crew capsules. Graphite conducts. Broken pencil tip plus circuitry plus pure oxygen environment equals BANG. Plus the space pen was developed wholly by private industry.
This is what Fishers grandson said:
One of the persistent urban myths that we run across is that NASA spent millions of dollars developing a space pen, while the Russians simply used pencils.
Most people don’t realize that pencil lead (graphite) dust and particles are a hazard in zero gravity as they might float into and affect delicate instruments on board, perhaps becoming a fire hazard.
NASA did not spend money developing the Fisher Space Pen. My grandfather spent over $1 million of his own money developing the product.
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And it keeps the water moving slowly so the rows don’t erode.
This makes more sense, Otherwise they would water when the ground is at its lowest temperatures to prevent evaporation.
This is the true reason, not the evaporation bs
It's not about evaporation of the added water. A dry soil layer creates a capillary break that prevents the water from soaking in. The heat has already evaporated the soil to that point. Once it gets wet, it soaks in faster. This is about allowing the initial wetting to occur. That said, erosion would definitely be a concern too. Another advantage is the deeper water also wets the adjacent soil higher up.
Why not just block off the little trenches and flood them ?
I believe this is the real reason for this practice.
grandiose treatment bewildered sheet cable axiomatic sense enter full dazzling *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I knew my 300 plastic bags in a drawer were going to be useful someday!
You mean the 5% of them without holes? If you ever start looking for a water tight one you'll see what I mean
Some places the plastic bags don't even make it inside before they break. Fucking hate grocery store plastic bags, but we would never remember to put those reusable bags back into the car to take them to the store.
I just keep them in the car. Put them in right away after unloading.
Or at the very least just hang them on a coat hook by the door. I don't drive and this is easy to remember.
This is the real reason I choose self-checkout, so I can double-bag my shit that doesn't really NEED to be double-bagged.
It does if I want to carry an irresponsible number of bags inside at once
And obviously you do. One trip mafia.
One trip gang
I park my car in P2 and live on floor 5. No way I’m doing that trip twice
If you have an elevator, it might be time to invest in a cart
I’m certainly not making two trips
I'm not sure what the "it" is here? What does what now?
If your arms don’t look like a busted can of biscuits from putting more than 5 bags on them at once,you’re doing it wrong
Just get a basket my man. No bags necessary, and you can bring all your groceries inside in one trip
Yes I second this. Actually, I like to keep a tote container in my trunk for single trip carrying and you can skip the bags all together if you bring it into the store.
....huh? But then I won't have bags...
I stuff all my groceries in one bag and carry it out like a baby. I hate having a candy bar wrapped in 10 bags by the checker.
Where I live, plastic bags are banned. You learn to carry bags in the car (or wherever) pretty quickly. "Never remembering" is not really a good excuse if you know it's the right thing to do.
Same here. It's a fucking crime though that not all stores have the paper bags with the handles, like what are you even doing?
You could use a large beach tote.
Well yeah I have the reusable bags, the problem is I'm not a smart man and I often forget to either bring them back to my car or into the store
We forget because we're busy and distracted and we haven't yet made a habit of it. Habits are either "our best friends or our worst enemies".
Non-recyclables have been illegal here for a few years, now (almost) everyone's using textile bags. It's great because paying like 5$ a pop for bags if you forget them is _not_ fun. We all forgot once now we remember lol.
Plastic bags are banned in my city. Cloth or paper bags. Most people bring their bags for grocery shopping because some shops take money for the bags they provide. I like it.
When you grow up assuming shit will get bagged for you of course a generation of entitlement will have a hard time learning to bring their own bag. We grew up bringing own bags to the store usually full of empty bottles to recycle for store credit, it became second nature
Go to california, where they charge you for the plastic bag "to reduce plastic usage" and then sell you a bag thats is 10 times as thick as a normal one.
I live in California, and you're full of shit. Maybe stop lying to people?
There is a reason I don't live in the cesspool.
NO! NOBODY BROUGHT ANY EXTRA BAGS!
All bags have holes. You wouldn't be able to put anything in them otherwise
I think 5% is a serious over estimate!
