A microbial cultivation, known as "artificial carpet" is a feasible desert control measure after a two-year trial in China's Tengger Desert.
A scientific group led Li Xinrong, a researcher with the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, used lab-cultured microbe agent to spray on straw checkerboard on the desert.
The microbes extracted from alga and moss can form a surface crust on the checkerboard that is made with wheat or rice straw.
"Our test shows that the checkerboard grown with the 'artificial carpet' technique are more consolidated and effective in fixing sand dunes," he said.
But he added that it takes five years to see the microbiotic crust take shape on checkerboard in mass.
Li's team has finished the basic study of the technique, and will use it in the desert area along with dry farming of desert plants on the checkerboard.
The Shapotou area in Tengger Desert, where Li and his colleagues are working gained a worldwide fame as a paradigm of successful sand control, where a huge grid of straw checkerboards each measuring 1 meter by 1 meter half buried in sand has formed a shelter belt to prevent the desert from expanding. The work has been going on since 1960s and has been extended to other desert areas.
Tengger Desert, the fourth largest in China, stretches 43,000 square kilometers, sprawling across Inner mongolia and Ningxia Hui autonomous regions and Gansu Province.
