r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 3h ago
Two Minnesota solar farms planted native grasses and wildflowers beneath their panels. Five years later, flowering plant species had increased sevenfold, native bee numbers more than 20 fold and total insect numbers had tripled, while more bees were also visiting nearby soybean fields.
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/two-minnesota-solar-farms-turned-the-ground-beneath-their-panels-into-habitat-and-native-bee-abundance-rose-more-than-20-fold/36680/292
u/MrEHam 2h ago
Solar panels above canals also reduces water evaporation.
One major upgrade I’d like to see is shade covering solar panels above sidewalks and bike paths, especially in the warm south or rainy areas.
It will encourage more people to walk or ride bikes and the benefits are huge. Less fossil fuels used, less money spent on gas and car expenses, more exercise, lower traffic for the remaining drivers, and the clean energy generation.
•
u/dsac 1h ago
There are hundreds (thousands?) of acres of shadeless parking lots at stadiums, arenas, schools, and government buildings that would be perfect for this
•
u/pickle_pickled 1h ago
US alone has enough parking lots to cover about the size of Belgium
https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/comments/1h2uwub/today_i_learned_the_total_size_of_car_parks_in/
•
u/Evadrepus 50m ago
A few studies have shown that we could take most of the corn produced by Illinois and used in ethanol production and turn those same lands into solar farms and have enough energy to power the nation's power grid. Without all the water and energy used in producing a pollutant.
•
u/Candle1ight 25m ago
Isn't the overproduction of corn intentional and part of some military surplus strategy? It's turned into ethanol as a bonus, not a goal.
•
u/wrenwood2018 15m ago
Taking away the most productive farmland is a bad trade relative to parking lots and other industrial options.
•
u/ThePublikon 11m ago
Not if the farmland is only being used for inefficient energy production and a more efficient type of energy production is available.
That's even without considering what this post is about, that crops can be grown or animals raised under the panels.
•
u/cantadmittoposting 4m ago
the bigger point is we might need that farmland at some point. We already have millions of acres of un-arable land (over parking lots, etc, especially) that can be used for the same purpose, without deleting a potentially important resource for the future.
I mean, there's just straight up desert that gets tons of sun and if we're talking about mass coverage anyways, is less "useful" than illinois farmland.
•
•
u/OldDoubt1577 1h ago
Not to mention some plants really don't like full sun and partial sun is better for growth in some species.
•
u/musicaleffervescence 1h ago
in NC, duke energy will not allow it. they will spend every last dollar they have lobbying against solar, and then raise our rates to cover the cost. probably my least favorite monopoly is “public utilities” that arent “public” and can do whatever they want.
•
u/speedingpullet 58m ago
Our local mall has solar structures in the parking lot - it shades our cars in the SoCal heat and also has solar panels on top that collectively help power the mall. I wish all malls did something similar.
Weirdly, I'm actually kind of optimistic that solar and other renewables will finally win out. You see places like those solar farms in MN, and realize just how nice it could be, with a little bit of planning and creative thinking.
•
u/ABHOR_pod 19m ago
The problem is that CEOs can't figure out how to raise the price on sunlight, to increase profits and stock value, for the billionaire shareholders who don't need more money, but by god do they feel that deserve more money for having lots of money already. So they actively block the adoption of renewables in favor of the increasingly scarce fossil fuels that we all know are destroying the world, but they can be controlled to generate massive profit.
And none of that is actually a joke.
•
u/alwrit 2m ago
No the problem is half of Americans who keep voting for colossal assholes like Trump who try to actively sabotage renewables.
Biden passed a law that heavily subsidized renewables and EVs and then Trump came in and turned all the programs off. I barely got my panels in under the wire to qualify for the tax credits which saved me thousands of dollars without which I could not have bought my panels.
Stop blaming tiny groups of people and recognize the enormous numbers of dumbasses that are your neighbors and family members that vote and vote for dumb shit. They are the true enemy and they must be treated as such.
•
•
u/Cunninghams_right 23m ago
Eh, it's typically more expensive than just building a longer lasting regular canopy and building a solar farm separately.
•
•
u/KindledWanderer 35m ago
Those kinds of installations are expensive and at that point just use the ecologically friendlier nuclear power, tbh.
661
u/MyCoffeeIsCold 3h ago
Solar is great and has a place in our energy portfolio in the right locations.
We have had proposals to clear cut 60-70 acres of FOREST for solar projects here in New York. One of the dumbest things I have ever heard.
201
u/nochinzilch 3h ago
I swear, people will look for any excuse to chop stuff down.