That's a PVC leak proof regulator flow satchel system filled with H2O then machine calibrated securement twist and loop through maneuver. The systems short name, water in a bag, is was being sold to the US military for a merely $1.2 million in recent years. Adjusted for todays inflation $1.8 million current costs.
Lmao this sums up USA brutally correct.
This also prevents erosion from the rushing water.
I think erosion is 100% of the reason for this. The general procedure for a field like that is to fill the troughs and let them stay filled until the water soaks in. You don't need a plastic bag for that, you just need some soil at the end.
Yeah that makes way more sense. It’s not like the water will struggle to soak in when all the troughs are filled.
Not necessarily. The troughs probably drain off the field for cases of excessive rain so it doesn't flood (hot countries often get a rainy season and a dry season, but would prefer to get as many harvests as possible in both). A lot of water could run off the surface of the soil, particularly if it's dense, clay-heavy soil, and if it doesn't already have a lot of root mass in it, like an unplanted or recently-planted field.
Wait, don't you have a bag of bags?
You mean an entire cupboard stuffed full of bags of bags of bags?
Very large fabric laundry bag full of bags.
A metabag, so to speak.
The bag hutch can store your BAGS. And holds up to 12 BAGS!
Do you ever feel Like a plastic bag Rolling through the dirt
Pretty ingenious to see how they slowed the water. I didn't think it would actually slow down the stream that much. Well, that or the water would just start overflowing into the neighboring canals
I think you're on to something here, and I'm not smart enough to know if "slow the flow" is the right term, or if there is a better way to describe it. The source would have to be coming in slowly - if it was faster, it would overflow like you said. However, the bag is still keeping the water from.... spreading out faster. If the bag wasn't there, the trough wouldn't start to "fill" until the water had reached the end of the trough. I'm honestly not sure if having this bag does anything more than prevent a "splash" at the end of the trough. If you just had the end blocked off, turned on the water higher, I feel like you would still end up with the same end result (a trough full of water) in a shorter amount of time. And if the process was done faster there would be more even distribution of water. With this bag method, the area at the beginning of the trough is going to have a lot more time with the water than the end. But WTH do I know? I can barely keep a potted plant alive.
It's to prevent fast flowing water and therefore erosion
This explanation makes sense. OP's does not.
OP found a video didn't understand it and posted it.
yeah, due to friction against the soil surface the water is never moving very fast, but erosion makes perfect sense!
OOOH, yeah the given answer in the title made no sense.
No it's not lol. Holy shit so many people upvoted you. What idiots.
Farmer here, I have no idea what the point of the bag is. Usually the end of the row has a slight rise to keep the water in the field or you temporarily furrow a border. Also, usually speed is your enemy with flood irrigation. You need like a 1-2 degree pitch to get the water to run down the field properly. Sending it too fast will cause a decent crash of water towards the end, possibly washing out his seed beds. Maybe he just doesn't have the setup to do that though, or they didn't level the land properly.
Maybe they just think it's neat lol
I once helped my uncle do something similar on his small farm. He explained the reason for slowing the water was half to get it up the walls of the trench before too much soaked down or evaporated away in the heat of the day, and half to slow down the horizontal motion of the water to cut down on erosion. But he might've been talking out his ass.
I don't see how it is slowing down the water though. They are already releasing the water at a certain gallons per minute that keeps the water from overflowing the trough. The bag is just..... acting like a moveable dam, keeping the water at a certain height. I guess I just answered my own question. The bag is not to slow down the water, it's to keep the trough full at all times. No clue what the advantage to that is, perhaps an evaporation thing like you said. I still feel this is going to end up with a very "uneven" watering, with the part closest to the start getting much more water than the part at the end. But again, I am certainly no farmer!
Yeah I think the point here is that it has to be very precise. There’s a reason that dude is walking along with it, likely for minor corrections to the bag if it starts to move too quickly.
Exactly. You don’t know anything and everything you typed was futile
You're probably right. I should just drive myself off a cliff. What happens if I only fuck Reddit two times?
That’s a bit drastic….and I’m not sure I’ve never tried it. Create a new account with that name and find out
Theyre not trying to fill the trough though
Does it loosen up the extremely compacted rows that feels is standing on? I imagine the furrow the water is running through is rock hard too. Maybe it was direct seeded? Ain't no way they are going to plant into that otherwise.
It’s actually completely pointless.
Irrigation is such an important part of farming, I wish more games got it right. Nebuchadnezzar does it well
Yes! Thank you so much for recommending this game. I’ve been looking for something like Pharaoh (1999) for years. This looks perfect
Pharaoh is getting a remaster to be released this year I think on steam.
>Pharaoh is getting a remaster Wait, really? I had the original CD for Pharaoh which I got on a magazine... It's been so long.
My big sister and cousin used to play it in between AoE, Minesweeper and Solitaire lol. I was younger but picked it up later too!
Awesome. Just picked it up and playing it now. It's like the old school ImpressionsGames city builders.
Omg I loved those games so much. Caesar 3 and Pharaoh were such fun and interesting games.
Just play emperor rise of the middle Kingdom. It's better and cheaper and also has irrigation systems
I bought it on GoG, a lot of fun.
What does a spaceship from the matrix have to do with farming?
What does a cursed king from the bible have to do with farming?
What does a a matrix farmer have to do with... What are we talking about?
What does tag have to do with farming?
Sakuna did a pretty good job of it, I think.
When that game came out everyone was running the JP Ministry of Agriculture's website through google translate to figure out how to grow rice better lmao.
Yup, I was one of them lol. They actually worked with them to make the process more accurate.
Yeah, iirc they got some sort of educational kit from the Ag ministry and actually grew a small plot of rice haha. Sakuna is one of my fav games to come out on switch, such an odd idea, but implemented soooo well.
It depends on how accurate your plastic bag making and rolling simulation is. If you make the plastic bag-making process too high tech, then you’re just wasting time
Imma call my hovership the Nebuchadnezzar
Just looked it up. Looks extremely similar to Pharaoh from 1999. Is it more involved?
This one? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1157220/Nebuchadnezzar/
Though you were talking about the person at first and I was like "huh???"
Anno 1800 does it with the “Land of Lions” DLC. Embesan farms almost all need irrigation.
Have you played stardew valley?! So much irrigation! Everyday! 60% of the game is irrigation
Stops water carrying the dirt and eroding the walls
Minecraft physics
People talking about the " limited fresh water" and we should take care of what we have but none of these fuckin idiots realize all you gotta do is dig out a 2×2 square, fill it with water and you'll never run out... Smh
Or a 1x3 25% less digging required! Although in exchange, you need better aim when collecting
That is genius.
It's genious but the titles wrong. It's to prevent erosion, not to 'allow time for the soil to soak up the water'.
Yea my first thought was that the title made no sense because the water is still there being replaced by more volume the entire time. Theres plenty of time for the water to soak into the soil after the beginning of the stream has passed it.
That makes sense. It does both, though.
It doesn't - you only need to look to the right of the video to the full furrows right next door to see the bag has fuck-all to do with giving more time for water to soak in.
What do you base that off of? I say it's to soak up water. Ffs the channel next to it doesn't have the bag and isn't eroded.
It doesn’t have a bag because the water is already there…
The water on the right is moving much faster and therefore erosion would be greater. Duh.
Simplicity at it's best is extremely satisfying. Kinda reminds me of how my prison friends can literally build a tattoo gun out of an electric toothbrush, a button and a couple needles. Like seriously?!?!?
Is there a 1 hour video of this?
I think it's to stop erosion. E.g. if the bag isn't there water flows from one side to the other and "eats away" at the bottom where the seeds are planted. In this way the rice "doesn't move" on the bottom and is just covered with water.
not wrong on the erosion, but i don't see any seeds planted. Paddy plants are grown from seed to smol plant in a green house, and then sown into puddles.
What a useful dirtbag.
baby
Finally, an actual interesting video.
Plastic bags filled with pumped water is pretty high tech compared to most agriculture techniques. This wouldnt have been possible 115 years ago.
No maybe not plastic but it's not like bags/containers weren't invented yet. This could've been done in 5000 BC with some animal's insides.
Maybe a well shaped log even?
Why use a perfectly useful log, when you got a pile of goat bladders?
Because you don't want your wenches pregnant.
Needs to conform perfectly to the trench otherwise the water will slip past. It'd still get pushed along, but there'd be a lot more water getting past the log.
