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