I don't have the benefit of your personal visit, so I was going only on the texts suggested by Liu.
Yes, the loess were stepped in that picture. I believe that was historic, though, back when everyone planted rice. This area has been inhabited for thousands of years, meaning the degradation is nothing new, just accelerated.
(I thought it was quite unusual to see only one ear on a corn stock but I never saw more then one ear per).
Which is part of the problem. Without access to expensive fertilizers, corn doesn't produce much more than what it can extract from the soil. We Canadians and US farmers fertilize the crap out of our soil.
The irony here is that we might be doing to our soil slowly what the folks on the Loess did. Reports (not included in the OP) from restored areas indicate that the crop yields are up 10-fold, and that on only organic, in-place fertilizing. If the soil is not tilled and allowed to grow, there's no telling how fertile it can become.
no subject
Yes, the loess were stepped in that picture. I believe that was historic, though, back when everyone planted rice. This area has been inhabited for thousands of years, meaning the degradation is nothing new, just accelerated.
(I thought it was quite unusual to see only one ear on a corn stock but I never saw more then one ear per).
Which is part of the problem. Without access to expensive fertilizers, corn doesn't produce much more than what it can extract from the soil. We Canadians and US farmers fertilize the crap out of our soil.
The irony here is that we might be doing to our soil slowly what the folks on the Loess did. Reports (not included in the OP) from restored areas indicate that the crop yields are up 10-fold, and that on only organic, in-place fertilizing. If the soil is not tilled and allowed to grow, there's no telling how fertile it can become.