Thanks to everyone for the wishes for a speedy recovery and suggested remedies. Rest and good food (with some light house tidying to stave off boredom) seems to be working for now and I suspect I will be back to full power within a month or two, which will be good timing to get back into preparing growing spaces for the coming warm season.
How does canna do as a wild species on your farm? If you plant it out on your hillside, will it remain competitive or lose out to the weeds (assuming you keep back the woody species)?
Also, I know that tree breeding is a much more involved process, but have you considered growing pecans? They are a great source of fat and are grown in mexico and Texas, which is similar to your climate. They might be hard to get there but could be a worthwhile species.
Also, have you tried peanuts? I don’t remember if you mentioned that in a prior post.
For sunflowers, there’s a lot of diversity in the Silphium family and some of them have moderately sized seeds. They grow all over the U.S. from Florida to the north.
I’m also wondering if the scale at which you grow a crop will affect its resistance to pests. I am trying to grow a lot of wild edible plants in my garden and experience a lot of herbivore pressure, but I suspect if I scale up a plant to be relatively abundant, that the pests will be satisfied to some extent. In this case, it is mostly rabbits and chipmunks that are the culprits, but birds too.
The cultivated Queensland arrowroot clone of canna is very poorly competitive outside cultivated spaces, but the hybrids have proven themselves capable of growing just about anywhere. I need to keep doing breeding work to find the best balance point between weedy vigour and starch productivity, but I am confident I can get there. I can see the crop forming dense stands on my silty flood prone creek flats, which I can then harvest in small sections to replant with annual crops while the Canna slowly reclaims the space.
Several strains of peanuts were trialled but performed very poorly even in my siltiest soil. Rat pressure was considerable as well. I would love to grow more Carya diversity but we only have highly inbred paper shell varieties on offer that our local parrots rip to pieces when they are half ripe. Importing large nut seeds is almost impossible due to paranoia about insects hiding inside. Some people get decent pecan crops but it seems you need to be in just the right spot for the parrots to miss them. If I could plant hundreds of acres they might overwhelm the birds, but I dont have that much bottom land to spare (though across the whole local neighbourhood there probably would be enough of this kind of space if other people were interested). Macadamias grow like weeds here and there is some interesting older genetics around if you keep your eyes peeled (the farm came with an old tree with atypical genetics that has been added to the mass plantings). And macadamia has no problem with parrots since the shell is so thick.
Scale definitely has complex interactions with pest pressure. Scaling up can overwhelm pests, but it can also boost the local pest population until the damage becomes significant again. Staple crops with simultaneous ripening and harvest have an advantage on this front I believe since they make it harder for vermin populations to catch up, similar to how a lot of trees do an irregular masting pattern of seed production.
Slow steady progress on the health front, so it is hopefully just a matter of time and not overdoing it before I am ready.
The cotton tree (Hibiscus tiliaceus) naturally hosts the fungi which are the foundation of tempeh, and in Indonesia bean mash is wrapped in leaves from it as a way to inoculate the culture. This Hibiscus species grows readily here, though I will have to investigate if it carries a functional culture for tempeh making under my conditions. It might be possible to inoculate the Hibiscus with good quality tempeh strains by using antifungals on cuttings or seedlings first. But that is all guesswork at this stage so you will have to wait until I get around to doing hands on experiments (or maybe beat me to the punch if those species work for you).
Wow, really interesting. OK got to admit that you lost me on the suggestion of using anti-fungals. I will endeavour to try this at some point, cook beans, wrap them in unwashed cotton tree leaves and put in the fermentation chamber (though lately the temp/humidity is probably worth me trying without any intervention). I'll let you know how it goes but might be a while for me to get around to it
I am hopeful I wont need to do artificial manipulations like wiping and replacing the microbiome of the cotton trees. Im very interested to see if you can get tempeh cultures started from the trees though- sounds like a very powerful low tech way to preserve started cultures between batches of tempeh making.
Enjoyed this a lot, looking forward to the next editions! Would also be interested in what livestock is and is not useful for future agroecological systems in your mind.
On the subject, do you feel that dairy is a pivotal biological technology that should be held on to in future societies, or do you think that in a hot and humid future that it doesn’t have as many advantages (really just yogurt, right?) as it did in cold or dry places where it was primarily developed?
Also, glad I’m not the only one making endless lists while stuck in the city haha.
I think dairy will be a key piece of agricultural technology for anyone who can handle consuming it. The synergy between nomadic herding and dairy culture has proven itself all over the world. The secondary products revolution to convert meat into milk or egg animals was a major event. Storing dairy in hot climates limits its utility, but the stream of supplementary high quality fat and protein is still a powerful tool. I'll be back to raising goats as soon as possible, but I am also determined to make the most of their temporary absence from the farm.
