Prairie Pioneer Seeks To Reinvent The Way We Farm

[Astronuc]

Agriculture and gardening are two keen personal interests. I happened to catch this story on NPR.

Prairie Pioneer Seeks To Reinvent The Way We Farm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113766846
by Richard Harris

Wes Jackson's group, The Land Institute, are attempting to cross-breed wild perennials with domesticated food grains such as wheat. The idea is to eliminate the need to plow on an annual basis.

The 10,000-Year-Old Problem

In 1976, when the institute was founded, Jackson says a lot of time was "devoted to a search for sustainable alternatives in agriculture, energy, shelter, waste management."

This grand plan turned out to be too much to bite off all at once. So Jackson quickly tore down his bulky windmills and the old solar panels, and focused on the topic closest to his heart: trying to solve "the 10,000-year-old problem of agriculture."

The problem, Jackson explains, is that agriculture in most places is based on practices that use up limited resources. The major grains, like wheat and corn, are planted afresh each year. When the fields are later plowed, they lose soil. The soil that remains in these fields loses nitrogen and carbon.

This worries Jackson because vast quantities of soil are washed out of the fields and down the rivers, and the soil that's left is gradually losing its nutrients.

Trying to figure out how to solve this problem, Jackson realized the answer was right in front of him. It was the patch of native prairie on his own farm — full of grasses from ankle to shoulder height, peppered with white and purple flowers, and surrounded by shrubs and cottonwood trees.

"Here is a steep, sloping bank with a lot of species diversity, featuring perennials," Jackson says. "This is what I call nature's wisdom."

Perennials are plants that put down strong roots 10 feet or more into the ground and hold the soil in place. Perennials live year-round, unlike annual crops that get planted every year. In Kansas, perennials survive the harsh winters and the blazing hot summers.

Native Vegetation Improving Soil

In contrast to fields that get plowed every year, native prairie vegetation actually improves the soil year after year. The amazing variety of plant life in this prairie also makes it resilient against disease.

"So I thought, why can't we solve this 10,000-year-old problem?" Jackson says. "The solution is to build an agriculture based on the way nature's ecosystems work."

This turned out to be both a major plant breeding challenge, and a social one. It's not easy to get farmers and the public at large to rethink what farms should ideally be — not just areas sacrificed to food production, but actually part of nature.

Jackson's been spreading this word through his annual prairie festival for the past 31 years.

. . .

Great idea!

Another concept is to use green manures to fix nitrogen, add carbon to the soil, prevent erosion and suppress weeds.

 

[Moonbear]

It doesn't make sense to me. The examples given are of plants that are used in their entirety when harvested...corn and wheat. We use the fruit/grains from them, and then the stalks are used for animal feed. There isn't anything left after harvesting.

But, unless he can point to a specific variety of plant being developed where a perennial to annual cross has worked and is producing an agriculturally viable product, it's nothing more than wishful thinking. I'm also not sure how they would address issues like weeds in the fields, or trying to fertilize on top of plants already growing. You are still going to lose nutrients every year, because unlike perennial flowers that just recycle themselves into the ground, any crop is going to have at least some part of it harvested and remove those nutrients from the land. And, how you get rid of the perennials if you decide to grow a different crop the following year.

It sounds like a plan hatched by someone who has very little real world understanding of agriculture, or science. It doesn't even seem all that ecologically sound, since it would require harvesting only portions of the plants, and therefore reducing the amount of product yield someone can get from a field...only the wheat grain, but not the hay or straw?

 

[Ouabache]

I happened to catch this story on NPR

I like this idea too. From my reading of the article, I note they have chosen crops where the grain/seed is the only part harvested. (wheat, sunflower, sorghum). They mention corn in the article with regard to how present agricultural practice is damaging to soils.

Kernza is a proposed new variety, a perennial grass crossed with wheat (annual). It yields grain comparable to wheat, that can be ground into flour. Wes Jackson, the lead scientist at the Land Institute, has enlisted a team of PhD plant breeders to make the same transition to a number of crops including wheat, sorghum and sunflower.

Regarding weeds; perennial grasses once established, outcompete weeds. Perennial prairie grasses are deep rooted and continually bring up nutrients from the subsoil strata. As successful hybrids continue to be made with crops that are harvested for their seed; there is plenty of organic matter that remains, the soil is undisturbed curbing erosion and nutrients are replenished by absorption through the roots. If you return livestock to the farm, such as dairy and beef cattle, they may be allowed to graze for part of the season or in rotation years. In their excursion across the fields, they spread their manure, adding a secondary source of fertility and organic matter. American bison accomplished this same task on the original tall and short grass prairies. So these crops (just like alfalfa and asparagus) are meant to grow many seasons before rotation to another crop. When you decide it is time to rotate, you would just plow them up.

So http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Jackson" is the real deal. He was raised on a Kansas farm, has formal agricultural training (M.A in Botany, PhD in genetics) and was a professor at Cal State- Sacramento.

Where hay and straw are also harvested from crops, perennial grasses already fill that niche. They may be cut and baled. Nutrition is replenished from absorption by their deep root system, organic matter may be supplemented by applying animal manures.