Creating Rain
Dry Land Rain-Making
In this article, I’m going to share my research and experience with making it rain. Nevermind the data-less climate “crisis.” The need for rain in dry environments is obvious. Well, it just so happens that human beings possess the ability to cause rain to fall. How? Let’s look at some of the methods I found.
Plant “rain trees” – species such as Ocotea foetens, the original “rain tree,” are known to condense water and shed it like
rain. So much so that some villages where it grows as a native plant are able to get over 80% of their water from these trees. Another rain tree grows in the Amazonian rainforest, but Americans are very familiar with it; the Brazil Nut or Bertholletia excelsa. This species makes it rain by drawing water 14 stories from beneath the soil surface, where the leaves release it to condense as rain clouds. Half of the rainfall over the Amazon rainforest comes from trees like this one. Note: it can be difficult to find seeds or seedlings of these trees, if you wish to try your hand at cultivating them. Be sure to confirm any seeds you buy have not been boiled or otherwise treated, so that they remain viable for planting. Even if you simply plant more of any variety of trees that grow in your area, you’ll more than likely thereby cool the soil, increase moisture in the vicinity, and provide vital microclimate conditions for additional diverse species to take root. Science is perennially failing to acknowledge what people intuitively find until much later on, so while we wait for scientists to admit the next amazing breakthrough, we can plant trees!
In the state of Texas permaculture works just as well if not better than in other states. Like our clients in California, Oregon, New Jersey, North Carolina, Washington, Nevada, and more, Texas land and home owners are a diverse group of individuals. The climate of the state of Texas varies quite a bit from the humid coast and eastern half of the state to the desert of the far wild west.
earthworks can help you to slow it down if it is moving too fast so that you can utilize it before it escapes. In Old Town Pasadena, California, I observed gushing fountains of water being lost to storm drains when it rained. I wondered then why the city, indeed the County of Los Angeles, wasn’t proactively capturing that amazing volume of precious H20 streaming across the vast landscape there. Why weren’t those placed in charge of such things using that water to irrigate the landscape and green L.A.?
climate doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the desert. Your home could be situated in a semi-arid “Mediterranean” zone that gets far less water than many places but still supports a variety of plants. Whatever the ground is composed of, that’s your growing medium. I firmly believe most “soils” can be recovered, but you may be starting with more of a dirt than a soil. And that’s okay. If your goal is to create or improve a landscape with little rainfall (clouds occasionally hovering but not always releasing their magic for the ground to soak up), you can focus on improving your soil’s capacity to hold what water does fall onto it. This is one step toward moving it up the scale in terms of how well it will grow plants.
The blocking of truck deliveries across borders, the delay of ships off major ports, the tripling of materials and shipping costs, American energy independence gone, and the trucking industry protests in Canada and the USA all contribute to forward-thinking concerns about the supply of food.
