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In one of his videos in Youtube, permaculture farmer Richard Perkins said that mankind has 6000 years of agriculture, but has mostly concentrated plant breeding
by sampo 4y ago
In one of his videos in Youtube, permaculture farmer Richard Perkins said that mankind has 6000 years of agriculture, but has mostly concentrated plant breeding efforts to annual plants. We mostly eat annuals. (Plants that grow and die in one year.)
But, he said, imagine what kind of perennial (plants that live multiple years) food plants we could have, if we invested similar 6000 years of effort to perfecting perennial food plants. Like fruit trees and nut trees and whatever.
The benefits of perennials being, you don't need to plat then anew every year. And because the plants and especially their root systems are not killed off at the end of every summer, the soil is not vulnerable to erosion, because the plant roots stay in the soil and hold it together.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> But, he said, imagine what kind of perennial (plants that live multiple years) food plants we could have, if we invested similar 6000 years of effort to perfecting perennial food plants. Like fruit trees and nut trees and whatever. Well, that's something we've already done. So I'd say we'd end up with the fruits and nuts that we have right now. What are we supposed to be imagining?
- Sebguer 4y agoThis is an obtuse read of the author's point, which is apply what we've done to fruit trees and nut trees to perennial staple foods.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoThe author is saying we should apply the techniques we've used on grains to fruit trees. That is ridiculous, because, obviously, we already do that. We always have.
- lkbm 4y agoI was recently thinking about the possibility of GMOing/selectively breeding better hardwood. (Turns out we have done this with walnut.) I believe the main issue is that the lifecycle of tree is much longer. Each year I can select the best corn from last harvest and plant it for this harvest. Trees generally take several years to start producing, so iterating through generations is slow.
- devoutsalsa 4y agoI'm waiting for Monsanto will find a way to make perennials a subscription model so you're crops die if you don't swipe your credit card.
- darkwater 4y agoAnd why humanity didn't do that before? Not an expert but I tend to think there were reasons justifying how it went.
- whoomp12342 4y agoguess: groups of humans are great at short term thinking. long term? not so much
- pcrh 4y agoHumans have been cultivating perennials for just as long as annuals. It's why we have so many varieties of olive trees, apple trees, etc.