hello hello I see the front page of this weeks NEWS it has a report about that filthy four letter word G O L F that such places where people play this sport use a lot of water....well (excuse the pun) havent we been saying on this forum such things for some time now

So there were these two brothers who both owned land. Both employed people to look after their land digging it, sowing seeds and watering it. The seeds on one farm grew into corn whereas the seeds on the other grew into grass. The brother with the corn cut it and sold it and fed his family and paid his workers so they could also feed their families. The one that grew grass cut the grass but as there was no market for the grass he charged people to play a game on it and used the money to feed his family and pay his workers so that they could feed theirs.
Both brothers did similar work looking after their land and used the same amount of water to make their chosen crops grow. They managed to feed their families and provide work for others to do the same.
According to some on this forum one would evoke sympathy as a 'poor farmer' and the other would be pilloried as a Golf Course owner
Discuss?????

1) I don't think that corn requires as much water as a %$£#~~ course. I've not seen anyone water a corn/wheat/whatever field whereas I am told that %$£#~~ courses are well watered.
2) The farmer is producing a useful crop whereas the %$£#~~ course owner is encouraging people to wear dreadful clothes.

Drive through France and you'll see massive irrigation rigs watering crops

There's a world glut of corn and the first brother will soon be paid an EEC subsidy to stop growing it!

It depends what you grow. This totally fascinating article http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/frws/resea ... rients.htm explains that (see Table 1) of the crops they considered, only corn used irrigation. And even more numbers here http://www.gisdevelopment.net/applicati ... io0004.htm
This explains potential problems of using irrigation.

welll interesting story about the two brothers....however read the article in the new and also the front page headling in this weeks resident