From ‘Freedom From Torture’…....Worms - again….BBC Pics of Scotland…
by Bernie Bell - 10:18 on 30 September 2023
From ‘Freedom From Torture’…..
“I know it's only September, but we all know how quickly Christmas comes around. We're so excited to share our new Christmas cards with you - and with so many great designs you might need a bit of extra time to choose!
Plus, when you send our cards, you'll be spreading joy to your loved ones and making a meaningful impact on the lives of survivors of torture.
With this government making life even more difficult for refugees and survivors of torture, buying from our Christmas shop is a simple way to show your solidarity and support to survivors at this time of year.
Your purchase can really make a difference and can help provide survivors of torture with the vital support they need to rebuild their lives.
For orders of 10 packs of cards or more, or for international orders, please get in touch at shop@freedomfromtorture.org.
Thank you for supporting survivors this Christmas.
Yours sincerely,
Sabine
Community Engagement Manager”
NB
If you click on the specific card selection, for example the Fluffy Robin Fluffy Robin on Berry Branch – Donate to support a refugee who's survived torture (freedomfromtorture.org) - there is information on how many cards per pack (10 cards) and the dimensions for the cards.
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Worms - again….
There are so many reasons to pay attention to and value the humble worm….
I’m not sure if that link will work – if not – I’m hoping that the author won’t mind my copying over the article - as it’s GOOD STUFF!...
“If earthworms were a country, they’d be the world’s fourth largest producer of grain
Little wrigglers contribute one slice to every loaf of bread, adding more than 140 million tons per year to global food supply”
26 SEP 2023 • 11:00 AM ET • BY ERIK STOKSTAD
“Earthworms, such as this one on a smallholder farm in Kenya, help make crops more productive.” STEVEN FONTE
Farmers and gardeners are often pleased to see earthworms slithering through their soil. But how much do they actually help plants grow? According to the first worldwide estimate of the 'invertebrates’ contribution to crop yields, earthworms add more than 140 million tons of food each year. For wheat harvests alone, that’s roughly equivalent to one slice in every loaf of bread.
“It is a very important and interesting finding,” says Helen Phillips, an ecologist at Saint Mary’s University who was not involved in the study, published today in Nature Communications. “It really highlights the importance of earthworms, alongside other soil organisms, as providers of ecosystem functions and services.”
Earthworms do many things to make soil more fertile. By feeding on dead plant matter, they release nutrients much faster than soil microbes would by themselves. They also improve the physical structure of soil. As worms digest plant matter, they excrete tiny, stable clumps of particles. Together with the earthworm burrows, these aggregates make soil more porous. This allows rainwater to soak in and enables roots to grow more easily.
To calculate how much these silent soil engineers augment food production worldwide, Steven Fonte, a soil and agroecosystem ecologist at Colorado State University, and colleagues combined a global atlas of earthworm abundance with maps of agricultural harvests. They also factored in previous estimates of their enhancement of plant productivity
The team found that earthworms are responsible for nearly 7% of global grain harvests, such as rice, wheat, and corn. The contribution is smaller—about 2%—for legumes, including soybeans and lentils, because these crops can cooperate with microbes to produce their own nitrogen and are therefore less reliant on the worms to make that nutrient available.
In many parts of the Global South, the benefit is even higher. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, where many soils are depleted in nutrients and fertilizer is scarce, earthworms boost grain production by 10%. However, Fonte cautions that more work is needed on that region’s estimate because most of the studies underlying the earthworm atlas were from northern, temperate countries.
Fonte hopes the study will encourage policymakers and land managers to look more carefully at the role of soil invertebrates and microbes. One way that farmers can make their soils more friendly for earthworms is to plow less, he adds. Intense tillage is known to be bad for worms. “They don’t respond well to tractors chopping them in half,” Fonte says. “Despite popular belief, you don’t get two earthworms.”
Cultivating earthworms is sometimes easier said than done, notes Jan Willem Van Groenigen, a soil scientist at Wageningen University & Research who wasn’t involved in the new research. In the tropics, for instance, where soil is often depleted, poor farmers may not be able to afford known ways to boost earthworm populations, such as increasing moisture or adding organic matter. “Earthworms are likely to have the largest potential beneficial effects in systems where they are least likely to occur,” Van Groenigen says. “This is a huge challenge.”
Erik Stokstad is a reporter at Science, covering environmental issues.”
And here are mine….
https://theorkneynews.scot/2021/05/07/hurrah-for-earthworms-or-the-return-of-the-native/
In the above article I mention our disappearing voles – they’re back too - this year ….
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16243
Easter Monday
Simple souls
Watching voles
And birds
Building their nests
While on the telly
We enjoy
‘The Secret Life of Pets’
Home life.
BB April ‘23
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BBC Pics of Scotland…..
22nd – 29th of September 2023….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66912728
Crawick Multiverse by Callum Mcgillivray – a place I’d love to visit – among others of similar ilk…
http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=16169
Di Moss snapped the trees growing in Poltalloch House – it doesn’t take long for Nature to re-claim a place…..
http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB11494
In Kilmartin churchyard there are marker stones showing how the Poltalloch family appropriated the marker stones of medieval knights and simply carved their own names on them instead!
Re-using the stones - annexing the power.
Kilmartin Glen is full of wonders which were of more interest to me & Mike….
https://theorkneynews.scot/?s=Bernie+%26+Mike%27s+road+trip+Bernie+bell
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Here’s one I made earlier… https://theorkneynews.scot/2022/05/07/lives-connect/
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