•
u/ericvulgaris 1h ago
the economy be like: just one more felling bro. Come on. Just one more old forest denuded and I'll stop
-30
u/Churchbushonk 2h ago
You make money on the timber, offsetting your cost. Then you plant trees somewhere else. No biggie.
35
u/MyCoffeeIsCold 2h ago
Yeah no. You must be a solar sales rep.
40
u/Dry_Instruction8254 2h ago
I'm ok with them cutting down forests... After every parking lot, abandoned industrial complex, and reservoir is covered first.
20
u/ChuckaChuckaLooLoo3 2h ago
Yes. Walmart should lead the way on this and cover their lots with solar. There are zero trees and those lots are giant heat producers on a warming planet.
•
u/berfthegryphon 1h ago
At least start with Walmart having to put solar or green roofs on every single one of their buildings.
•
u/evermorecoffee 1h ago
Why not both? 😊
•
u/berfthegryphon 1h ago
Absolutely. But panels on a roof could be done much quicker and cheaper than in a parking lot. Scaffold the improvement. Start small and work your way up
2
•
•
u/TheBoraxKid1trblz 54m ago
That's what's attractive to investors but ignores the actual impacts on the environment. It takes hundreds or thousands of years for an ecosystem to develop and grow healthy, productive, and balanced. A forest is more than trees it's soil, hydrology, plant communities, animal communities, microbiology, nutrient cycling, atmosphere. It takes many generations of life forms living and dying to stabilize these pieces into a biodiverse ecosystem.
And in a state that would naturally be completely forested it doesn't even make sense to plant more trees- where would you?
Development is going to happen and ultimately improves human life overall but it's counterproductive to pretend the impact on nature is no biggie. I'd feel better about it if for every acre developed an acre somewhere nearby received permanent protection. We're quickly running out of space
•
u/helloimalexandria 0m ago
Well, it seems there is no permanence for protection of nature if our current goon squad can just rollback environmental protections and make it cool to log sensitive forests to put roads through them. Or to cull herds of wild horses because they’re protected and because they’re protected, so is the land they’re on. If they’re not there, the land is free to use for development (yes, this is really happening right now).
I think at a certain point, we should minimize development and instead, focus on ways to reduce our population. It’s happening already naturally, but I know people who have four kids. Like, come on, man. Things are going to get worse the more of us there are.
•
•
45
u/Krillin113 3h ago
Solar needs to be put on agricultural land
83
u/Gladiateher 2h ago
I partially agree, but the good news is we have multiple fantastic options:
We have rooftops, desert and grasslands, reservoirs and bodies of water, and so much more.
Historically red Texas and Florida are both leading the nation in solar, wind, and battery right now.
I truly believe we’re in the midst of a green revolution, and I personally think with one more small breakthrough in battery technology our entire society is going to start transforming in some pretty mind bending ways.
19
u/MyCoffeeIsCold 2h ago
This is the right answer. The right renewable in the right location makes the most sense.
9
u/P_mp_n 2h ago
Have u seen Lithim Air batteries? Seems ro me like the new battery is getting closer n closer to here
•
u/Gladiateher 1h ago
I just looked it up and it looks awesome! I’m also super excited about reservoir based storage and the potential in sodium ion batteries as well.
I genuinely believe even one more small breakthrough would be enough to lead to permanent transformation of our society into something unbelievably cool.
•
u/leberwrust 1h ago
If you want really cheap there is also iron air. They aren't really efficient like 50% or so, but you can build them really really cheap. Perfect for storing the miday energy cheaply.
•
u/RoastedPickledGoose 1h ago
I’ve seen so many big car parks in hot places and thought “why not just put solar panels above the parking lots? Shade for the cars, energy for the stores.”
Then I remember how people drive.
•
u/ThePainStalker 1h ago
This isn’t a real solution for grid scale power though. It’s a solution for local community power and for very light commercial electricity users. But the reality is that as industries electrify more and more (all that natural gas and fossil energy usage needs to be replaced with some zero carbon alternative and that is almost always electricity) and as more manufacturing gets onshored (especially in the US) and more heavy transport gets electrified (ports and logistics hubs), we will need proper grid scale solar, wind and in many cases (especially industrial usage), proper firm, 24/7, flexible and dispatchable power (like natural gas plants or hopefully the upcoming SMRs which would have demand flexibility capabilities). Rooftop solar, solar in parking lots, etc can be great for low electricity users (maybe 1-3MW microgrids or distribution grids) but they are no where near sufficient for even relatively light electrified users of 20MW+ of electricity (which is increasing rapidly as fossil fuels get phased out), let alone 100MW-2000MW+ users like semiconductor fabs, EV plants, data centers, logistics hubs, green steel, possibly hydrogen electrolysers in future, etc. Relying on low density brownfield solar solutions (like rooftop or parking lots) is no where near sufficient for power needs and also often runs into many infrastructure bottlenecks (like local distribution transformer capacity limits, which cascade a lot when applied to so many towns, etc). Grid scale solar relying on lots of greenfield land is also much more efficient from a power infrastructure perspective (one transmission line or transmission upgrade costs far less than a massive amount of distribution upgrades).
