In article ,
Gordon wrote:

General Schvantzkoph wrote in
:

On Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:42:31 +0100, Gordon wrote:

A friend told me about the Three Sisters growing method. Apearently
It comes from the Native Americans who would grow Corn, Beans and
Squash together. The corn stalks would provide a trellis for the
beans to grow on, and the squash would grow on the ground and provide
cover to control the weeds. Sounds intresting.

Anyone else heard of it? Anyone tried it?

I tried it a couple of years ago It sounds like a good idea but it
didn't do any better than conventional techniques.


??? Well, did the plans yeild the same compared to if they were
planted separatly?

Wouldn't the yeild of (say) 100sf of soil be higher compared to
planting separatly? For instance: 100sf of corn, 100sf of squash,
100sf of peas == 300sf of garden. VS 100sf of everything growing
together?

No.

The Fatal Harvest Reader by Andrew Kimbrell (Editor)
http://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Harvest-.../dp/155963944X
/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220837838&sr=1-1
(Available at a library near you, until they are closed, because of Wall
Street's bailout.)

pg 19

Agribusiness and economists alike tend to use "yield" measurements when
calculating the productivity of farms. Yield can be defined as the
production per unit of a single crop. For example, a corn farm will be
judged by how many metric tons of corn are produced per acre. More often
than not, the highest yield of a single crop like corn can be best
achieved by planting it alone on an industrial scale in the fields of
corporate farms. These large "monocultures" have become endemic to
modern agriculture for the simple reason that they are the easiest to
manage with heavy machinery and intensive chemical use. It is the
single-crop yields of these farms that are used as the basis for the
"bigger is better" myth, and it is true that the highest yield of a
single crop is often achieved through industrial monocultures.

Smaller farms rarely can compete with this "monoculture" single-crop
yield. They tend to plant crop mixtures, a method known as
"intercropping.' Additionally, where single-crop monocultures have empty
"weed" spaces, small farms use these spaces for crop planting. They are
also more likely to rotate or combine crops and livestock, with the
resulting manure performing the important function of replenishing soil
fertility. These small-scale integrated farms produce far more per unit
area than large farms. Though the yield per unit area of one crop ‹
corn, for example‹may be lower, the total output per unit area for small
farms, often composed of more than a dozen crops and numerous animal
products, is virtually always higher than that of larger farms.

Clearly, if we are to compare accurately the productivity of small and
large farms, we should use total agricultural output, balanced against
total farm inputs and "externalities,''' rather than single-crop yield
as our measurement principle. Total output is defined as the sum of
everything a small farmer produces ‹ various grains, fruits, vegetables,
fodder, and animal products ‹ and is the real benchmark of 'efficiency
in farming. Moreover, productivity measurements should also take into
account total input costs, including large-machinery and chemical use,
which often are left out of the equation in the yield efficiency claims.
Perhaps most important, however, is the inclusion of the cost of
externalities such as environmental and human health impacts for which
industrial scale monocultured farms allow society to pay. Continuing to
measure farm efficiency through single-crop "yield" in agricultural
economics represents an unacceptable bias against diversification and
reflects the bizarre conviction that producing one food crop on a large
scale is more important than producing many crops (and higher
productivity) on a small scale.
--
- Billy

E pluribus unum
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96993722