A Grain That Tastes Like Wheat, but Grows Like a Prairie Grass(thenation.com)
thenation.com
A Grain That Tastes Like Wheat, but Grows Like a Prairie Grass
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-grain-that-tastes-like-wheat-but-grows-like-a-prairie-grass/
127 comments
> it is easily possible to grow Kernza in a backyard with little intervention
As someone who hates mowing lawns, this is really interesting.
As someone who hates mowing lawns, this is really interesting.
On the other hand, you could eat your lawn if you were inclined to mow it.
I had the fortune to see Wes Jackson from the Land Institute give a presentation about his research breeding prairie grass attributes back into cereals. He explained the goal of developing perennial hybrids that could make agriculture somewhat less dependent on energy-intensive annual crops. He also brought in a tuft of 1 meter tall grass, showing how its ~3 meter deep root system would do wonders to retain water and reduce flooding on Mississippi downstream.
Here's more information from The Land Institute about Kernza: https://landinstitute.org/our-work/perennial-crops/kernza/
I did a bit of hunting and wasn't able to find it available for purchase but when it is, would love to replace a chunk of the frontyard.
I did a bit of hunting and wasn't able to find it available for purchase but when it is, would love to replace a chunk of the frontyard.
FWIU most of the ogalalla problems wouldn't be problems if we replaced just the non-human-feed corn with almost literally anything else.
"corn averages roughly 15 million calories per acre"
"wheat comes in at about 4 million calories per acre, soy at 6 million"
What else would you have them feed their animals? Calories per acre matters when there are a limited number of acres of arable land.
Unless you are advocating vegetarianism. Which is a valid point as far as the environment goes. But farmers produce what the market demands.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-...
"wheat comes in at about 4 million calories per acre, soy at 6 million"
What else would you have them feed their animals? Calories per acre matters when there are a limited number of acres of arable land.
Unless you are advocating vegetarianism. Which is a valid point as far as the environment goes. But farmers produce what the market demands.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/in-defense-of-...
Hay, alfalfa, basically anything for stock feed, almost nothing for ethonal production. Corn is a particularly water thirsty crop, which while delicious is over produced. Calories per acre is important but for the Ogalalla Aquifer calories per gallon-water is more important.
Hay is alfalfa once it has been harvested. It is high in fiber, and cows are great at digesting fiber, but they also need sugars to convert into milk. Oats provide protein and fiber. Corn provides sugars and iirc, fiber(maybe protein? its getting late here). There has been quite a bit of research about optimum ratios. I could look for some if you are interested, I get most of my info from my dad's dead tree magazines.
And I hear you about ethanol production. I for one can't wait for our new renewable energy sources.
"Corn is a particularly water thirsty crop, which while delicious is over produced"
Sweet corn, which we eat; and field corn are different things. According to the washington post article I posted earlier, there isn't that much sweet corn produced.
"Calories per acre is important but for the Ogalalla Aquifer calories per gallon-water is more important"
Yeah, but people want food today... Desalination, and other water related technologies can't come soon enough :(
And I hear you about ethanol production. I for one can't wait for our new renewable energy sources.
"Corn is a particularly water thirsty crop, which while delicious is over produced"
Sweet corn, which we eat; and field corn are different things. According to the washington post article I posted earlier, there isn't that much sweet corn produced.
"Calories per acre is important but for the Ogalalla Aquifer calories per gallon-water is more important"
Yeah, but people want food today... Desalination, and other water related technologies can't come soon enough :(
My understanding is that it is only that simple if you are discussing consumption of the aquifer, but that there are other factors related to replacement, geographical size and distribution of the aquifer, that changing what we grow won't necessarily fix.
Here is some recent news on replacement:
"So far, among the many things Dahlke has found: Ninety percent of her floodwaters reach the groundwater table; in the right soil, alfalfa can handle the equivalent of 26 feet of rain; and pecan trees, which, she says, “naturally grow in riparian [riverbank] soils, are well-adapted to having wet feet in winter.”"
https://www.popsci.com/how-california-is-saving-rainwater-fo...
"So far, among the many things Dahlke has found: Ninety percent of her floodwaters reach the groundwater table; in the right soil, alfalfa can handle the equivalent of 26 feet of rain; and pecan trees, which, she says, “naturally grow in riparian [riverbank] soils, are well-adapted to having wet feet in winter.”"
https://www.popsci.com/how-california-is-saving-rainwater-fo...
