Article on carbon

[zeroma]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ut-away-carbon

Just thought it was interesting.

[RayR]

The researchers found that plants in the third environment, the home to both herbivores and carnivores, stored 40 percent more carbon than plants in the grasshopper enclosure.

That's a huge difference and a real head scratcher.
So I guess the moral of that story is don't kill the predators.

[Redbaron]

Actually the moral to the story is don't kill all the pests either. The functioning biosystem is the one with a balance between pests and predators. The same effect is seen in Holistic managed grazing. You would think that grazing reduces the total biomass produced by the plants in the pasture....just the opposite. More grazing means more grass.....as long as the cattle are under the influence of a predator like wolves, lions etc..... Kill the predators and the cattle then overgraze. So HMPG uses either electric fencing or Sheppard to mimic those predators..... bingo...500% increase in grass production on average. or grasshoppers....you could kill the grasshoppers with sprays...or you could let them live and pasture some chickens as a predator to them. The second option feeds the chickens AND the grass gets stimulated to grow more. Works in vegetables too. Let the caterpillar have a bite, just make sure there are plenty of predators around to keep them in check. The bitten plants react in a way that stimulates a greater increase in growth than what was lost to the caterpillar.