How does canna do as a wild species on your farm? If you plant it out on your hillside, will it remain competitive or lose out to the weeds (assuming you keep back the woody species)?
Also, I know that tree breeding is a much more involved process, but have you considered growing pecans? They are a great source of fat and are grown in mexico and Texas, which is similar to your climate. They might be hard to get there but could be a worthwhile species.
Also, have you tried peanuts? I don’t remember if you mentioned that in a prior post.
For sunflowers, there’s a lot of diversity in the Silphium family and some of them have moderately sized seeds. They grow all over the U.S. from Florida to the north.
I’m also wondering if the scale at which you grow a crop will affect its resistance to pests. I am trying to grow a lot of wild edible plants in my garden and experience a lot of herbivore pressure, but I suspect if I scale up a plant to be relatively abundant, that the pests will be satisfied to some extent. In this case, it is mostly rabbits and chipmunks that are the culprits, but birds too.
The cultivated Queensland arrowroot clone of canna is very poorly competitive outside cultivated spaces, but the hybrids have proven themselves capable of growing just about anywhere. I need to keep doing breeding work to find the best balance point between weedy vigour and starch productivity, but I am confident I can get there. I can see the crop forming dense stands on my silty flood prone creek flats, which I can then harvest in small sections to replant with annual crops while the Canna slowly reclaims the space.
Several strains of peanuts were trialled but performed very poorly even in my siltiest soil. Rat pressure was considerable as well. I would love to grow more Carya diversity but we only have highly inbred paper shell varieties on offer that our local parrots rip to pieces when they are half ripe. Importing large nut seeds is almost impossible due to paranoia about insects hiding inside. Some people get decent pecan crops but it seems you need to be in just the right spot for the parrots to miss them. If I could plant hundreds of acres they might overwhelm the birds, but I dont have that much bottom land to spare (though across the whole local neighbourhood there probably would be enough of this kind of space if other people were interested). Macadamias grow like weeds here and there is some interesting older genetics around if you keep your eyes peeled (the farm came with an old tree with atypical genetics that has been added to the mass plantings). And macadamia has no problem with parrots since the shell is so thick.
Scale definitely has complex interactions with pest pressure. Scaling up can overwhelm pests, but it can also boost the local pest population until the damage becomes significant again. Staple crops with simultaneous ripening and harvest have an advantage on this front I believe since they make it harder for vermin populations to catch up, similar to how a lot of trees do an irregular masting pattern of seed production.
Hi mate, hope you’re getting better.
Can you share any more about the cotton tree and tempeh spores? Any techniques?
Slow steady progress on the health front, so it is hopefully just a matter of time and not overdoing it before I am ready.
The cotton tree (Hibiscus tiliaceus) naturally hosts the fungi which are the foundation of tempeh, and in Indonesia bean mash is wrapped in leaves from it as a way to inoculate the culture. This Hibiscus species grows readily here, though I will have to investigate if it carries a functional culture for tempeh making under my conditions. It might be possible to inoculate the Hibiscus with good quality tempeh strains by using antifungals on cuttings or seedlings first. But that is all guesswork at this stage so you will have to wait until I get around to doing hands on experiments (or maybe beat me to the punch if those species work for you).
Wow, really interesting. OK got to admit that you lost me on the suggestion of using anti-fungals. I will endeavour to try this at some point, cook beans, wrap them in unwashed cotton tree leaves and put in the fermentation chamber (though lately the temp/humidity is probably worth me trying without any intervention). I'll let you know how it goes but might be a while for me to get around to it
I am hopeful I wont need to do artificial manipulations like wiping and replacing the microbiome of the cotton trees. Im very interested to see if you can get tempeh cultures started from the trees though- sounds like a very powerful low tech way to preserve started cultures between batches of tempeh making.
Радий чути, що одужання іде та сприяє рефлексії накопиченого досвіду!
Чудовий список! Чекаю на продовження.
Enjoyed this a lot, looking forward to the next editions! Would also be interested in what livestock is and is not useful for future agroecological systems in your mind.
On the subject, do you feel that dairy is a pivotal biological technology that should be held on to in future societies, or do you think that in a hot and humid future that it doesn’t have as many advantages (really just yogurt, right?) as it did in cold or dry places where it was primarily developed?
Also, glad I’m not the only one making endless lists while stuck in the city haha.
I think dairy will be a key piece of agricultural technology for anyone who can handle consuming it. The synergy between nomadic herding and dairy culture has proven itself all over the world. The secondary products revolution to convert meat into milk or egg animals was a major event. Storing dairy in hot climates limits its utility, but the stream of supplementary high quality fat and protein is still a powerful tool. I'll be back to raising goats as soon as possible, but I am also determined to make the most of their temporary absence from the farm.
Always an inspiration!