Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Liz,

 

There are annual grasses and there are perennial grasses.  However, most grains where cultivated from annual grasses since they are better at producing seeds, hence grains.

 

Wes Jackson and the Lands Institute has for tried to grow perennial grains for many years.  I have heard estimates that it will take 50 to 100 years to come up with a perennial grain.  But even if it were to be successful, and his team at the Lands Institute would come up with a new type of grain that has a yield approximating current grains such as wheat or barley, there would still be the problem of marketing, because it wouldn't be wheat and it wouldn't be barley, it would be some sort of new grain.  So how do you persuade bakeries to use this new grain instead of wheat to make bread?

 

I guess it is worthwhile to continue research and the current text is probably aimed at getting approval for the necessary funds.

 

Dieter

 

----- Original Message ----
From: Liz <liz@allslash.org>
To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 5:20:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Organic agriculture is not enough; we must replace annual with perennial crops.

At 12:56 PM 7/15/2008, you wrote:

>Organic agriculture is not enough; we must replace annual with
>perennial crops.
>http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Ending10000YearsOfConflict.php
>Dr. Stan Cox

I'm really intrigued by this. I thought grains were grasses, which
propagate in the wild by reseeding themselves--annuals, in other
words. That would imply that there is no such thing, by definition,
as a perennial grain. Am I way off base on this?

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com

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