Ancient Bolivian farming

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In Bolivia scientists have found an ancient system of canals. When they studied them they found them to be a very efficient way of farming in their climate. What was shown was a huge field with raised growing beds with a canal separating them in what would have probably been about 3 rows of growing space each. Since they get very cold temps at night these canals saved their plants from being ruined. The sun heated the water in the canals by day and then at night the heated water stayed warm enough to keep their plants safe. The scientist said they would have been able to produce great amounts of food in this manner.

Have you heard of this before? Are there modern applications for this? I thought it was really neat!

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2001

Answers

I haven't heard of this before, but what a great idea. I have seen films of canal-like structures just for *irrigation*...reallly cool b/c just by opening a couple of floodgates, you can send water down in between all your row crops. I tried it one year for my garden, but it didn't work correctly (I forget why) and I didn't pursue it further...probably raised a great crop of weeds in the ditches! Actually, now that I think about it, I think it was an engineering nightmare to get all the furrows low enough to sequentially work together...worse than getting dominoes to fall. But then, I'm rather impatient!

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2001

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