Dorn Cox - Soil + Silicon: Open Source Tools for Cover Cropping, Grazing and Organic No-Till From Biodiversity for a Livable Climate conference: "Restoring Ecosystems to Reverse Global Warming" Saturday November 22nd, 2014 www.bio4climate.org

2. Arts Commerce
Population
Agriculture

3. Arts
Population
Agriculture
The Mechanistic Metaphor
Commerce
Fixed External Extractable Inputs

4. Arts
Population
Agriculture
Growth without growth in
regenerative capacity
= extraction
Commerce Fixed External inputs + Sunlight & Water

5. http://www.fao.org/docrep/u8480e/U8480E3z.jpg

6. Extractive Spiral
(Magdoff, 2000)

8. Positive feed back
The positive feedback from management forms the basis of agrarian optimism.
The alternative is a model of mining and extraction.

10. time
Warm season perennial
(eg. switchgrass)
Winter annual
(hairy vetch/winter rye)
Cool season
perennial (orchard grass/clovers)
Spring annual
(annual rye grass)
Fall annual (frost kill)
(eg.Tillage radish/oats)
Warm season annual
(Sorghum sudan grass)
Growth
& nutrient
uptake
winter spring summer fall winter spring summer fall winter

12. Zwischenfrüchte…
12
Intensiv-Seminar-Bodenfruchtbarkeit 25.11.2012

13. 7/25/14

14. 14
Intensiv-Seminar-Bodenfruchtbarkeit 25.11.2012

15. 7/25/14

16. 7/25/14

25. 7/25/14

31. Here is a calendar of your year’s labour.
In January: pick the large vegetables. Turn over the
fallow land. Prepare the hemp and flax. Clean and
repair your carts and tipcart, and prepare some
stakes and osiers. Fell the willows and poplars.
Rebuild the ditches and shape the hedges. Turn over
the vineyards. Manure the fruit trees which are
languid and prune the rest. Clear the meadows.
Thresh the grain. Turn over the manure. Plough the
light, sandy soil which was not ploughed at the Feast
of Saint Martin. When it is mild, resume planting in
the valleys. Graft the early trees and bushes. Plant
the corms, kernels, nuts, etc. Have the hemp scutched
and begin to spin. Make bundles of firewood and
sticks. Let those hens which are ready start
brooding. Brand the lambs you wish to keep. Salt the
pork. If you are in a hot country, break up the fallow
land, prepare it for the March sowing, etc

32. Open Source
Open Source social systems fit within the physiocratic social framework for adaptive
management - and a method for providing feedback across disciplines and as a method

34. Creating
Mixing
Sharing
Making
Growing
Eating
Drinking

41. Information
AND
INSPIRATION

43. Prototype and Share

44. 25.11.2012
44

45. Messer/Quetsch-Walze
Intensiv-Seminar-Bodenfruchtbarkeit 25.11.2012
45

48. August
Plant Date
September
Plant Date

49. Agricultural Research
and Development

50. These ratings
are a social
indicator: they
rank a grower to
other similar
growers in the
database.
The actual value is
less important
than the ranking for
making management
decisions

51. Indicator value
Indicator value
Indicator value
Social
Indicator value
Whole Systems
Health
Rating/
ranking
Biological
Indicator value
Economic
Technological
Biogeochemical

52. Physiocratic Framework for Whole Systems
Adaptive Management
Better Ecosystem Management
Better Systems Understanding
Better Systems Monitoring Tools
Better Data
Economic
Social
Technological
Biogeochemical
Better Ecosystem Services Biological

53. High
Complexity Validation
of environmental
indicators
Cultural
communication
and assimilation
of indicators
Low feedback
Low High feedback
Complexity
Behavior over Time

56. Convergence and Compounding of
Technical Achievements
Release-Date Price Per Sensor Pixel (left axis) and
Per 12 megapixels (right axis) Vs. Time (exponential fit):

57. Accessible
Accuracy
Cost
LOW
HIGH
HIGH
HIGH
1960 2003 2014
Participation over time

58. Imaging For Agricultural Research and Management
FARM HACK
RGB imaging
Kites, Balloons
Image processing
tools
Behavior over time
Multispectral Imaging,
Infragram camera
Ground truthing and
refinement
UAV platform
Development, ground based
sensor integration
New platforms and device
calibration
(iFARM)
Technical
Maturity &
number
of departments
and
organizations
and tools
2012 2013 2014

59. Atmospheric measures
-temperature
-humidity
-precipitation
-Carbon and Oxygen levels
Soil health indicators
-water capacity
(i)carbon levels
(i)Root health
(i)Nodulation
(i)Pore structure
-compaction(i)?
-respiration
Soil
Water
Temperature
Conductivity
Chemistry (i)
(i)Turbidity
(i)Algal growth
Quantity
temperature
Moisture (i)
Conductivity
Chemistry (i)
Biology –
Respiration
(i)Photosynthesis
(i)Nutrient uptake
(i)Water stress
(i)Disease identification
(i)root health
(i)Growth rate
(i)Diversity
(i)Structure type

64. Physical Expressions of the Interaction
of the Social/Technical System Output

66. 9/20/13

67. 9/20/13

68. 9/20/13

70. 9/20/13

73. Closed System
Corporate sales and supported
Open Source
Community Developed
and Supported
Cost: $60,000 Cost: $1300

76. GIS and
shared
environment
al database
Web
Services
(REST API,
Auth access
control)
Technical Biological Interaction

81. 7/25/14

90. Raster file
image
layer
Visual data
layers
3D crop
model
layer
Clickable
Plot data

92. Scalability of approach from watershed to individual plant soil interactions

93. Customizable dashboard
display layer for
students/educators
Customizable
dashboard display layer
for Scientist/consultant
Customizable
dashboard display layer
for farmer, record
keeping etc.
Analysis
software VII
Farm Smart
LCA
Analysis
software III
Soil Health
Management
Analysis
software VI
DNDC
GIS and shared
environmental
database
Web Services
(REST API,
Auth access
control)
raster image layers
Image processing
management layer with
auto data entry used to
layout fields, crops,
practices, etc. tied to GIS
Analysis shape files
software II
Adapt N
1
remote sensing environmental data network (automatic data entry)
2
3
4
5

99. From one seed springs a thousand and
let our ideas spread…
“like fire, expansible over all space,
without lessening their density at
any point, and, like the air in which
we breathe, move and have our
physical being, incapable of
confinement or exclusive
appropriation.”
Thomas Jefferson

100. “At the Moment of Sputnik the Planet Became a Global Theater in
Which There Are No Spectators but Only Actors”
McLuhan, Marshall. 1974.