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You can't grow any of the mediterranean/mid-east fruit or nut trees in the midwest as they are killed by frost. That rules out most of the stuff that California
by jahewson 4y ago
You can't grow any of the mediterranean/mid-east fruit or nut trees in the midwest as they are killed by frost. That rules out most of the stuff that California is famous for exporting - almonds, pistachios, citrus. Many of the ones that do grow won't be commercially competitive - the seasons can be short. And of course, unlike corn, you're going to have to find people to pick all this fruit.
- kickout 4y agoRespectfully disagree. We can engineer the 150k nuts acres to grow just fine. Or Modify the plants to be cold tolerant. We know a lot about Plant genetics and physiology. Just haven’t had the incentive.
- jahewson 4y agoCalifornia exports $5bn worth of almonds a year. That's plenty of incentive. What you are talking about is science fiction - it literally doesn't exist. Humanity has been growing almonds for 5000 years and they're still killed by frost. The trees take five years to reach maturity - this is research that takes decades, if not lifetimes. > We know a lot about Plant genetics and physiology. lol, no we don't. We can't even make grocery store food that doesn't taste like crap. Sometimes fruit trees skip a season - why? Nobody knows. Sure, we've gotten pretty good at messing around with corn, but it's simple, forgiving, not eaten fresh, and planted from seed every year. It's basically a model organism.
- stevenjgarner 4y agoNot true. Nuts that can be grown in Iowa include black walnuts, Persian (so-called “English”) walnuts, heartnuts, pecans and other hickory nuts, hazels, almonds, chestnuts, and perhaps a few other minor species. [0] [0] https://practicalfarmers.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tom-Wahl-Nut-Growing-and-Marketing-Handout.pdf https://practicalfarmers.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tom-...