12-28-2025 Observations and Work Finished
Work done:
- Filled in most of water tank pit #1 at the southeast corner of the property. I'll work on holes for more cactus this coming week.
- Watered the seeded swales.
Observations:
12-26-2025 Observations and Work Finished
Work done:
- Partial census of cactus. Must do a species specific recount, but total planted pads ~840.
- More berms with basins slotted for cactus pads.
- Begin filling in tank pit #1. Pit #2 is where the main pyramid now sits. Pit #1 about 40% filled.
- Plant a patch of Swiss chard in the backyard.
- Plant a patch of Swiss chard in swale #1.
Observations:
12-22-2025 Observations and Work Finished
Work Finished:
- Raked rocks in row three and gathered weeds for compost pile.
- Consolidated compost pile.
- Restrung PVC pyramid.
- Tried to use clicker to count cactus but device malfunctioned.
- More pyramid research collected from Internet Archive (archive.org).
- Begin cleaning up opuntia ficus indica news feed items (~700).
Observations:
Pharmacological Actions of opuntia ficus indica
Cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica) belongs to the family Cactaceae. Family Cactaceae is reported to contain about 130 genera and nearly 1500 species. This plant is native of Mexico and it is widely distributed in Mexico and in all American hemispheres as well as in Africa and in the Mediterranean basin.
Sewage Sludge Conditioning using Opuntia Ficus Indica Juice
This work aimed to study the possibility of using plant matter, Opuntia ficus indica juice (OFIJ), for conditioning the Beni-Messous (Algiers) wastewater treatment plant sludge. The optimum dosage of OFIJ was found to be 0.4 g×kg-1 of dry matter, for which the residual turbidity, the dryness of the filtration cake, and the specific resistance of filtration were found to be 2.5 NTU, 24% and 0.13×1012 m×kg-1, respectively.
Effect of supplementation by cactus on female goats
The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of barley substitution by cactus during pre-mating phase on some reproductive parameters and blood metabolites of goats.
Forty adult goats of local breed were allocated to two groups based on live their weight. Each goat of both groups received 0.9 kg of barley straw. Goats on concentrate group (CC) received in addition 425g/goats/day of a concentrate (mixture of 80% barley and 20% soybean). Goats in the cactus group (CAC) received 256g of a concentrate (mixture of 68% barley and 32% soybean) and 2600g of cactus pads. Feeding regimes were applied on the average for one sexual cycle before mating and continued until 5 weeks after.
Green Techniques to Boost Antioxidant Extraction from Red Prickly Pear Peels - Natural Science News
Key Findings
- The study by Universidad Nacional de Moquegua focused on optimizing antioxidant extraction from red peel prickly pear using Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PLE) and Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction (UAE)
- PLE with pure water at 70°C yielded the highest antioxidant concentrations, achieving 12.96 mg GAE/g dw, an IC50 of 2.03 mg/mL, and an ORAC value of 625 µmol TE/g dw
- UAE with 30% ethanol at 50°C was also effective, yielding 10.52 mg GAE/g dw, an IC50 of 3.09 mg/mL, and an ORAC value of 561.26 µmol TE/g dw
Mesquite clearing and more seeds
Today:
- I dug up around five mesquite and trimmed two down to a single trunk
- Planted flax seeds
- Noticed that sorghum seeds are sprouting
- Planted a few more cactus pads that were in decent shape