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Maybe I'm off base again, but Pete, are you telling me that all fruit/nut tree crops are not worth the space and should be turned to solar? California will be pretty pissed. And we won't have apples, pears, citrus, grapes, nuts, etc. on the dinner table. We'll all die of scurvy!

Yes, annual crops are more "productive" the first few years (before the citrus tree grows into commercial production - 5 years), but also require more inputs and babysitting.

I think the last time I looked, it cost $900 per acre per year to grow/maintain a citrus tree on the flats (not the ridge). In most years, you can break even on your fruit/juice. You spend about $1300 per acre for tomatoes, and a little less for potatoes/peppers/strawberries. Soybeans don't grow this far south (too much disease)

How much would an acre of solar panels cost? How often would they be replaced? My recollection was that efficiency declined steadily after about 1 year in the sun. Efficiency also decreases with increases in temperature, and I'll bet those bad boys get awful hot in the sub-tropical sun...

But if it's better to have solar here, why isn't it better to have solar everywhere they are farming??

Put the dang solar panels in the Sahara and Gobi deserts. I'm not aware of any other use for those areas.

And grow food in America. Or else other countries could hold us hostage for food supplies.

Where else should we grow our food?

Here's another dumb question. Is Gore an investor or stockholder for any of the technologies he implicates as "solutions" to global warming? Could there be an agenda here?


Citrus! Just Florida citrus! Florida is an old pleistocene(?) beach! It's just sand!

Walk out into an orange grove sometime and scoop a handful of the "growing medium" up. It's just sand! It has little if any organic matter.

Even the muck around our lakes is nutrient deficient.

Much of Florida agriculture is basically just hydroponic farming. While you're in that grove, listen. You should hear a huge diesel engine pumping a zillion gallons of water onto a bottomless sand pit!

Last edited by Tikipete; 03/28/07 01:42 PM.