•
u/Gladiateher 1h ago
I can’t build you a shed using my cordless drill, but I can build you a shed using all of my tools.
I agree with everything you said, but we can’t let perfect be the enemy of good, I’m pro nuclear as well, which when mixed into renewables solves every deficiency I’m aware of.
•
u/ThePainStalker 1h ago edited 44m ago
I’m pro-SMRs (if they actually turn out as planned) but definitely not pro conventional nuclear. Conventional nuclear (even without the admittedly very hostile regulatory environment) is simply too expensive (as it cannot be modularised, they have to be major civil engineering which always comes with structurally higher costs) and most importantly, conventional nuclear has to act as a 24/7 firm baseload that cannot be scaled down in power easily to match demand. That means that they are a terrible complement to renewables. You need something that actually is flexible enough (and cheap enough capital costs wise) to scale up and down with power demand and generation output. At the moment, only natural gas turbines and power plants fit that bill (not coal and definitely not nuclear). Even if nuclear plants weren’t shut down, the operators of them would generally just be cannabilised by cheap renewables during a lot of operating hours so frankly, renewables make conventional nuclear even less feasible than before.
There is no carbon free solution to this problem yet. My hope is that SMRs (especially the molten salt designs which are very promising from an energy storage perspective) actually deliver on their promises (especially with Big Tech aggressively funding startups, there has literally never been more momentum for cheap power sources since the 1950s as energy demand has, right up to now in the mid 2020s, stagnated since the 1990s). Therefore we would actually have a real solution for not only energy dense industrial power (which is massively important and something renewables completely lack), can generate industrial heat (hence making energy inputs far more efficient than it would be for renewables in industry)) but for longer duration energy storage as hydrogen is simply way too expensive to produce no matter what and also requires a metric ton of really expensive pipeline infrastructure and batteries are simply not good enough for the job for medium to long term storage.
It would be even better if SMRs did not have to generate baseload power and could actually run as peaker plants too much like natural gas plants but that is very unlikely to be economically feasible. At least even if baseload, they would provide some much needed inertia into the grid system (another major problem with renewables albeit this can be somewhat managed in other ways but still, some generation capacity with inertia is definitely nice to have). I guess you can’t have it all, but it’s still a great solution.
2
u/Churchbushonk 2h ago
Only cause Texas and Florida are in good locations for renewables.
7
u/thefatheadedone 2h ago
The why doesn't really matter it's just the fact they are doing it that counts imo.
7
u/Gladiateher 2h ago
No, that’s not the only reason lol, respectfully of course!
It’s because they have means, motive, and opportunity (lol).
They have a rich populace, very permissive zoning and building codes, the correct climate, the right political and capital structures and most importantly they have the will.
The technology is there, it’s economically viable and despite what you may have heard, people want the technology, they see it and they want it, even in oil producing Texas and crazy conservative Florida, that’s my point really - it’s pure optimism we CAN do this, we CAN implement this technology, and one good investment in energy tech can lead to another.
We can use mountain reservoir based batteries, grid scale electric batteries, home battery banks, solar, wind, and water.
People on the liberal coasts and people in the conservative south, and people in the frozen north all want this and we can have it, it’s available right now in this moment! We can get everyone on board and we absolutely CAN do this (in the US context at least)
•
u/No_Internal9345 1h ago
Parking lots?
•
u/Gladiateher 49m ago
Absolutely, why the frick not? Surround the bitch with native flowers while you’re at it.
•
u/SerHodorTheThrall 1h ago
Historically red Texas and Florida are both leading the nation in solar, wind, and battery right now.
Why do people just outright lie? California is the outright leader in solar and has been for a long long time, in both raw output and the % of total state power generation. Florida is neither impressive in either its raw generation per capita or the % of its total power, despite being the ideal solar region. And in Texas, all the capacity is for corporate AI interests. None of that power is going to fucking housing. You need to be quite the imbecile to trust Republicans, who put is in this mess, to pull us out.
Anyways, here's the number that really matters. State power usable to power homes:
Texas: ~200,000 homes
Florida: ~2,000,000 homes
California: ~20,000,000 homes
lol, lmao even
•
u/Gladiateher 1h ago
Unfortunately you have totally missed my point lol.
