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| Major Development!
Wall Street Journal Award!
Last year the Wall Street Journal recognized the importance of land imprinting by selecting The Imprinting Foundation for an innovation reward presented at a conference in Redwood, California (Wall Street Journal 2007). The series of award application questions asked by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and The Imprinting Foundation (TIF) responses briefly summarize the development of land imprinting during the past 30 years. This series follows:
• WSJ: Executive Summary . What, briefly, is your innovation?
TIF : Land imprinting is a new method and machine that is directed to reversing the world's number one environmental problem: land desertification or degradation (also global warming).
• WSJ : What is the current situation in the field in which your innovation appears?
TIF: Land imprinting has already restored vegetation on more than 40,000 hectares (100 thousand acres) of degraded land in the Desert Southwest where it's the only method that always works. But where imprinting has to compete with the well institutionalized seed drills in more humid regions, the new idea has been difficult to introduce.
• WSJ : What is the problem with this situation that your innovation is seeking to address?
TIF: Land imprinting reverses global land desertification, land degradation, and global warming by restoring the hydrologic properties of the soil urface-microroughness and macroporosity-to rehydrate the degraded soil for vegetation establishment and atmospheric CO 2 reduction.
• WSJ : How does your innovation address this situation?
TIF : Land imprinters wedge one-foot-square, V-shaped, closed microwatersheds into the degraded soil surface that funnel rainwater, seeds, plant litter, and splash-eroded soil together where they can work in concert to germinate seeds, establish seedlings and grow plants. Thus, the success of imprints in revegetation projects is because of the superior management of water at the soil surface.
• WSJ : What is particularly novel or noteworthy about your innovation?
TIF : Land imprinting wedges seedbeds into the degraded surface without soil surface inversion. Each imprint is a closed microwatershed that can hold a gallon of water that, in turn, increases water infiltration at least ten-fold. Imprinting is unexcelled in soil and water conservation for ensuring success of revegetation projects.
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The Imprinting Foundation: Who Are We?
The Imprinting Foundation's focus is to present breakthrough technology for ecological restoration/conservation to those directly involved in the agricultural sector, as well as those who are in the position of decision-making in agricultural and food concerns. The Imprinting Foundation was founded in 1986, by Dr. Robert Dixon (click on his picture on the right to see his impressive background in this field).
Uses of the greatly superior method of conservation tillage (no-till) include:
farmland production of crops for food, feed, fiber, and fertilizer;
significant reversal of global warming if extensively applied;
the revegetation of degraded grasslands, savannas, shrublands and forests;
originally, the non-arable land production of biofuel feedstock such as switchgrass and giant reed grass; however, at present there is an international concern about using crops for fuel production due to the present critical food shortages.
The WSJ innovation award, discussed in left hand column, has greatly helped the Imprinting Foundation advance its current mission of technology transfer from California to Saudi Arabia . Some other transfer milestones include:
• Publication of the detailed scientific (hydrologic) basis for land imprinting in an important soil and water conservation journal ( Dixon 1995).
• Publication of a paper with data showing land imprinting to be a superior method for establishing vegetation relative to the conventional rangeland drill ( Dixon 1990).
• Publication of a paper detailing the results of two large (500 & 250 acres) ecological restoration projects near Tucson , Arizona (Dixon and Carr 1999).
• Publication of independent research studies conducted in southern California showing imprinting to be a superior method for controlling soil erosion and seeding native vegetation as compared to conventional methods ( Forest etal. 2002 and Montalvo etal. 2002).
• Recent publication of three books, all of which indicate the superiority of land imprinting relative to conventional methods of seeding (Bainbridge 2007, Lancaster 2008, Galatowitsch 2008).
• Finally, land imprinting specifications have been published that are sufficiently detailed for making home-made imprinters ( Dixon and Carr 2004).
Land imprints wedged into the soil surface by rolling 8-pointed
steel stars in the Mojave Desert near Pearblossom , CA .
The Imprinting Foundation is currently in the process of expanding the educational materials we are offering to the public. Small donations to help with this ongoing process would be greatly appreciated. The web site building process will be followed by maintenance and updates. We are offering our web site as the place to go for the newest technology in sustainable agriculture and ecological restoration. Dr. Dixon is available for lectures and seminars. If you have material you would like to share, please go to our Contact Us page. We would love to hear from you.
Please visit our Contact Us page for ways on how you can
assist us in restoring the planet, helping humanity. |
1616 E. Lind Road
Tucson, Arizona 85719
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REFERENCES
Bainbridge, D.A. 2007. A Guide for Desert and Dryland Restoration. New Hope for Arid Lands. Island Press, Washington, DC .
Dixon , RM. 1990. Land imprinting for dryland revegetation and restoration. In: Environmental Restoration: Sciences and Strategy for Restoring the Earth. Edited, John J. Berger. Island Press. Washington , D.C. p. 14-22.
Dixon , R.M. 1995. Water infiltration control at the soil surface: theory and practice. J. Soil & Water Cons. 50(5): 450-453.
Dixon , R.M. and A.B. Carr 1999. Land imprinting for restoring vegetation in the Desert Southwest Proc. 25th Conference on Ecosystems Restoration and Creation. Hillsborough Community College and Institute of Florida Studies. P. 103-109.
Dixon , R.M. and A.B. Carr 2004. Land imprinting standards for accelerating succession past the exotic weed stage. Sixteenth International Conference, Society for Ecological Restoration, August 24-25, Victoria , Canada , pdf available.
Forest , C.L., M.V. Harding, N. Gardiner, H.H. Chang 2002. CALTRANS erosion control pilot study. Proc. Conference 33, International Erosion Control Association. P. 335-343.
Galatowitsch, S. 2008. Seeding establishment in restored ecosystems. In: Seeding Ecology and Evolution. Cambridge University Press.
Lancaster , B. 2008. Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond. Volume 2, Water Harvesting Earthworks. Resource Press, Tucson , Arizona .
Montalvo, A.M., P.A. McMillan and E.B. Allen, 2002. The relative importance of seeding method, soil ripping, and soil variables on seeding success. Restoration Ecology 10:52-67.
Wall Street Journal 2007. Technology 2007 Awards for Innovation, Technology Innovation Winners, Imprinting Foundation, Monday, September 22, R4. |
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