# Urban, poluted/poor soil faming.



## JungleBoots (Mar 1, 2010)

So Ive talked to a few people on the site, and a few of them at least has a really strong interest in growing their own food. Alot of them also are interested urban living, and fusing the two lifestyles together. Urban gardening, urban farming, something like that. Im right there with them

given you hypothetically already have land and a decent ability to grow a sustainable crop i think a big issue of urban farming is making soil healthy for your crops/gardens. In the urban setting, especially in places like detroit where you have a bounty of land available to grow said crops, alot of that soil will be poisoned and polluted by hundreds of years of pollution from all sorts of ugly causes.

Everyone knows peanuts, and soy are good for putting nutrients back into the soil after a cycle of crop growth (along with other natural fertilizers, compost, manure, and so on) but there is still the issue of getting pollutants off so you arent poisoning your crops or even end up eating heavy metals, and petrolium residues.

one of the cool peeps I learned about in college was the artist Mel Chin and his project called "reclaimation feild" in which he set up a small plot of plants on a dump site. (probably far more polluted than your average urban lot.) He planted what he called Hyper-vascular plants.

these plants essentially sucked up toxic chemicals from the soil; heavy metals, petrolium residues, and other nasty chemicals. these plants would essentially take the materials and keep them in their leaves, and not only growing but actually thriving in these soils. He then harvested these plants and burned them, effectively he had a collection of heavy metals at the bottom of his fire pit, and a clean plot of soil. (after a few years of this process)

http://www.satorimedia.com/fmraWeb/chin.htm

I've been trying to get a hold of him to find out what plants he had been growing, but ive heard people have used sunflowers and some wetland plants.

does anyone else know of plants that could provide these kinds of processes? other hyper-vascular plants and such?


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## CvP (Mar 1, 2010)

I don't know what other plants could do this. That's incredible!!! Sunflowers... Maize... damn

You'd have to allow several seasons... MANY SEASONS-- to pass before you'd be able to harvest and ingest any of the crops for which you had cared. The guy in the article started in '91/'92. How successful were his experiments in extracting the toxins? How long would it take to detoxify the land and be able to harvest any edible crop...?

The bacteria (as well as other micro/macro organisms) in the soil do the majority of the work as far as nutrient conversion/replenishing goes. In water treatment, certain bacteria are introduced to break down waste. Maybe you should look into that too.


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## JungleBoots (Mar 1, 2010)

i think mel Chin's experiment is still on going, but it was significant cleansing from season to season... something along the lines of grams of heavy metals found in the ashes of single plants.

but again, he was also doing it in a much more poluted landscape, there are already gardens and such in detroit. and many lots have been abandoned and untouched for several decades. polution should be only marginally worse than your average suburban home... who knows actually... being ten twenty years un attended they might not even have residues from artificial fertilizers.


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## seasonchange (Jan 27, 2011)

i'm working my way through parts of this:
Manual of Soil Analysis -- Soil Bioremediation
i jumped in at chapter 7, which talks about phytoremediation (plants that draw out the toxins from soil naturally), so that might be the place you'd like to start as well. skip to page 172 if that's what you're looking for.


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