I’m not denigrating California nor glazing Texas, nor have I lied at all. I’m simply citing a different statistic than you for a completely different reason.
For your pedantic POV though, I’ll be more specific, Texas is leading the nation in new install and has recently passed CA in utility scale solar power generation.
To be clear to you my analytical friend, the reason this matters and the reason me and others are excited is because CA is already “on the team”
Until very recently, the idea that “drill baby drill” Texas and “Insane swamp conservative” Florida would be participants in a green revolution was an absolute pipe dream, but that’s not the case anymore. THATS why it’s worth talking about, it’s not glazing or lies, it’s a fact, a massively encouraging one.
Look past your knee jerk reaction at the big picture we have an opportunity here, a massive one, we have to address the climate crisis together with as many participants as we can, and even the reds are on board.
My talking points can be used to convince other conservatives in fact, if they object to green tech you can ask them about Texas and Florida and challenge their pre-conceived notions.
18
u/sl33ksnypr 2h ago
And more specifically, land that is used to farm corn used for ethanol. I don't think we should mess with our food crops, but maybe we could just make less corn ethanol for cars?
6
u/fearless-fossa 2h ago
There are plenty of plants that thrive under solar panels because they need some shadow to avoid overheating, putting solar above them increases yield.
•
u/Gladiateher 1h ago
Plus fish hatcheries, reservoirs, desert and badlands areas, fallow grasslands, parking lots, Walmarts(lol) and soooo much more!
•
u/cjsv7657 1h ago
But the increased cost of labor will decrease the profits so much it wont be worth it. It will work for things like cranberries where you just flood the bogs to pick them but not crops that are machine harvested. Like pretty much everything else that can be grown in shade.
•
u/LostWoodsInTheField 26m ago
There are plenty of plants that thrive under solar panels because they need some shadow to avoid overheating, putting solar above them increases yield.
Not a single solar panel farm in my area could support actual crop harvesting / planting without increasing costs way way above recooping levels. Are there solar farms that can be 15 feet off of the ground for half an acre + so far equipment could work 'around' them?
•
u/NettingStick 1h ago
According to the USDA's numbers, about 0% of corn grown in America is used to feed Americans. I mean, obviously we have tortillas, corn syrup, etc. It's just that the amount of corn we eat directly is essentially a rounding error on the amount of corn we grow for other purposes.
Modern agriculture doesn't exist to feed people. It exists to feed markets. Our corn is mostly fed to animals; or exported (mostly to feed animals); or used to make ethanol (which produces byproducts that, again, are fed to animals). The thing about feeding corn to animals is that almost all of the calories in the corn are lost along the way. This is one of the reasons that reducing meat consumption has such an outsized effect on CO2 emissions.
TL;DR - we could replace almost all of our corn farms with solar without reducing how much food is available. We just choose not to.
•
u/nomadicbohunk 1h ago
You're not incorrect. I think it helps to think of modern corn/bean farming as mining rather than farming. We're using up nonrenewable resources (soil and groundwater) to gain an industrial base product.
3
u/slowbones 2h ago
I manage a semi large solar PV array. It was put there by an ethanol plant to make money.
•
•
•
52
u/lateformyfuneral 3h ago
Some solar projects are just a way for companies to farm subsidies.
•
u/Hendlton 1h ago
Not even subsidies at this point. Solar is simply a good investment. And like with all other investments, people will tear anything and everything down to make a buck.
•
u/ceraexx 1h ago
That's just horseshit. Give an example. Go ahead. I've been doing solar utility for 15 years. Please enlighten me.
•
u/LostWoodsInTheField 24m ago
I can't give an example, and he's horseshit on his statement the way it's said, with that we had one solar project stop it's approval process because it wasn't worth it because the loss of one of the subsidies.
With that, it was one project, there is at least 1 new solar project (as in commercial level one) every single quarter in my county. My township has 2 or 3 rooftop projects being permitted every single month. And that's with less subsidies being available (in fact some of the projects have none).
•
u/AphaedrusGaming 1h ago
Yeah, subsidies are so easy to get wrong since you're changing the incentives from the baseline free market. Maybe the problem there is clearing forests isn't decentivized enough...
0
8
u/applespicebetter 2h ago
I hate that, and it plays right into the hands of anti-renewable propaganda. Yes, they are just as likely to try to clear cut the same 60-70 acres for a data center, but they can point to proposals like this to point fingers and muddy the waters.
