this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Science Memes

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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 day ago

Permaculture is a great alternative to unsustainable conventional ag practices. There are real benefits in terms of soil and water management and diversity and pest control. It hopes to address the shortcomings of conventional ag with soil degradation, nutrient management, water management and biodiversity.

There are flavours and variations of permaculture that are getting academically rigorous study including silvopasture, groundswales, companion planting (three sisters) etc...

Discounting permaculture because of the their cookes is like discounting medicine because of their cookes. Yes the PDC is a bit MLMy, just like Passive House certifications and courses, but there are legitimate benefits to the practices.

It was taught in my University's Environmental Science program. All the ag focused universities do research on various aspects of it, in particular as a response to climate risks.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Those seeds in your farm contain patented DNA, please pay up.

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

That's not how that works. You pay when you buy the seeds.

Then there's hybrid vigor. And I think someone figured out how to make seeds that only work for four generations... Can't remember the details.

[–] JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 1 day ago

Well there's this case where Monsanto sued a farm for replanting seeds they had a patent on.

And there's several other cases similar to that where Monsanto has sued farmers. For instance in "David vs Monsanto", when a farmer found out some canola plants were roundup-resistant and propogated them on his farm. Monsanto sued him for not having them removed, especially since Monsanto had a program where if they were informed, they'd removed them for farmers.

So while it's not exactly as deceived above, it's not far off.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

All hybrid seeds basically only work for one generation, because basic genetics.

Terminator Seedsare about 25 years old now, and aren't actually in use anywhere.

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Yup. That's why I said that's not how it works. Because you buy seeds with hybrid vigor.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They had a kill gene so some crazy inventor wouldn't kill humanity, or that was the reason I heard back in the day...

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The so called terminator gene was developed in and to attempt to limit the spread of GMO genes into the wild populations. It was a USDA-ARS program. Not their best work but it would have prevented today's clusterfuck of contamination.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I haven't heard of the contamination problem, do you have any info about that?

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

https://doi.org/10.4161/21645698.2014.945883

Here's a paper discussing the issue.

Corn to teosintes GMO contamination is also huge issue especially in southern states.

20+ years after a failed introduction of GMO RR wheat, they are still finding it in fields.

https://www.producer.com/news/cause-of-gm-wheat-escape-unlikely-to-be-known/

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/usda-investigates-unapproved-gmo-wheat-found-in-washington-state-idUSKCN1T900N/

[–] Pencilnoob@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

Eh kind of but just don't buy anything and you'll be fine. And read the actual literature and studies out there

like a pretty hot take backed by the science, there are much better bioaccumulators than comfrey

[–] Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The amount of bullshit in permaculture is tremendous. It's why I often get in online knife-fights with permies. They do a lot of 'their own research'. Since they're doing their own research, they're liable to get roped into pseudoscience claims. I once saw someone trying to sell salt water as a soil amendment. Don't get me started on electroculture.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lmao I was saving this for tomorrow.

[–] Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago

LAWL. Outstanding

[–] LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

i think people really idealize and fetishize non- industrial agriculture to a weird degree that is divorced from reality, like, I'm pretty sure I read the haber bosch process alone is essentially responsible for feeding half of humanity at this point, but maybe I'm wrong for thinking "there's no way you're getting enough fixed nitrogen to feed four billion extra people without industrial processes." I'm pretty sure I'm not though and if you blanket replaced all capitalist agriculture with whatever you'd have mass starvation in the absence of industrial fertilizer production.

[–] oeuf@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why am I seeing Permaculture in my feed but when I click through I'm getting Biodynamics? Is this Schrödinger's .gif?

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 7 points 1 day ago

Two different memes. One is in the post body.

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Now I'm interested in the permaculture problematic? The moon and stuff never convinced me but from what I heard about permaculture it didn't sound out of touch ?

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nothing in the issues section screams as particularly odious to me...

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

The issue is you can pretty much do anything and slap the label on it making the term essentially meaningless for the moment. That has the potential to do a lot of harm, especially if, let's say used by a corporation to lobby for environmental deregulation to develop a piece of land as a hypothetical example. There are still a lot of unknowns as well. This basically mostly boils down to science needs more funding to explore the potential as there is promise in the weeds. Still a lot to learn, though.

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

"less- or no-work gardening, bountiful yields, and the soft fuzzy glow of knowing that the garden will ... live on without you" were often illusory.[

maybe that's why I never have tomatoes

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

It's basically a super fuzzy subject that changes as you want, and in so far as its useful it's not new, and the parts that are new aren't useful. Also, the guy who coined the term is a nutcase.

[–] BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Lmao, the biodynamics one is gold.