In article , fitwell wrote:
On Wed, 02 Jun 2004 02:10:39 GMT, (Rez)
wrote:
_Such_ an interesting thread, thank you! I could have sworn I saw a
program on the television documentary re Egypt re the seeds, that is
what is so odd. I'm sure that even if things germinated, there
wouldn't have been an extremely high success rate, but it always
fascinated me. I'll have to look into this further, as it's something
that has been with me for so long and I always believed it to be true,
that now I want to know for sure.

Oh, you mean about sprouting wheat that was found in Egyptian
monuments? I don't know how legit that claim was, but I'd expect
dry wheat kernels to keep for a couple decades under ordinary
conditions.

p.s., I'm also concerned about one thing. _If_ older seeds from a
long time ago do germinate now yet new seeds don't, one has to wonder
about modern growing practices, too! Mustn't forget that our

Seeds found in an Egyptian pyramid, sealed inside some artifact, would
have the benefit of being kept absolutely dry and free of destructive
organisms (mold, borer beetles, etc.) Modern grain, kept under similar
conditions, should have an equally long live-storage time. But most of
us don't live in a desert and store seeds in airtight containers.

ancestors did things the right way - more in accordance with nature's
laws, esp. before the industrial revolution! They may not have had
the "science" of this, as we supposedly do, but they had no choice.
They grew organically, etc. g

Well, our ancestors also did a lot of stupid destructive things, like
slash and burn agriculture, and farming out the land then moving on to
somewhere that hadn't been sucked dry of nutrients, and letting sheep
and goats destroy pasture and thus soil (the middle east wasn't a
desert until a couple thousand years ago, you know -- it got that way
from wandering tribes and their goats. Same with central Wyoming,
which looked a lot better before being overgrazed by sheep.) Modern
farming is actually a lot kinder to the soil, if only because in most
farming countries, there is no longer any new land to exploit, so
you've got to keep what you have productive, and that means not
overfarming it down to dust.

Re pastu cattle cut the grass off fairly high, leaving a good
growthy portion. Sheep graze it right down to the ground, stressing
it all to hell. Goats pull it up roots and all. Once you destroy the
ground cover that way, erosion sets in, and in a matter of a decade or
less, a green lush pastureland with good soil can be converted to
stony desert.

~REZ~