this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
488 points (100.0% liked)

Science Memes

234 readers
96 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] grubberfly@mander.xyz 48 points 6 months ago (2 children)

cam someone spoon-feed me this meme? i don't get it.

[–] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 121 points 6 months ago (3 children)

All plants require different levels nutrients to grow. If the same plant is grown repeatedly in the same soil then the soil will run out of the nutrients that plant needs and growing that plant becomes difficult. By rotating through plants with different nutrient requirements, the soil can maintain a sustainable balance of nutrients.

We now use the scientific method to argue ideas, but in the past ideas could just be laughed at if people thought they sounded dumb. People laughed at ideas like the sun being the center of the solar system and doctors needing to wash their hands before surgery. Refusal to accept these ideas held humanity back from technological advancement.

[–] Xephonian@retrolemmy.com 2 points 6 months ago

We now use the scientific method to argue ideas, but in the past ideas could just be laughed at if people thought they sounded dumb.

Used to before the whole covid scam anyway. Now it's "trust the science" which of course is an oxymoron. The whole point of science is that we don't trust it, we verify it. And that wasn't allowed.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Person264@lemmings.world 38 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

You can't really grow the same crop in the same field season after season (without fertiliser), because they'll sap the specific nutrients they need from the soil. If you do that over and over eventually the soil wont have any food for that crop. Growing something different each season that takes different nutrients from the soil lets it recover the other ones. I don't know how it recovers on its own, circle of life stuff probably. Modern farming can cheat by artificially replenishing the nutrients with fertiliser.

[–] Gnugit@aussie.zone 14 points 6 months ago

It also makes it stronger against disease.

[–] jlow 11 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Never thought about it that way, so if farmers (at this point probably mostly international big farming corporations) would just rotate their crops, they would not have to buy as much fertiliser, destroy the environment and probably a tonne of other disgusting stuff that comes with mono-cultures, like the excessive need for fertilisers? Yeah, that checks out 🥵 ("It's too much work! Other crops don't sell!")

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

would just

Farmers have been rotating crops for hundreds of years man. Corporate farms rotate crops too. Step down off that soapbox for a moment.

The whole joke is that the person in the image would have made fun of the idea in ancient times, killing the food supply of early civilization and setting us all back by thousands of years.

[–] wandermind@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 months ago

Yeah, the point of the joke is that crop rotation has been practiced for literally thousands of years. It was an agricultural invention which gave ancient cultures significantly higher crop yields, enabling a huge number of societal, cultural and scientific developments. The joke is based on the idea that before crop rotation was discovered, some people might have considered it a silly idea, delaying the developments enabled by the significantly increased crop yields.

[–] onion@feddit.de 18 points 6 months ago

They do rotate, for example soybean -> corn because soybeans add nitrogen to the ground which corn needs a lot of

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 4 points 6 months ago

Also mixing crops (or non-farmable plants) has big benefits, but it's currently cheaper to use chemically-derived fertilisers and go the monoculture route.

[–] Coasting0942@reddthat.com 3 points 6 months ago

If only a government could artificially change the artificial incentives, without worrying about the votes they get from the minority who farm and are citizens.