Should we seed Etheopia from the Air?

[Almagarde]

Aetheopia is once again crashing due to famine. I hit apon a solution. WHy not air drop Corn seed along the Rivers so that they will have wild corn next season?

Then it occured to me that a lot of their environmental problems could be solved by introducing certain plants.

Mimosa Pigra is a savage tree of thorns that would quickly reforest a lot of Africa and fix nitrogen (it produces a lot of heavy plant debris in terms of top soil development). It is the Tree that South America relies on to bring it back from Savanna and Desert. If it were grown as a crop for timber in Africa it could reforest the country in a hundred years..

[The_pantless_hero]

I'm not sure where to start to address the absurdities and thus will settl for :facepalm:

[Franberry]

Go read a bit about agriculture then come back and re-state your position.

[Lackadaisical2]

For some reason if it was as easy as dropping seed along a river, I would think the ethiopians would have done it by now...

[Avenio]

Aetheopia is once again crashing due to famine. I hit apon a solution. WHy not air drop Corn seed along the Rivers so that they will have wild corn next season?

Then it occured to me that a lot of their environmental problems could be solved by introducing certain plants.

Mimosa Pigra is a savage tree of thorns that would quickly reforest a lot of Africa and fix nitrogen (it produces a lot of heavy plant debris in terms of top soil development). It is the Tree that South America relies on to bring it back from Savanna and Desert. If it were grown as a crop for timber in Africa it could reforest the country in a hundred years..

Slight problem, Ethiopia has plenty of plants, they just doesn't have enough water.

Exhibit A;



Since you seem to lack knowledge about how plants grow, here's a link to help you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_growth#Factors_affecting_growth

[Grays Harbor]

This is just, well, umm, wishful thinking on a grand and ill thought out scale.

[Call to power]

why don't we just fire deadly microwaves at Ethiopia causing the corn to pop and become delicious*?

*with the addition to selling salt to Ethiopia at a highly inflated price

[Dashret]

There's no such thing as 'wild corn'. It's so thoroughly domesticated that it cannot grow or reproduce without human aid. Wheat and most other food crops have become quite similar in the past, say, 10,000 years.

Further, introducing non-native animals and plants for any reason is amazingly risky. Just ask Australia. Or any part of the US where they have kudzu. Or the US Pacific Northwest where American beachgrass has pretty much gone extinct and where they spend $2 billion a year trying to wipe out scotchbroom (AUGH).

And, quite honestly, I would prefer scotchbroom and all its allergy causing goodness to a 'savage tree of thorns' being the major floral feature of my country.

[The_pantless_hero]

why don't we just fire deadly microwaves at Ethiopia causing the corn to pop and become delicious*?

*with the addition to selling salt to Ethiopia at a highly inflated price

I second this idea.

[Buffett and Colbert]

Since when has the Kingdom of Aethiopia been reestablished and why didn't anyone tell me?

[Call to power]

For some reason if it was as easy as dropping seed along a river, I would think the ethiopians would have done it by now...

they tried that but corn is golden in colour and well these are black people we are talking about >_>

[Franberry]

How to solve the Ethiopian problem

[Rigbyland]

To successfully grow plants, they first need an abundance of water. Try airlifting enough of that.

[Grays Harbor]

There's no such thing as 'wild corn'. It's so thoroughly domesticated that it cannot grow or reproduce without human aid. Wheat and most other food crops have become quite similar in the past, say, 10,000 years.

Further, introducing non-native animals and plants for any reason is amazingly risky. Just ask Australia. Or any part of the US where they have kudzu. Or the US Pacific Northwest where American beachgrass has pretty much gone extinct and where they spend $2 billion a year trying to wipe out scotchbroom (AUGH).

And, quite honestly, I would prefer scotchbroom and all its allergy causing goodness to a 'savage tree of thorns' being the major floral feature of my country.

When my mom and brothers came down to GA a couple years back to visit, I almost had to physically stop my mother from taking clippings of "that cute kudzu plant" back to Washington State with her. Can you imagine what would happen in that nice wet temperate rainforest climate up there? The Space Needle would be covered within a week.

[Grays Harbor]

Since when has the Kingdom of Aethiopia been reestablished and why didn't anyone tell me?

You missed the memo?

[Northwest Slobovia]

Aetheopia is once again crashing due to famine. I hit apon a solution. WHy not air drop Corn seed along the Rivers so that they will have wild corn next season?

As mentioned, please learn something about agriculture, specificially something about how corn grows. Or the fact that the main cereal grown in Ethiopia is teff, which is a millet, because (little hint) other grains don't grow there.

There's also that little "crushing drought that's caused all the rivers to dry up, which is why they have famine" problem, but I'm sure you'll solve that too.

Then it occured to me that a lot of their environmental problems could be solved by introducing certain plants.

Mimosa Pigra is a savage tree of thorns that would quickly reforest a lot of Africa and fix nitrogen....

Because, by God, what a bunch of starving people need is savage thorn trees. Brilliant!

