In article ,
says...
In article ,
Michael Bell wrote:
In message
wrote:
In article ,
David WE Roberts wrote:

Allegedly in East Anglia some places can produce as many as four crops a
year (although I haven't seen this myself).

I have this bridge that needs to be sold today - how much will you
pay me for it? Look the the UK's insolation pattern.

What is this about?

There is only about 4 months a year with enough light to produce a
decent crop - 4 crops of starch a year is simply fantasy here.

There is an inevitable conflict here.

"Major forest trees", chestnut, oak and the like, grow big, grow slow,
and form climax communities because they produce big seeds which give
rise to seedling which can endure deep shade, get through forest
litter, grow under their parents. But these big seeds have to be
defended by evil-tasting susbtances.

Except for the last sentence, yes.

On the other hand, there are "weed trees", fly-by-nights, fast-growing
trees which rarely form climax communities (alder only does so because
it can withstand waterlogging, so forming birch-alder carr), and have
small seeds which are widely scattered to new plots of disturbed land.

That's irrelevant to my point, which was primarily productivity.
The difference between those categories affects only the timescale.

There is one extra factor which I haven't mentioned, I want to produce
something which will grow on the uplands, such as the Cheviots where I
was brought up. This country cannot feed itself, and the uplands are
40% of its land area.

If you succeed, I am pretty certain that you will end up with oil,
and not starch. That's not catastrophic, as it would release lowland
areas for starch crops. Or, with recent, current and proposed
governments, more building.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Don't they use ground sweet chestnuts on madeira?, I am sure I have seen
folk trying to flog them in the Nuns valley
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea