Shaun Overton Trying to Fix The Soil on his Desert

See Chihuahuan Desert Vegetation Development during the Past 10,000 Years According to Pollen and Sediment Data at Upper Arroyo, Saltillo, Mexico for some idea of how that landscape evolved. It used to be oak and pine forest until the late Holocene.

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That discussion about hydrogel/biochar is interesting. The problem he has is calcification of the soil. The rain that soaks in is dissolving calcium and making a layer of concrete below that is covering the aquifer and preventing the plants from accessing that groundwater. See this Google search: "arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi calcium absorption". In particular: Symbiotic synergy: How Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi enhance nutrient uptake, stress tolerance, and soil health through molecular mechanisms and hormonal regulation.

The Chihuahuan desert is a relatively new thing: 


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29:07 They are trying to do fungal genotype assays to be able to predict underground biodiversity of every square Km of land.

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Some plants (29:35) are mycoheterotrophic:


10:02 Scrub Oak. Seems like Oaks hybridise just to confuse botanists. See The use of niche modeling to characterize the microhabitat of hybrid oaks (Quercus undulata) in Utah. 

So maybe better than biochar would be some sort of algal-fungal mat (lichen): Ecology and evolution of algal–fungal symbioses. 

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But we don't really know that much about lichens either!

 

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Maybe someone like John Todd could cook up lichens to order? See, e.g. Filamentous fungal biological mats, methods of production and methods of use thereof and Microbial carbonates: the geological record of calcified bacterial–algal mats and biofilms. Here are some ideas about uses for algae in desert environments.


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See What if we could heal broken ecosystems, toxic landscapes, and poisoned water? 

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