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VOA慢速英语2013 农民发明新的方式种植农作物

时间:2013-10-16 14:02:41

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Farmer Invents New Way to Grow Crops 农民发明新的方式种植农作物

From VOA Learning English, this is Science in the News. Today, we tell about an American farmer and an unusual device he developed. For 20 years, people around the world have been buying his invention.

Blake Whisenant and his family are farmers. They live in the American state of Florida. For nearly 100 years, Mr. Whisenant’s family has grown fruits and vegetables, and sold them to businesses around the world. The warm weather in central Florida is good for growing crops, especially tomatoes. That is what he grows the most of on his eight hundred hectares of land. In 1992, Mister Whisenant had some bad luck.

It began to rain. And…it rained. And it rained some more. Nearly 50 centimeters of rain destroyed the tomato crop that year. Blake Whisenant was not a happy farmer.

“I just thought there’s got to be a better way!”

So, he began looking to find a way to make sure this never happened again. He wanted to develop a system that would provide water to the plants from below. He thought some kind of cover would keep rain away and the soil warm. He wanted the plants to be grown in a box that would take up little space. He became obsessed1 with the idea and thought about it day and night.

“And I told my wife, before I die I wanted to see if I could build me a box above the ground that I could grow tomatoes in.”

And…after years of work…he knew what to do. He found a company in Pennsylvania that agreed to make the box. It would be made of thick plastic, and would be about one meter long and half a meter deep. Inside the box would be a plastic tube to pour the water in, and a plastic screen with many holes in it. Something like peat moss2, but not soil, would be placed in the box on top of the screen, which would hold it above the water in the bottom of the box. A thin plastic cover would fit over the top of the box to keep out rain and harmful insects. Blake called it…the EarthBox.

The Story of Container Gardening 

Frank DiPaolo is the general manager of the EarthBox Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He says that growing vegetables this way…container gardening some call it…makes it easy for Blake Whisenant and other farmers to quickly solve common growing problems.

“When he saw any sort of disease or problems with the plants in the field, one human being could basically go and grab the box and just pull that problem right out of the field before it spread to the other plants.” 

Frank DiPaolo says normal dirt or soil will not work in this kind of container gardening. Instead, potting mix is used. This is mostly peat moss with a few things added to help air get to the roots of the plants.

“One of its responsibilities is to wick the water up to the plants. When you put a small seedling3 in, the roots are not deep enough to go into that water reservoir, so we need to bring the water up to the plant.” 

The box holds about 11 liters of water. There is a small hole in the side to drain out extra moisture and keep from drowning the plants. Since the potting mix soaks up the water, you have to pour more water down the tube every day or so. This kind of container gardening uses much less water than is needed when growing plants in the ground. And it is made so you can never give too much or too little water to the plants.

The plants in the box also need two other things…a small amount of fertilizer and dolomite, a powder-like substance made from limestone4. The fertilizer feeds the plants and helps them grow. The dolomite helps to reduce acid in the potting mix. Many farmers say dolomite is the secret to growing good tasting tomatoes.

Dolomite is also a low-cost way to supply calcium5 to young tomato plants. This helps to protect the plants from a disease known as “blossom end rot.”

“That’s where your tomato plant will start setting fruit …and they look beautiful and you come back a couple of days later and they’ve grown to a pretty nice size…and the bottom of the tomato is all black. And they call that blossom end rot.”

Before the plants are put in the EarthBox, there is one more thing that must be done. A thin plastic cover is stretched over the top of the box. If storms should bring large amounts of rain, the cover protects the potting mix, fertilizer, and dolomite inside the box. This cover also keeps weeds and harmful insects out of the box. But there is one other reason that the container must be covered. It is important that the potting mix be kept warm, but not too hot. Frank DiPaolo says you should use either a white or a black cover.

“The covers that we ship with the box are black on one side and white on the other. If you live where we live in northeastern Pennsylvania and you want to drive as much heat as you can into the container, we plant the plants with the black side up. Say, if you were in Florida where Blake lives, in the summer he’ll plant with the white side up. You get about a 15 degree Fahrenheit6 change in the soil temperature just by using the white side versus7 the black side.”

There also has been some research done using other colors for the box covers. One study found that a red cover produces better results for vegetables like tomatoes and red peppers.

Frank DiPaolo says that, if you prepare the box correctly, nature will do the rest.

“The plants know what they need from a nutritional8 and a water sense. So if you put the materials within reach of the plant, the plant will take what it needs when it needs it.”

So after preparing the box, how many tomato plants do you use? The answer is …only two! And why is that?

“The reason is that those plants are going to get so big that if you were to put three or four or six plants in, they are just going to be crowding each other out, and each plant is going to underperform.”

Putting the plants in the box is easy. Blake Whisenant uses a sharp knife to cut a small round hole in the cover. He then uses his hand to take out a small amount of potting mix. He sets the plant into the hole, presses the roots down a bit, and then puts back the handful of potting mix.  

Many people who have used EarthBoxes say it is possible to get over 22 kilograms of tomatoes, from just two plants.

Environmental and Other Effects

Growing crops in containers is good for the environment. In addition to using less water, little fertilizer is needed, and it all stays in the box. There is no way the chemicals can run off into nearby waterways. The same potting mix can be used for five or six years. In countries where potting mix is not available or too costly9, growers can use coconut10 coir instead. This comes from the outside shell of the coconut and it is low in cost.