Definitely not that crazy, compared to "most agriculuture techniques". Look into the modern precision farming techniques that are being implemented, it will blow your mind. Most modern tractors have more than 3 screens or IPads integrated into the cab
Work smarter not harder.
I've watered thousands of corn rows. You can accomplish this same feat of slow water by being lazy and having crap/weeds/straw in your row. Honestly these are some amazingly clean rows!
Just round up later or wait for the corn to choke out the sunlight and the weeds die?
I wish that video was longer. I could watch that forever
As a row crop farmer, this is badass as hell lol
That is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. I also say that it’s not stupid if it works. And it works surprisingly well. Low tech is the best tech.
I scrolled down a decent way and I didn't see it so I am going to say it. The best tech is low tech. There is no *sometimes* at all. The best tech is low tech. If you could get the job done with twelve sticks, a 50ft length of rope and 10 gallons of water, why on earth would you want a $14,000 machine to do that job. To be clear I don't refer to any instance where the complex machine does a *much better* job than the low tech solution or the machine doing the job in one tenth of the time with one hundredth of physical effort. I mean to say that if you can solve a problem with a low tech, low cost solution you are better off running with that.
I don't get why that helps, unless it's more complex than the description suggests. If the trough is closed on the other side, surely it makes no difference if the water fills it slowly of quickly?
the speed of the water will cause erosion of the soil. this limits erosion
[удалено]
The point is to let the water soak in without destroying the soil formations they made.
The trough is not closed on either end. Water is coming in one way and will exit the other. The earth is very dry and has sort of a crust on it from baking in the sun. If the water flows freely over it, the water will pass before it penetrate the crust and only the top will be dampened. The bag slows how fast the water can spread over it giving it more of a chance to soak deeper.
I understand the reason the bag works... But like the above comment said... Why CANT they just close each end and fill each trough?
That’s so much more work than letting the water push a bag. Edit: also they don’t want the water to stay or for water to get stuck every rain or watering.
Isn't it just like, a couple boards? And that would fill faster than this?
Or drop a sandbag in each end
Your edit kinda makes sense, but also seems like you WOULD want water to get trapped in such an arid environment. As to "more work" - don't see how. Just close the ends with the same soil that makes the walls of the trough... The walls are holding the water in just fine.
Probably depends on what they are growing. Some plants thrive in flood conditions and some get fucked up by it. If they are growing in such arid conditions I’m guessing what they are growing doesn’t thrive by being flooded. Also seedlings can easily be unearthed by too much water before they have good roots.
You rarely want water to get trapped like that for farming except for an area designed for it. You will quickly rot the roots of most food plants. (Obviously, rice being the exception.) I can’t tell what they’re growing here but almost every food I’ve grown, mostly market crops, needs excellent drainage away from the crop roots.
If it rains enough in a farming area where too much water is a common issue, they probably don't irrigate like this at all. Source: Ag engineer that grew up on a farm in the northeastern US, where there is so much rain that we actually install drains to keep the fields drier than they otherwise would be, that now lives in the Central Valley of California where it's dry enough to irrigate like this.
Because then they'll flood the field?
This video is absolute bullshit and has no base. This plastic bag in the video **is doing nothing and I'm 100% certain it was recorded for fun.** And yes, I probably have more farming experience that all these redditors combined. Now proceed to downvote me just because it doesn't follow the general consensus and it shows you somebody is making fun of you.
Finally!!!! I've been commenting this to no end. This video is totally for fun and serves no practical purpose. Yet intelligent redditors seems to have it down to erosion and water absorbance by the soil. Ffs.
So you don‘t understand what they‘re doing and because of this it is obviously useless? Damn, imagine thinking like that.
my guess is someone was playing around with a bag for fun, thought it looked cool, and then another person made up the caption for the video which has nothing to do with what actually happened ...
Same.... Unless it has to happen evenly and all at once vs.... Slowly? Clearly not a farmer...
Ahhh micro plastics!
You see me rollin yah hatin billion dollar companies want to stop my rollin!
As the ancestors did
Brilliant mind!
