I understand it is a bit of a leap if you are not intimately familiar with how black plastic mulch is laid down mechanically which is the context of the article. And I do hope people investigate for themselves, it was a bit of an epiphany for me that the soil under black ground cover (that was flat on level ground but not actually stuck to it yet) was cooler than bare soil (and thinking about that: the darker the soil, the less warming black plastic delivers vs bare soil). It really helped me work up how to best use ground cover to protect fig trees in compost socks, last year they woke up very early and I attributed that to direct contact between the cover and the socks/soil/roots transmitting heat so I tried to mitigate that this year with a layer of air and am about 95% confident I’ve got it under control.
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