Chongqing- With years of research efforts, Professor Yi Zhijian, Vice President, professor, and doctoral supervisor at Chongqing Jiaotong University has innovatively worked out a way named "desert soilization" to realize desert greening.
Yi Zhijian, Vice President, professor, and doctoral supervisor at Chongqing Jiaotong University. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Desertification is called "the cancer of the earth."
Statistics show that two-thirds of the countries and regions in the world have been facing desertification, and it threatens the survival and development of one-fifth of the world's population. The area of desertification is expanding at a rate of 50,000 to 70,000 square kilometers per year.
Under Prof. Yi's leadership, the research team has conducted soilization experiments at deserts in various places and eventually converted large areas of deserts into productive oases.
In fact, Prof. Yi's research team has worked out a paste made of plant cellulose, called Omni-directional integrative constraint (ODI), which does not have any toxic or side effects.
When added to sand and mixed with water, ODI can soilize the sand, and the soilized sand will have the eco-mechanical properties as the soil does, where the sand can become thin mud in a rheological state.
Since 2016, Prof. Yi, with his research team, has converted large areas of deserts in different conditions at home and abroad into ecological oases, covering 122 million square feet.
The sand in deserts usually cannot hold water. But Prof. Yi's sand-turned "soil" has soil's mechanical properties and has the properties of soil to retain moisture, nutrients, air, and breed microorganisms.
"We have plated many different plants," said Prof. Yi. "Nearly every plant can grow better."
According to Prof. Yi, the soil they convert has the properties of natural soil, where it holds water and retains nutrients. It is also greatly aerated and suitable for microorganism reproduction.
"Furthermore, it is difficult for plants to take root on the surface of the natural soil," said Prof. Yi. "But the soil we convert from deserts is only about 20 centimeters deep, while the below is still loose sand.
In this way, plants can easily take root so they can grow better, Prof. Yi explained.
Prof. Yi, holding the plant that was planted by his sand-turned "soil." (Photo provided to iChongqing)
(Zhang Yue, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)
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