[GetBert]

Couldn't we send them the Swedish bunnies

[The_pantless_hero]

There's no such thing as 'wild corn'. It's so thoroughly domesticated that it cannot grow or reproduce without human aid. Wheat and most other food crops have become quite similar in the past, say, 10,000 years.

Further, introducing non-native animals and plants for any reason is amazingly risky. Just ask Australia. Or any part of the US where they have kudzu. Or the US Pacific Northwest where American beachgrass has pretty much gone extinct and where they spend $2 billion a year trying to wipe out scotchbroom (AUGH).

And, quite honestly, I would prefer scotchbroom and all its allergy causing goodness to a 'savage tree of thorns' being the major floral feature of my country.

When my mom and brothers came down to GA a couple years back to visit, I almost had to physically stop my mother from taking clippings of "that cute kudzu plant" back to Washington State with her. Can you imagine what would happen in that nice wet temperate rainforest climate up there? The Space Needle would be covered within a week.

Washington state would have to be evacuated until winter.

[Grays Harbor]

There's no such thing as 'wild corn'. It's so thoroughly domesticated that it cannot grow or reproduce without human aid. Wheat and most other food crops have become quite similar in the past, say, 10,000 years.

Further, introducing non-native animals and plants for any reason is amazingly risky. Just ask Australia. Or any part of the US where they have kudzu. Or the US Pacific Northwest where American beachgrass has pretty much gone extinct and where they spend $2 billion a year trying to wipe out scotchbroom (AUGH).

And, quite honestly, I would prefer scotchbroom and all its allergy causing goodness to a 'savage tree of thorns' being the major floral feature of my country.

When my mom and brothers came down to GA a couple years back to visit, I almost had to physically stop my mother from taking clippings of "that cute kudzu plant" back to Washington State with her. Can you imagine what would happen in that nice wet temperate rainforest climate up there? The Space Needle would be covered within a week.

Washington state would have to be evacuated until winter.

Yup. It was kinda funny though. When my wife heard the "plan", she did what I believe is the closest real life 'sitcom' slow motion NNNNNOOOOOO! I have ever seen.

We had a friend of ours from Australia up here visiting for a month in Aug-Sep, and he took to calling any kudzu covered something "mystery trees" because you literally couldn't tell what was under the big growths of kudzu.

[San Sarin]

Couldn't we send them the Swedish bunnies

[Dashret]

There's no such thing as 'wild corn'. It's so thoroughly domesticated that it cannot grow or reproduce without human aid. Wheat and most other food crops have become quite similar in the past, say, 10,000 years.

Further, introducing non-native animals and plants for any reason is amazingly risky. Just ask Australia. Or any part of the US where they have kudzu. Or the US Pacific Northwest where American beachgrass has pretty much gone extinct and where they spend $2 billion a year trying to wipe out scotchbroom (AUGH).

And, quite honestly, I would prefer scotchbroom and all its allergy causing goodness to a 'savage tree of thorns' being the major floral feature of my country.

When my mom and brothers came down to GA a couple years back to visit, I almost had to physically stop my mother from taking clippings of "that cute kudzu plant" back to Washington State with her. Can you imagine what would happen in that nice wet temperate rainforest climate up there? The Space Needle would be covered within a week.

On the bright side, it would have gotten rid of the doug fir trees. I lived in Oregon for six years and having the horizon be 20 feet away and consist solely of douglas fir trees gets boring after the first month or so

[Charlotte Ryberg]

I was thinking that a network of irrigation channels and systems could help bring water to fertilise further inland.

[Grays Harbor]

There's no such thing as 'wild corn'. It's so thoroughly domesticated that it cannot grow or reproduce without human aid. Wheat and most other food crops have become quite similar in the past, say, 10,000 years.

Further, introducing non-native animals and plants for any reason is amazingly risky. Just ask Australia. Or any part of the US where they have kudzu. Or the US Pacific Northwest where American beachgrass has pretty much gone extinct and where they spend $2 billion a year trying to wipe out scotchbroom (AUGH).

And, quite honestly, I would prefer scotchbroom and all its allergy causing goodness to a 'savage tree of thorns' being the major floral feature of my country.

When my mom and brothers came down to GA a couple years back to visit, I almost had to physically stop my mother from taking clippings of "that cute kudzu plant" back to Washington State with her. Can you imagine what would happen in that nice wet temperate rainforest climate up there? The Space Needle would be covered within a week.

On the bright side, it would have gotten rid of the doug fir trees. I lived in Oregon for six years and having the horizon be 20 feet away and consist solely of douglas fir trees gets boring after the first month or so

naw, they'd still be there. they would just look like a huge lump of kudzu instead.

[Call to power]

To successfully grow plants, they first need an abundance of water. Try airlifting enough of that.

well we do have the technology to make rain but I'd imagine someone might be a tad pissed off if we started re-routing the worlds water

[Lord-General Drache]

For some reason if it was as easy as dropping seed along a river, I would think the ethiopians would have done it by now...

They have airplanes?