EARTAG FOR SHEEPS/GOATS/PIGSHIGH QUALITY TPU MATERIAL
Welcome to Modern Agriculture!
For the past three months, a solar farm in northeast San Antonio has employed about 90 Barbados-cross sheep to graze on 45 acres of greenery, according to Government Technology. As previous animals-as-lawn-mowers literature has explained, this tactic is an easy, adorable way to keep costs down and pastures clean, and OCI Solar Power has used it to great effect.
Their friendly flock has not yet destroyed any solar panels or cables with eager mouths and jumpy hooves, as goats are prone to do.
The company is not the first to choose sheep over goats, though. Last year, eco-friendly Parisians caught on to the trend, and sheep were trimming lawns in Ohio all the way back in 2011. Still, OCI may have found a new, tech-specific benefit to their choice. Namely, their friendly flock has not yet destroyed any solar panels or cables with eager mouths and jumpy hooves, as goats are prone to do. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that other solar companies, like First Solar in Arizona, seem to prefer this fluffier, less mischievous type of landscaper.
One drawback, however, may come in the efficiency department. According to this highly scientific animal mowers calculator, which we unquestioningly trust, 38 goats could mow 50,000 square feet of grass in one day. It would take 83 sheep to do the same, in part because goats are less scrupulous in the amount and quality of grass that they eat. According to the calculator, however, the most efficient animal is the cow – seven of them could easily demolish that area in a day – while the least efficient is, shockingly, the guinea pig, for which you’ll need 2,000.
For OCI, the sheep have been so successful that the company hopes to expand the program to their larger, 500-acre plant in the future. They have also invested in two herding dogs to watch over their precious flock.
“The sheep have done a really good job of keeping it nice,” Sara Krueger, an OCI spokeswoman, told Government Technology. “They seem to be moving naturally around the site.”
EARTAG FOR SHEEPS/GOATS/PIGSHIGH QUALITY TPU MATERIAL
Southern California is home to a tremendous number of immigrants, and many come from places where gardening is a given: you grow as much as you can, because why wouldn’t you? For those from Mexico, Central America, and South America, corn is a major home crop. We may think our breadbasket here in the US knows from corn, but according to a new study, we’ve got more to learn. The study, from the University of California, Riverside, examines the genetic diversity o
The study – which was published in the scientific journal PLOS One, and led by Kansas State University, North Dakota State University, and the US Department of Agriculture itself – looked at the USDA’s crop diversity data spanning from 1978 to 2012, a period of time that’s seen a few key upheavals in the way agriculture works in this country. One is the great rise in ethanol, and the need for plants that can be used to fill our gaping maw for fuel. A
Sheep and goats So you don’t ever want anybody to pull the wool over your eyes … you say you hate being fleeced. Well, then, come on down and pull up a chair. Have we got some info for ewe! Imagine the confusion: More than 11,000 years ago, sheep looked like goats. According to experts who know these kinds of things, mouflon — from which our Ovis aries came — walked like goats, gave milk like goats, ate the same foods as goats, gave meat like a goat, and … whoa.