•
u/MyCoffeeIsCold 1h ago
You should hate the renewable companies that will do anything to make a buck. The point of renewables is to have a cleaner earth. Cutting down a forest never accomplishes that. There are some good projects that make great sense and then there are the ones that give renewables a bad reputation
•
u/applespicebetter 1h ago
I do, believe me. Every single publicly traded company in the US, in every sector, renewable energy included, is subject to the same law as any other company - it is their fiduciary duty to always enhance profits for the benefit of their shareholders, and the company can be held liable for failing to do so.
It is gross. Disgusting.
•
u/Practical_Dot_3574 1h ago
The solar farm i helped build was on a 397 acres. It was an old farmer that died, left it to his kids, they didnt want it as they had moved on with there own lives and careers. Sold it to the local co op power company. Only stipulations were that the house and structure stayed standing and maintained. The farm now generates nearly 3GW of power for the community with battery backup for 2 days worth of usage. It isnt a lot but when used for street lights it lasts a while longer.
•
u/myxomatosist 51m ago
For greenfield sites, constraints like landowner considerations, NYS agricultural protections, and other environmental/engineering setbacks often mean that upland forest is unfortunately less burdensome to site project components on. It is more expensive to clear/prepare/and establish good ground cover in these areas though.
5
u/GoVolt_Mine 2h ago
What type of forest? Many forests were planted for wood production often in places where they don't fit ecologically.
3
u/MyCoffeeIsCold 2h ago
Likely second growth but definitely not invasive species.
3
u/GoVolt_Mine 2h ago
Doesn't have to be invasive. Planted forests are usually artificial monocultures with one type of tree.
Those forests are usually better to get rid of for diversity.
Just trying to say it's not that simple to say it's always bad to replace a forest.
3
u/MyCoffeeIsCold 2h ago
It was a proper diverse forest. Not old growth but a survey by an arborist showed diverse species of trees. If it was garbage, then it looses a bit of weight but NY is an awful place for solar in general. We have like 6 months of decent sun. This was all about subsidies.
•
u/OldDoubt1577 1h ago
Forest?! That's dumb, literally acres of farmland that isn't productive or competative in priced produce is sitting there waiting to pivot to solar.
•
u/GroundbreakingLaw149 46m ago
I’ve only ever seen tree farms get cleared for solar, maybe a few acres of trees in the way.
4
u/Hamstafish 2h ago
Forests are not universally something great though. Lots of forests around the world are essentially just monocrops with as much biodiversity as a cornfield. I wouldn't be supprised if a wildflower medow under a solar farm is a more biodeverse and valuble habitat than most forests. Even "natural" forests, can be essentially dead places, with the boreal forests of the north being far less productive and lacking in biodiversity compared to the grasslands they replaced. Today must forests are just biomass farms for heating and lumber, and solar panels are orders of magnitude more efficent at turning sunlight into energy than forests are. If you cut 70 acres of forest for solarfarms you need 700 acres less forests for biomass powerplants.
•
•
u/NorthHollywoodHank 54m ago
If my napkin math is right, and putting aside the battery issue for a moment, you could power the entire state of New York off of solar by clearing 1/30th of NYC's forest land.
A mix of energy sources makes more sense, but from an environmental perspective making NYC 100% clean energy at the cost of cutting 1/30th of NYC would be an easy win.
For context doing that would bring NY state's total forest coverage down to the level it was in... ~2013.
•
u/Billybobgeorge 1h ago
New York is entirely forest though. If you leave land alone, like abandon a farm, it'll turn back into forest.
1
•
u/NorthHollywoodHank 1h ago edited 1h ago
In most of upstate New York that seems perfectly reasonable?
There are large parts of upstate New York, New England, Northern Michigan, Minnesota, Canada, etc. where there is a ton of forest and clearing a fairly small bit of it for a major industrial development or, especially, clean energy seems utterly and entirely reasonable and making it hard to do so would be a bad thing.
Like, go look at a zoomed out google maps satellite view of upstate New York and tell me with a straight face that clearing 70 acres of forest for solar panels (which will help with global warming, which is supposed to be really important) is some sort of big problem.
63% of the entire state of New York is forest. It is fine to cut a tiny part of that forest for a clean energy development.
•
u/MyCoffeeIsCold 1h ago
You are exactly who big solar wants advocating for them. You make a seemingly good, argument and fight on climate change.
There is no way that clear cutting a whole forest for industrial devoplement for climate change. Look into how much infrastructure is required to connect to the grid and you permanent erase an ecosystem. The only winners in NY are solar if placed on undeveloped land.
You sound well informed but please look at this more closely.
•
u/NorthHollywoodHank 1h ago edited 1h ago
"You are exactly who big solar wants advocating for them. You make a seemingly good, argument and fight on climate change."