Coconut coir is also a renewable resource. Each new coconut that grows will provide some coir. The peat moss that is used in many potting mixes, however, can take thousands of years to grow. Gardeners can use up peat moss much faster than it can be replaced by nature.

Since the EarthBox went on sale in 1994, many people around the world have used them. Other people have made their own vegetable growing boxes. Some use two large plastic containers to make what is known as a “Global Bucket.” One bucket has holes in the bottom and sits inside the other bucket. Potting mix or coir goes into the top bucket, and water goes through a tube into the bottom bucket. A plastic trash bag is then used to cover the top container.

Many kinds of fruits and vegetables can be grown in containers like these. Some people think this kind of gardening will be important for people in poor countries where hunger is a problem. A lot of food can be grown in a small space for a small amount of money.

Using Earthbox to Educate Children

The people who make EarthBoxes are interested in educating young people. They have developed a program aimed at teaching science and agriculture to students from their prekindergarten years through high school. Using an EarthBox in the classroom, the youngest child learns about seeds, the parts of plants, how gravity affects plants, and the uses of sunflowers.

When children first enter elementary school, they learn about water, soil, light, and nutrition. In middle school, they do experiments and collect information. In high school, the students learn how to use mathematics and graphs to better understand what happens when plants grow. The learning program includes written materials for the teachers and students. And it uses an EarthBox in the classroom as a small laboratory for experiments. 

Molly Philbin is the Education and Community Garden director for the EarthBox Company.

“Kids really get engaged in science in the garden where it’s a kind of fun activity where they’re collecting data and seeing how different temperatures will change the amount of water that’s needed by a crop, so the science concepts come easily.”

Ms. Philbin also says that growing food locally in a container helps lower pollution from burning fossil fuels like oil. Often food travels thousands of kilometers from the farm before it reaches the table at home. A lot of fuel is needed just to deliver the food. Farmers who use growing boxes do not have to plow11 the land before they plant crops. That saves on the cost of fuel and on the pollution from farm machinery12.

The man who started it all, Blake Whisenant, still lives near his farm in Florida. Health problems and age…he is over 80…now keep him from working in the fields. But he still goes to the EarthBox store nearly every day and enjoys teaching classes about agriculture to visitors. He says he likes the idea of passing along his knowledge to the next generation. Helping13 to educate the children, Blake says, has been a blessing14.

This Science in the News was written, read and produced by Jim Tedder15. Join us again next week for more news about science on the Voice of America. I’m Christopher Cruise.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 obsessed 66a4be1417f7cf074208a6d81c8f3384     
adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的
参考例句:
  • He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
  • The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。
2 moss X6QzA     
n.苔,藓,地衣
参考例句:
  • Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
  • He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。
3 seedling GZYxQ     
n.秧苗,树苗
参考例句:
  • She cut down the seedling with one chop.她一刀就把小苗砍倒了。
  • The seedling are coming up full and green.苗长得茁壮碧绿。
4 limestone w3XyJ     
n.石灰石
参考例句:
  • Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
  • Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。
5 calcium sNdzY     
n.钙(化学符号Ca)
参考例句:
  • We need calcium to make bones.我们需要钙来壮骨。
  • Calcium is found most abundantly in milk.奶含钙最丰富。
6 Fahrenheit hlhx9     
n./adj.华氏温度;华氏温度计(的)
参考例句:
  • He was asked for the boiling point of water in Fahrenheit.他被问到水的沸点是华氏多少度。
  • The thermometer reads 80 degrees Fahrenheit.寒暑表指出华氏80度。
7 versus wi7wU     
prep.以…为对手,对;与…相比之下
参考例句:
  • The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
  • The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。
8 nutritional 4HRxN     
adj.营养的,滋养的
参考例句:
  • A diet lacking in nutritional value will not keep a person healthy.缺乏营养价值的饮食不能维持人的健康。
  • The labels on food products give a lot of information about their nutritional content.食品上的标签提供很多关于营养成分的信息。
9 costly 7zXxh     
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的
参考例句:
  • It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
  • This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用,左不过贵了些。
10 coconut VwCzNM     
n.椰子
参考例句:
  • The husk of this coconut is particularly strong.椰子的外壳很明显非常坚固。
  • The falling coconut gave him a terrific bang on the head.那只掉下的椰子砰地击中他的脑袋。
11 plow eu5yE     
n.犁,耕地,犁过的地;v.犁,费力地前进[英]plough
参考例句:
  • At this time of the year farmers plow their fields.每年这个时候农民们都在耕地。
  • We will plow the field soon after the last frost.最后一场霜过后,我们将马上耕田。
12 machinery CAdxb     
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构
参考例句:
  • Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗?
  • Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。
13 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
14 blessing UxDztJ     
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿
参考例句:
  • The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
  • A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。
15 tedder 2833afc4f8252d8dc9f8cd73b24db55d     
n.(干草)翻晒者,翻晒机
参考例句:
  • Jim Tedder has more. 吉姆?特德将给我们做更多的介绍。 来自互联网
  • Jim Tedder tells us more. 吉姆?泰德给我们带来更详细的报道。 来自互联网

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