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Worst soil in the world

J

John S-B

Well-known Member
Iraq isn"t known for it"s farming, and here"s why. The soil where I"m (Ar Ramadi) at is so poor that minerals and salts leach out of the soil and crystallize in the puddles. The whitish looking stuff is about the consistancy of runny grits. Forget river bottom soil, we"re about a half mile from the Euphrates river. Not much grows here at all, Date Palms, and a couple other varieties of trees. A few scraggly weeds and thorny plants and that"s it. I really miss having a garden, but I"ll start prepping for next spring this fall.
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A friend of mine who was over there, and others, have mentioned sand. But then he said how slimy it got when wet. Doesn't sound like sand to me. Sounds like clay. And I have no experience with such, but I assume fine clay particles would make a much more significant dust storm than sand.
Thank you for your service.
 
Yep, this is clay, I'd much rather have sand. When it rains, you get ten pounds of mud on each boot. When this stuff dries, it's as hard as concrete. It gets so hard, you can see where the rubber wears off of the tires on some of the vehicle paths through the clay!
 
First Let me thank you for your service!!!!. My son said what we should do is, have every G.I bring over 5 gal of Good dirt, that way, maybe,JUST maybe they could grow vegies .What a place to be trying to go any where when it rains. Keep safe for all of us here at home. and God Bless every one from over here to over there.Warmest Reguards. LOU & VICTOR.
 
i always wondered what these natives lived off over there.whenever there's a clip on tv about the middle east in general all one sees is rocks, rubble and sand(dead clay in your case)and a spindly tree or some brushes.There dont seem even enough greens for a goat to live on,let alone people.
 
We don"t get to go out on tours, only missions. But for them having been here since the cradle of civilization, you"d think they would"ve done more with the place. Don"t think this has been a nice place to live since the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I honestly don"t know where much is in relation to where I am. Long distant travels are usually by Blackhawk or C-130.
 
I suspect the mineral-laden soil is the result of several millenia of irrigation. In time, all irrigated land becomes poisoned with salts. The only exception has been the valley and delta of the Nile in Egypt, which was rejuvenated every year by flooding until the Aswan Dam was constructed.

Be careful over there.
 
My understanding of the Middle East is that just a few generations ago most of the population lived in tents and herded goats in the desert. When oil was discovered the US and the British went over there and built cities for the people to move into and they were supported by oil money.
 
So those cities mentioned in the Bible didn't exist?

The entire planet has become more urbanized.

In 1776, 95% of Americans were farmers; by 1885 it was 65%, by 1935 it was down around 30%. Today it's about 1%.
 
There's no doubt there's extensive deserts.

But there is also some farmland, and some semi-arid places.

The link below shows how sudden the change from sandy desert to irrigated fields can be.

Other strategies include things like goats -- great for mountainous areas where they can graze.

Saudi Arabia has dairy and other farms that depend on very deep water wells the bring up "fossilized" water. These are aquifers that no longer receive new rain.

We can complain about farmers in the U.S. over-pumping the Ogallala Aquifer faster then it is replenished; Saudi Arabia is pumping some of theirs that will never get replenished, once it's out it's out.

It's undeniable the farmland on average isn't close to par with the U.S. (of course we have more good farmland then anywhere else), and much of the middle east has milleniums of human abuse that has caused erosion and degradation.

But they can grow a lot of their own food still.
Some Iraqi farms.
 
I've actually had some meals with them when we did some training. The usual meal was a soup with a light tomato and chicken broth, usually with garbanzo's(chick peas), squash on some other vegetable. And also rice, some fresh baked flat bread and a "salad", which was dice tomato and cucumber. Sometimes there was baked chicken. This was the usual lunch for the police. A pretty good meal, not what I'd get at Bob Evans, but at least I never got the runs.
 
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