Look, good public policy will often be good for some company or another. Making it easier to build houses and apartment buildings will be good for homebuilders. It's also good policy for people. Lowering tariffs on foreign steel is good for car manufacturers. It's also good for US consumers.
"The only winners in NY are solar if placed on undeveloped land."
We should want to make it easy to build solar, wind power, and battery systems and part of that is not making the perfect the enemy of the good. That means making it easy to develop those projects where it is economical to do so. In that part of the country that is often going to mean forested land, and that's fine. That this is also good for solar companies isn't actually a minus here: we should want solar companies to be doing well and having an easy time growing!
A new report from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University identified more than a dozen solar projects that encountered opposition from local conservation groups and environmentalists. Many projects were ultimately delayed, canceled or significantly reduced in size as a result.
This sort of thing is bad!
A state that is 63% forest with ~22 million acres of forest is not a state that needs to be worried about cutting 70 acres of forest. New York had millions fewer acres of forest just a few decades ago. That was fine. Cutting 70 acres after millions of acres of forest regrowth is fine too.
There is a very substantial wing of the environmentalist movement that has realized this btw. You sound poorly informed. Please look at this more closely.
-9
u/ContinuingAnyway 2h ago
"the right locations" just away from you, out of sight and out of mind right? lol
4
u/Gladiateher 2h ago
He’s not wrong though, if the purpose of renewables is to help fight climate change then clear cutting forests to make room for solar is obviously dumb and counter productive.
The panels can be installed in the desert or grasslands for instance without cutting down trees and where they are drastically more productive. Colorado for instance has massive solar opportunities that Northern Michigan does not.
If we care about climate change, we should focus our efforts where they make sense, and not move backwards while doing so, that’s just logical imo.
1
1
u/SirGalahadTheChaste 2h ago
If their backyard is a forest that needs clear cutting then yeah?
-3
u/ContinuingAnyway 2h ago
They clear cut forest to make your backyard and property exist anyway, what's a few more acres?
3
2
118
u/Professional_Bed_87 2h ago
Worried about bees people? Plant. More. Wildflowers. If everyone removed some of their grass, native bee populations would explode.
14
u/Glum_Opening_2218 2h ago
Plant NATIVE wildflowers!
Don't just get whatever wildfire mix your dollar store is carrying and spread it, even if it claims to be native many times if you read the seeds they aren't. Get seeds from reputable online vendors like prairemoon nursery
•
u/nomadicbohunk 1h ago
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I live in Vermont and have gotten in many an argument about this with folks wanting to use the preferred seed supplier here. This is one thing I studied, know, and get hired to know and people argue with me because I'm not from VT so I'm not an expert but these people evidently are because they're from here. A few years ago I got super pissed at a board of directors with an argument stemming from ordering their one seed mix and said, "I'm sorry you hired me and I have science degrees from good schools and don't have your preferred self given degree from skimming issues of mother jones magazine on the shitter and watching instagram reels." That went over really well, but I'm glad I went full asshole and said it.
I recently found out the state wildflower is red clover. I laughed a lot. I don't know why it took me almost a decade to learn that.
Prarie moon is good for upper midwest, but I'd order from whoever is closest to you just for the genetics. In new england I've ordered from Ernst a few times for projects. Their are good sources all over.
•
u/Professional_Bed_87 53m ago
Yeah a-lot of the generic “wildflower” mixes in our area have California poppies in them, which are invasive where we live. We planted it when we first moved in and are still picking them out. We have since moved to only buying from local seed producers.
35
u/Ryan_e3p 2h ago
Too much work for the average person. Tell them to just stop mowing. Telling people they can do more by actually doing less is how to win over the masses.
•
u/Poro_the_CV 1h ago
Or replace their “perfect” grass lawns that don’t benefit anyone with clover, which while still monoculture at least flower for pollinators. They also have deeper roots than most lawn grasses and only grow to 3-4 inches
•
u/Professional_Bed_87 50m ago
Yeah this is the more accessible option for most people, while clover won’t attract as many pollinators it’s still a god food source for bees. I’ve switch to overseeding my lawn with micro clover. Clover also has the added benefit of being a nitrogen fixer, which means you also need to fertilize less. At one point, grass mixes typically included clover, I wish we’d go back to that.
11
u/Great_Definition_531 2h ago
It’s not too much work. I bought a hundred native plants at a local sale this spring and they are thriving and covered in pollinators. Learn to prep a site (not hard) and look for these programs in spring. Easy.
24
5
u/Professional_Bed_87 2h ago
There’s a little bit of work up front, and then very little after that. We had massive lawn, and year by year, we’ve been converting more and more into wildflower beds. In another year or two we’ll have no more grass and I’m very excited to no longer mow! The amount of pollinators in our yard is astonishing.
