[Kim_Bruning]

Sometimes I don't know if people are kidding or something.

Obviously things ending up in landfills is not sustainable.

It's rather wiser to use the remains of the tomato to directly or indirectly make fertilizer to fertilize new tomato plants, eg by composting them [1]. Now you've sort of got a cycle going on there, which you could in theory sustain indefinitely. (Hence the word.) Composting has been done since at least roman times.

Properly done, you can reduce methane emissions from composting considerably. (Releasing mostly CO2 back into the air, and the remainder is sufficiently low for 'the environment' to be able to deal with [2])

If you at least believe in the conservation of mass [3], you'll realize that [C released from composting] = [C the Tomato originally captured from the air in photosynthesis].

I'm summarizing entire fields of science, so there's devils in the details here. But closed cycles of chemical reactions where matter cycles endlessly (driven by incoming energy from sunlight, and ultimately emitting waste heat back to space), is a real thing in Biological systems.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost

[2] assuming composting were the only methane source, there'd be more than sufficient methane sinks to handle the flow. Unfortunately, it's not the only methane source. But we still need to deal with the organic waste.

[3] I mean, for one: the total mass of our planet isn't noticeably changing much, that I'm aware of.

(edits for clarity and readability)

[gruez]

> Sometimes I don't know if people are kidding or something. [...]

>It's rather wiser to use the remains of the tomato to directly or indirectly make fertilizer to fertilize new tomato plants [...]

Maybe you should read my comment and the comment I was replying to more carefully. The comment I was replying to says in pretty clear terms that we shouldn't care about "disposal methods"

> Should the focus not be on disposal methods but on ensuring sustainable regeneration of farmland in this case?

Your suggestion of using rotten tomatoes as compost or whatever arguably falls under "disposal methods".

[Kim_Bruning]

I was directly responding to the implicit question about 'sustainable regeneration of farmland', where you added '(whatever that means) '.

I explained one common sustainable regeneration method, and I touch why it meets the required elements of regeneration and sustainability.

You arbitrarily reclassify this as a "disposal method"; without including any counter-reasoning.

You berate me for not reading and not providing an alternative to mere disposal.

As a reminder: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." --https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[petre]

> It's rather wiser to use the remains of the tomato to directly or indirectly make fertilizer to fertilize new tomato plants, eg by composting them [1].

Ask any agricultural engineer why that is a bad idea. Tomato pathogens from the old culture end up in your new one. That's one of the ideas behind culture rotation. But one could use that compost for other unrelated cultures like apple trees or grape vine.

[Kim_Bruning]

Huh, here's where my knowledge ends. In theory aerobic composting would run up the temperature of the compost, thus killing most pathogens. In practice clearly not, then.

Is it because composting is not always done perfectly? Or is it because some tomato pathogens intrinsically survive the process due to eg. heat resistance?

[petre]

Dunno, it's just a bad idea. The pathogens can survive in the ground over several seasons, so I'm not surprised if they also survive in the compost. It's not only bacteria and viruses but also fungi. Best practice is to use pathogen free soil and compost, crop rotation. There is even a warning against composting rotten potatoes (related to tomatoes) for avoiding late blight.

https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/tomato-diseases-disorders...

[maxerickson]

There's estimates for how much atmosphere is boiling off and how much stuff is coming in from space.

How noticeable they are will depend on how you've decided to define noticable.

[dscottboggs]

I feel like this indicates that at least moderately-sized composting systems should also have carbon- and methane-capture systems

[lazide]

All I can say is ‘huh?’

Growing plants pulls carbon from the atmosphere.

Rotting puts that carbon back into the atmosphere.

None of that has much to do with sustainable farming, which is about soil fertility, pest control, and micronutrients like fixated nitrogen - and not raw carbon.

Which is why nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides have been so important in producing mass yield improvements in farming.

Are there ways of doing this more naturally, using crop rotating, etc? Yes. In field Composting can help a little too, but has major disease and pest vector issues.

They’re also less efficient when you factor in transportation and land use costs. And they don’t really have any impact on macro level carbon cycle stuff.

I think you’re missing the forest for the trees? Or crossing wires?