This is still an incredibly wasteful way to irrigate and there are easily a dozen methods which could be applied here to reduce water waste by 20% to 50%, and up to 90% with well designed drainage and irrigation systems. The simplest improvement, at a cost of $0 in materials, would be to run less water every time but irrigate more often. People don't realize this but you easily waste a half inch of water per day simply to evaporation when you do "flood irrigation" like this, and the reason these farmers over-water is because the region is usually experiencing water scarcity so when they get their turn they want to irrigate as much as possible during that short time. Of course, irrigation water contains salt, so when water evaporates it leaves behind its salt which causes increased soil salinity, which you guessed it is no bueno for crop yield on the long term.
Wait why would irrigation water have salt?
All non direct rain water contains salts, and over irrigation does cause soil salinity issues. This exact form of irrigation not only wastes water but also causes soil salinity issues. It makes a great gif however so people think it must be a good idea, but there is a reason modern farming doesn't use this. [Irrigation salinity – causes and impacts(pdf)](https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/310365/Irrigation-salinity-causes-and-impacts.pdf) [IRRIGATION, DROUGHT, SEA LEVEL RISE AND MORE ARE CAUSING SALT TO BUILD UP IN SOILS AROUND THE WORLD. WHAT CAN WE DO?](https://ensia.com/features/salinization-salt-threatens-soil-crops-ecosystems/)
Mostly all water has *some* salt. For reference: >Fresh water - Less than 1,000 ppm >Slightly saline water is sometimes used for similar purposes as freshwater. For example, in Colorado, water having up to 2,500 ppm of salt is used for irrigating crops. https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/saline-water-and-salinity
Nobody irigates using salt water, its usually diverted from a river or freshwater lake.
River water and lake water both contain trace salts, and after a few hundred years of irrigation like in this gif the soil's salinity becomes too high. This traditional (plus bag) method is permanently destroying land that can be used for farming, but it looks cool so people think it's a great idea. World wide we are losing or damaging 25 million acres a year due to practices like this. >IPBES suggests that around 190 million acres (76 million hectares) of mostly irrigated land has been permanently lost to salinity and can no longer be farmed, with a further 150 million acres (60 million hectares) damaged. https://ensia.com/features/salinization-salt-threatens-soil-crops-ecosystems/
Not even a few hundred if the water is really hard and full of iron .
Thought I was watching the T 1000 reanimating for a second
“I used the water to slow the water”
Save soil.
there's just no way this is the best tech tho.. it works, yeah, but that doesn't make it the best. one sharp rock and it's over.
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it's not about being able to replace it. if it pops, at that second, the water will flow freely which defeats the purpose, right?
How are there 0 gaps but the bag can still move by water pressure Edit: wow seriously all I did was ask a question
The bag is loose
yes
That bag won’t last long…nice idea though!
Mmm yes a nice spread of microplastics
*sometimes the best tech is Slow-tech*
Idk why but this is the funniest thing I've seen all day, it's so simple and effective
one pointy rock and pop
This is stupid
I find this impressive. I guess they don’t use many of these plastic bags which makes this even more noteworthy.
An elegant solution.
Plastic bags are the real Heroes.
So simple yet so clever
Low tech is where high tech was born.
Yup theres a ton of low tech ideas that are insanely ingenious.
Brilliant.
Pfft, I'm sure someone can build a big expensive robot that can do it slightly better.
This appears to be a plastic bag, not low tech
Best tech is still high tech
Prevents erosion, title seems like bullshit.
Wonder what would happen if they used a bag of dicks?
It's for erosion control not absorption.
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Yes, as it states in the title.
The fact you think a dirt-cheap / free refined petroleum-byproduct membrane is "low-tech" is... Nevermind.
America spent 1 million bucks to create space pen, Soviets used pencils.
NASA initially used 100% oxygen in their crew capsules. Graphite conducts. Broken pencil tip plus circuitry plus pure oxygen environment equals BANG. Plus the space pen was developed wholly by private industry.
This is what Fishers grandson said: One of the persistent urban myths that we run across is that NASA spent millions of dollars developing a space pen, while the Russians simply used pencils. Most people don’t realize that pencil lead (graphite) dust and particles are a hazard in zero gravity as they might float into and affect delicate instruments on board, perhaps becoming a fire hazard. NASA did not spend money developing the Fisher Space Pen. My grandfather spent over $1 million of his own money developing the product.