•
u/HH_Creations 1h ago
Can they grow with grass still there? For those of us who rent and would probably get in a lot of trouble pulling grass
0
u/OrphanGrounderBaby 2h ago
See but then you have people that are deathly allergic to pollinators. I’ll probably be downvoted but my wife would die in minutes if stung, just another POV
•
u/ParryLimeade 19m ago
Let’s just kill all the pollinators for your wife, sounds great. /s pollinators are necessary for sustaining human life.
Or you could move somewhere without the pollinators that are dangerous for her.
•
u/geldhahn 1h ago
It's a valuable take, honestly. There are adverse effects to almost(?) anything humans do on a large enough scale.
I wouldn't have taken the covid vaccine, if I knew beforehand how mich it will fuck with me. However, it doesn't diminish the utility of said measure for the population as a whole. Same thing applies to planting wildflowers.
6
u/Glum_Opening_2218 2h ago
You can't simply stop mowing or else you'll end up with a ton of invasive overgrown weeds... Native gardening isn't hard, if someone can't handle that maintenance they can't handle owning a house.
•
u/Ryan_e3p 1h ago
You can't kill many invasive species simply by mowing them every month. Japanese knotweed, for example, will just continue growing and spreading underground.
At least by letting them grow, you can identity that they even exist, and where they are to remove them
•
u/pikashroom 1h ago
If you want tick and flea populations to explode, then sure. Sod cutting and planting clover and native wildflowers would be the move
•
u/Le_Poop_Knife 24m ago
8 o’clock on a Saturday morning, my father’s out on the riding mower to mow his 2 acres of pristine grass. I’ve never seen the man walk further than 20 feet from the house. Doesn’t use the yard at all, but must mow it every single Saturday.
3
u/Goldenrah 2h ago
Flowers are also prettier to look at, and usually smell better and take less maintenance.
•
u/sasquatch606 1h ago
I added clover to my lawn and not only is it greener now but I get so many bees.
•
u/HH_Creations 1h ago
As a renter, idk about pulling out grass
But if I put seeds out and water them, will they naturally take over the grass?
•
u/_demello 1h ago
"Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't" did a video of a guy that planted native species on hiw yard after burning his lawn (he knew what he was doing, don't try at home), and the number of polinators grew absurdly on his neighborhood. It's actually crazy how little it takes to make a huge impact.
•
u/wherewulf23 1h ago
One of the first projects I'm planning on undertaking when my family can finally move back to our home is to plant a native garden with tons of wildflowers. I doubt my wife will go for it, but I'd love to turn our entire backyard into a native/low maintenance lawn.
•
u/ijustreadhere1 15m ago
One of the great joys of summer is when the Russian sage shoots up and the bees swarm that shit! It just makes me happy every time I go outside and see them buzzing around
17
u/BasicReputations 3h ago
I am curious ho they keep the brush down. Autumn olive has been our nemesis in our prairie and panels must be a pain to mow.
19
u/ClearRefrigerator519 2h ago
Goats and sheep
13
u/Hamaczech13 2h ago
Goats and solar panels are unfortunately not a good combination. They will try to climb on top of them and also chew on cables. Sheep on the other hand are great for keeping most of the vegetation low, sometimes too low though, which isn't good for the flowering plants. Sheep also won't eat sone plants like nettles and woody stemmed bushes so some manual mowing is necessary from time to time (my job btw). Honestly the best thing to do (from the ecosystem's perspective) is to mount the panels like 0.5-1 meter higher, divide the area with fences and rotate where it's graized, letting the flowering plants bloom before the sheep snack on them.
11
u/Onrawi 2h ago
Which is also already a thing. Sheep like the solar panels too https://solargrazing.org/what-is-solar-grazing/
6
8
u/SirVanyel 3h ago
Hard to grow on top of a thing that you can't get purchase on, so that problem kinda solves itself.
7
u/SuspiciouslySuspect2 2h ago
This. You just set the average height of the panels at 6-8feet, if you're not near trees then there won't be enough that grows tall enough to have a real impact on the panels.
•
42
7
u/Normal-Reality-8467 2h ago
I love seeing news like this.
I took myself out of all the news cycles I could for my mental health.
8
u/CLOWNFLOGGER 2h ago
It's hilarious how simple the solutions can be and how easily naked monkeys can turn those simple solutions into politics.
•
u/OldDoubt1577 1h ago
Solar panels are great. You have to consider that lots of solar farms are literally on previous farmland, and that land wasn't earmarked for prairie restoration or wildflowers. If it isn't prepped for corn or soy, it was laying barren. Solar panels cost hardly anything to maintain, and don't eat fertilizer, pesticides, water, or need a harvest. Large up front (subsidized) investment on the farmer's part, and its literally printing money. As passive as it gets (just wie down the panels ocassionally.