>your local library might have one to borrow.
Why would you find mills in a library? What else do they have..
Why would you find mills in a library? What else do they have..
A lot of libraries don't just share books. For instance some let you check out laptops, wifi devices, etc. There are also tool libraries, and even seed libraries.
You might be surprised by what's available at your local library these days.
You might be surprised by what's available at your local library these days.
Seeds too. My local library has a bunch of different types of plant seeds, mainly foods. The idea is you take seeds in the spring, plant and grow them, harvest them, and then preserve the seeds and return them to the library to be "borrowed" by another person the next year. They have the seeds in an old card catalog case, and each drawer has the plant name on the outside and a color green, yellow, or red, indicating how easy or hard it is to save the seeds.
My local library has at the very least books, videos, music, jigsaw puzzles, and museum passes. That's just the stuff that's obviously visible from the entrance.
Toys! Our local library has tons of toys to checkout. Been great to give our small child who likes new things for a while a semi-constant stream of new toys, that are in better shape or fancier than the $1 garage sale toys he usually gets.
Tools. There's a library-affiliated technology library[0] in the city I live now that has almost anything someone who is a 'maker' could want. And many large town (25-60k towns) libraries have similar, smaller scale departments.
[0] http://www.dospace.org/
Tools. There's a library-affiliated technology library[0] in the city I live now that has almost anything someone who is a 'maker' could want. And many large town (25-60k towns) libraries have similar, smaller scale departments.
[0] http://www.dospace.org/
If they can engineer it to have a higher gluten content I'd be interested! Until then it is no wheat-replacement by any stretch from my perspective as a baker. Another grain to add to the arsenal for sure, but in terms of baking it's just another low-gluten flour like buckwheat, amaranth, rice flour, etc, which certainly have their places. I'd try it steamed up with some couscous and veggies as a side-dish for sure.
They seem to tout it's no-tillage aspect, but there are already methods of planting wheat without tilling. For instance, the no-till drill[0]
One can also plant wheat with low-cover crops like clover to help prevent the inevitable weeds that try to take over in the absence of tillage[1].
But hey if it means farmers grow less corn then I'm all for it!
[0]https://www.deere.com/en/seeding-equipment/1590-no-till-dril...
[1]http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener...
They seem to tout it's no-tillage aspect, but there are already methods of planting wheat without tilling. For instance, the no-till drill[0]
One can also plant wheat with low-cover crops like clover to help prevent the inevitable weeds that try to take over in the absence of tillage[1].
But hey if it means farmers grow less corn then I'm all for it!
[0]https://www.deere.com/en/seeding-equipment/1590-no-till-dril...
[1]http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener...
Since 2001, the potential size of a Kernza seed has doubled, and scientists hope to lengthen its productive lifespan from five to 10 years.
That's pretty fast for traditional selective breeding techniques. It would be interesting what kind of progress could be made with genetic engineering. Seems like they're trying to avoid the GMO label, so I would guess it's another 15-20 years before Kernza will be ready for widespread agricultural use.
That's pretty fast for traditional selective breeding techniques. It would be interesting what kind of progress could be made with genetic engineering. Seems like they're trying to avoid the GMO label, so I would guess it's another 15-20 years before Kernza will be ready for widespread agricultural use.
> That's pretty fast for traditional selective breeding techniques.
I wouldn't be surprised those techniques have seen a lot of improvements in recent years too. I mean, surely genetic engineering coming onto the scene doesn't mean everyone just dropped the other methods? There must be a lot of complementary techniques there - I'm sure a lot of modern advances in biology are helpful there as well.
EDIT: Heh, I just got to the part of the article where it explicitly describes this:
> Kernza’s DNA has never been genetically engineered; its genes get reshuffled via the scattering of pollen, from the male parts of flowers onto the feathery, sticky female parts. But advances in genomics—the -sequencing of DNA—over the last 15 years have made it far easier to tweak Kernza. Almost all of the grain’s genome has now been mapped. Once breeders have a genetic blueprint, they can track down the genes that control particular traits and select individuals with genetic stock that codes for, say, fat seeds or resistance to disease.
