In message
echinosum wrote:


Michael Bell;941393 Wrote:
Maize is almost unique among the grasses in having heads at intervals
up the stem, which makes it possible to have a plant which produces a
lot, but isn't bent over by all that weight at the top.
...
I read up what "real" plant breeders do. They search for natural
variations. In two autumn's work I found enough variations to make a
very reasonable start, for example seeds as big as a small rice-grain.
...
I have developed a technique for growing seeds under light, and
grafting them onto "adult" trees, to produce catkins and cones next
year, so I can do a cross in 2 years, rather than the 7 years it might
take with growing a whole tree.
Excellent progress then.

It is interesting how very few species have been developed as cereal
grains. In the pre-Colombian Americas, only really maize took off,
though there is also quinoa, but only of very localised value. I think
I read in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel that there is a N
American grass which had some use, but it has very small seeds, is
rather oily, and the flavour is something of an acquired taste. Though
teff, a small-seeded grass, is very important in Ethiopia. It is
ultimately yield rather than seed size that is the most important,
though large seeds is generally helpful. I think I read in Diamond
also, that, if Middle Eastern cereals hadn't been adaptable to northern
Europe, there is really only one local species of grass that might have
been potentially useful.

What was that one grass?

As I mentioned to you before, tree crops were previously more used as
staples - acorns, chestnuts - but they fell out of widespread use
because they were out-competed by alternatives with much less labour for
the same calories. Acorns are still used in Korea. There are huge
quantities of acorns on the ground in woods at the moment, I had half a
thought of gathering a few and trying to make my own acorn bread when
out for a walk recently, though there is a lot of processing to get rid
of the tannin. Chestnuts have been selected for food production, though
I suspect oaks have not had any more than accidental selection. Wouldn't
oaks potentially be a better cropping species than alder? How does the
present yield compare as a starting point? There are also a lot of oak
species you can grow, it's a very big genus, or two if you include
Lithocarpus. You'd be wanting to select out tannin levels as well as
increase the yield.

I went and met the chairwoman of the Kentish Cobnut Growers
association. It seemed to me plain that the industry had given up,
resigned itself to being a heritage industry in the same way that
steam railways are a heritage industry. There is only one grower who
is working on cobnuts as a commercial crop, developing harvesting
methods and suchlike and he is secretive about it.

I have set myself at alders and it is too late to turn back now. My
reasons, which still stand, are that alder will grow in the uplands,
it fixes nitrogen, and it is a fast-growing "weed" tree rather than a
major forest tree as the others are.

Michael Bell





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In message , Michael
Bell writes
It is interesting how very few species have been developed as cereal
grains. In the pre-Colombian Americas, only really maize took off,
though there is also quinoa, but only of very localised value. I think
I read in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel that there is a N
American grass which had some use, but it has very small seeds, is
rather oily, and the flavour is something of an acquired taste. Though
teff, a small-seeded grass, is very important in Ethiopia. It is
ultimately yield rather than seed size that is the most important,
though large seeds is generally helpful. I think I read in Diamond
also, that, if Middle Eastern cereals hadn't been adaptable to northern
Europe, there is really only one local species of grass that might have
been potentially useful.

What was that one grass?

Secale cereale (rye) or Leymus arenarius (lyme grass) or ...

If you're counting pseudocereals (like quinoa) then Fagopyrum esculentum
(buckwheat).
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

In message
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

In message , Michael
Bell writes
It is interesting how very few species have been developed as cereal
grains. In the pre-Colombian Americas, only really maize took off,
though there is also quinoa, but only of very localised value. I think
I read in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel that there is a N
American grass which had some use, but it has very small seeds, is
rather oily, and the flavour is something of an acquired taste. Though
teff, a small-seeded grass, is very important in Ethiopia. It is
ultimately yield rather than seed size that is the most important,
though large seeds is generally helpful. I think I read in Diamond
also, that, if Middle Eastern cereals hadn't been adaptable to northern
Europe, there is really only one local species of grass that might have
been potentially useful.

What was that one grass?

Secale cereale (rye) or Leymus arenarius (lyme grass) or ...

If you're counting pseudocereals (like quinoa) then Fagopyrum esculentum
(buckwheat).


Yes, I did know of them in the back of my mind and as I say, I did
think of sedges, very similar to look at and probably to handle as a
crop, but you can only pursue one project at a time.

Michael Bell

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