3 ms·
Perennials are such an intuitively appealing idea but a plant expends a lot of energy ensuring it can make it through the fallow/winter season successfully. Thu
by seifertca 4y ago
Perennials are such an intuitively appealing idea but a plant expends a lot of energy ensuring it can make it through the fallow/winter season successfully. Thus perennial cereals only make sense where the cost of seed and planting exceeds the impact on yield. My understanding is even at the theoretical minimum energy needed for most cereals in most growing regions to have a 90% chance of surviving perennially you need a huge cash subsidy for lost grain yield or for seed and planting costs to rise many-fold. More likely to work in rice than wheat/kernza but never likely to work at all unless we as a species change how we think of the objectives of agriculture. Happy to be proven wrong though.
- nn3 4y agoThey explain in the interview that the rice is still sub tropical, so this only works in places without significant winters. With that the investment of the plant is likely much lower.
- colechristensen 4y agoIt’s hard to generalize but seed costs in the ballpark of 20% of revenue. That’s not counting tillage in preparation for planting, the cost of planting, or weed management which will be more difficult without established crops. In other words you can take a significant hit to yields and still come out ahead.
- cmrdporcupine 4y agoWithout yearly tillage (or herbicide spray in case of no-till), weed mgmt is going to be tricky for perennial cash crops. It's certainly tricky for e.g. vineyards and orchards. I suppose with rice (or kernza wheat) you could use a selective broadleaf herbicide. Doesn't help with invasive grasses.
- colechristensen 4y agoHerbicides are all generally sprayed when the crop is alive and growing anyway, there’s really no new challenge there
- cmrdporcupine 4y agoRegimen often includes cover crop then burn down herbicide (and/or tillage) before planting. I am 100% in favour of perennial crop agriculture, but this is going to present entirely new weed mgmt problems for the kind of industrial scale cash crop agriculture this is apparently for. Annual planting gives the farmer a chance to manage weeds (and soil structure etc) every planting season.
- insane_dreamer 4y ago> make it through the fallow/winter season successfully most rice grown by substance farmers is in tropical areas
- anthomtb 4y agoI think that's why they used "fallow". Tropical climates do not have cold winters but may have dry seasons where, I would assume, a plant would enter a dormant state.