"Wasteland To Garden Of Eden - With Volcanic
Rock Dust"
Couple Called
'Cranks' Wins Funding For Fertiliser Trial
by Paul
Kelbie
A Scottish couple
who believe volcanic rock dust can revitalise barren soil
and reverse climate change have won research funding from
the Scottish Executive.
Over a 20-year
period, Cameron and Moira Thomson, both former teachers,
have converted six acres of exposed, infertile land in the
foothills of the Grampian mountains near Pitlochry into a
modern Garden of Eden, using little more than the unwanted
by-product from a nearby quarry. The application of rock
dust mixed with municipal compost has created rich, deep
soils capable of producing cabbages the size of footballs,
onions bigger than coconuts and gooseberries as large as
plums.
Before the pair
began their experiment, erosion and leaching were so severe
that nothing had been grown in the glen for almost 50 years.
The basis of the
Thomsons' theory is simple -- adding the dust mimics glacial
cycles which naturally fertilise the land. Since the last
ice age three million years ago the earth has gone through
25 similar glaciations, each lasting about 90,000 years. We
are currently 10,000 years into an interglacial -- a hiatus
between ice ages -- meaning modern soils are relatively
barren and artificial fertilisers are needed.
"We've been
dismissed as cranks and loonies, and now it looks as though
people are starting to listen," said Mrs Thomson, 42.
"Farmers and scientists have seen what we have achieved and
are willing to look into how it can be used for everything
from growing crops to turf for golf-courses." The couple
established the Seer Centre charitable trust in 1997 to test
their ideas and have been granted more than £95,000 by the
Scottish Executive to conduct Britain's first rock dust
trials.
The Thomsons'
technique may also play a significant role in the fight
against climate change, as the calcium and magnesium in the
dust they use converts atmospheric carbon into carbonates.
"We are walking into another ice age unless we do something
now," said Mr Thomson, 56. "If we burn fossil fuels at
today's rates, atmospheric carbon could be kept stable if we
covered the earth soils with between 0.8 and 3.2 tons of
rock dust per acre."