•
•
u/fuzzy3158 1h ago
I always see good news coming from Minnesota and Michigan. Those are pretty cool states, huh?
•
•
u/sasquatch606 1h ago
The college I work at is installing a lot of solar panels and they're doing the same thing.
•
u/lumpboysupreme 1h ago
This really is the key to planning our spaces to get the most out of them; our mindset of ‘X area is only for X’ needs to go and we should instead be using any given space for whatever it can support.
•
•
u/ytsurRytsuR 11m ago
A few years back I started to only mow paths through my yard to see what would happen. Now I have islands of life throughout my property. Native plants, birds, insects, and small animals are everywhere. The floating schools of gnats that use to swarm my face have disappeared as well as any vermin/insects inside my home. In fact my house is now a dead zone surrounded by an oasis. Wish I had started this years ago. Grass only yards are wastelands.
1
•
•
u/Piccoroz 36m ago
We have millions of parking space all over the world that could use solar panels.
•
u/Slipsonic 32m ago
It would be so easy to make our earth green and sustainable if we could get out from under the sociopaths.
-1
•
u/Ok_Turnover_1235 55m ago
? Planting flowers increases bee populations? That's an insane discovery! Total game changer!
Oh wait, we already knew that, and there would be even more if the solar panels weren't there
•
u/NotOnApprovedList 20m ago
The bees and flowers were already heavily diminished because the sites were agricultural fields - farmers had already disrupted the landscape. The solar farms were built on these former agricultural fields. If you read the article, native plant species were put in and invasive weeds pulled out. After the native bee species had increased by 20 times and were observed pollinating nearby soybean crops. So, local ecosystems being reinstalled. Sounds like a success story to me.
•
•
u/exzyle2k 42m ago
total insect numbers had tripled
I've spent a lot of time in Minnesota... Fuck your mosquitos and your deer flies. Those numbers DO NOT need to triple.
•
u/NotOnApprovedList 22m ago
bees, moths and flies were mentioned in the article. I don't know about deer flies, but mosquitos reproduce in still water; so probably not a big issue if the solar panels are in a well-drained field.
•
•
u/ZooAreYou 21m ago
Saving the world, lifting people out of poverty, curing diseases etc - these arent science problems.
-41
u/darkoath 3h ago
Poor maintenance people getting stung to death, but we got too many people and not enough bees, so send in the next maintenance guy.
30
u/RegularReaction2984 3h ago
Bro literally tried to invent a way for “more flowers” to be a doomer headline lmao
7
5
u/Professional_Bed_87 2h ago
Man, I’ve got a yard full if wildflower and its always full of bees and two young children. We’ve had 0 stinging incidents in 5 years. The maintenance people will be fine.
5
•
5
2
u/Gladiateher 2h ago
Bees don’t really just randomly attack people in fields lol, that’s basically a non issue.
Wasps however will ruin your life if they can, and they ain’t producing honey either. I can tell you from past roofing and HVAC jobs that wasps are a problem everywhere, solar panels won’t matter.
2
u/fearless-fossa 2h ago
Wasps eat ticks, which imho places them in the same spot as if they were producing honey.
•
u/Gladiateher 1h ago
Fair enough, I’m just saying solar panels don’t at all increase danger to maintenance crews, nor do additional bees. I’m just telling you from the maintenance perspective the danger of wasps is already present and permanent, so there’s no additional danger.
1
u/TenspeedGV 2h ago
Wasps are pollinators too, and many species prey on destructive pests. Despite the memes, wasps are incredibly beneficial and necessary for an ecosystem. Just because they don’t make honey doesn’t mean they’re bad. The vast majority of species on earth don’t make honey
3
u/Gladiateher 2h ago
I’m not advocating a wasp genocide lol, I’m just saying more bees beeing around won’t increase danger to maintenance staff whatsoever, the danger already exists via wasps while bees present a non-issue.
0
•
u/theReluctantObserver 48m ago
What about white solar panels so we can reflect some of that sunlight back into space?
•
u/AutoModerator 3h ago
Reminder: this subreddit is meant to be a place free of excessive cynicism, negativity and bitterness. Toxic attitudes are not welcome here.
All Negative comments will be removed and will possibly result in a ban.
Important: If this post is hidden behind a paywall, please assign it the "Paywall" flair and include a comment with a relevant part of the article.
Please report this post if it is hidden behind a paywall and not flaired corrently. We suggest using "Reader" mode to bypass most paywalls.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.