I hope they're smart enough to keep some kind of "unselected seed bank" to keep a source of higher genetic diversity for quick adaptation.
I wouldn't be surprised those techniques have seen a lot of improvements in recent years too. I mean, surely genetic engineering coming onto the scene doesn't mean everyone just dropped the other methods? There must be a lot of complementary techniques there - I'm sure a lot of modern advances in biology are helpful there as well.
EDIT: Heh, I just got to the part of the article where it explicitly describes this:
> Kernza’s DNA has never been genetically engineered; its genes get reshuffled via the scattering of pollen, from the male parts of flowers onto the feathery, sticky female parts. But advances in genomics—the -sequencing of DNA—over the last 15 years have made it far easier to tweak Kernza. Almost all of the grain’s genome has now been mapped. Once breeders have a genetic blueprint, they can track down the genes that control particular traits and select individuals with genetic stock that codes for, say, fat seeds or resistance to disease.
I hope they're smart enough to keep some kind of "unselected seed bank" to keep a source of higher genetic diversity for quick adaptation.
There's marker assisted breeding, QTL analysis, etc., but the hard limit is generation time.
If you want to introgress a particular trait into a useful background, it's going to take ~5 generations to do it adequately. That generally means 5 years, or sometimes you can squeeze in a winter nursery in the southern hemisphere.
Proper QTL analysis requires making suitable inbreds (several generations of selfing), creation of the RILs (another several generations of selfing after the making the F2s), and finally a couple years for gathering trait data. Oh, and this all requires generation of proper markers and so forth. Starting from scratch, this is a decade-long process if everything goes well.
As for diversity, you collect wild accessions and those are generally maintained by a seed co-op, often something associated with a university.
If you want to introgress a particular trait into a useful background, it's going to take ~5 generations to do it adequately. That generally means 5 years, or sometimes you can squeeze in a winter nursery in the southern hemisphere.
Proper QTL analysis requires making suitable inbreds (several generations of selfing), creation of the RILs (another several generations of selfing after the making the F2s), and finally a couple years for gathering trait data. Oh, and this all requires generation of proper markers and so forth. Starting from scratch, this is a decade-long process if everything goes well.
As for diversity, you collect wild accessions and those are generally maintained by a seed co-op, often something associated with a university.
Thanks for the enlightening follow-up!
Just speculating here but that rapid improvement may be because it was a less popular cultivar and thus wasn't exposed to as much tinkering. What I mean is perhaps no one came along and picked the low hanging fruit until now.
> But hey if it means farmers grow less corn then I'm all for it!
I keep hearing that - least in the US - this is more of a problem with subsidies and perverse incentives, is that true? Sincere question from a naive non-economist outsider here.
I keep hearing that - least in the US - this is more of a problem with subsidies and perverse incentives, is that true? Sincere question from a naive non-economist outsider here.
Yes, absolutely. Corn is grown to excess for purposes of livestock feed and fuel due to various subsidies for ethanol production. At least here in the Midwest, almost none of the corn grown is for actual human consumption. Additionally, corn is an awful crop, it requires a ton of nitrogen and water to grow well. I'm very much for less of it being grown here.
That midwestern corn is unfit for direct human consumption, but it shows up as a number of filler ingredients in highly processed (junk) food. So it's in your cows and chickens, but also in every soda you drink and in your kid's breakfast cereal. And pretty much every commercial baked good (modified food starch).
And the mills smell awful. Like someone took a paper mill, and took out the sour part of the smell and replaced it with moldy gym socks.
And the mills smell awful. Like someone took a paper mill, and took out the sour part of the smell and replaced it with moldy gym socks.
Corn starches and the products created from them are some of the most versatile things we have in commercial food production.
It’s important to hedge your bets with the food supply, but ‘versatile’ (or even, in the case of corn, durable) isn’t the only or even the most important metric. Nutritious, efficient, healthy are important too.
Have you been to the Midwest? There are places where you can drive hundreds of miles and see almost nothing but corn and a bit of soy.
If you take the backroads you’ll find pigs, cows, a bit of alfalfa and hay, sweet corn and the odd field of popcorn. But along the interstates it’s corn, soy and more corn to the horizon.
Have you been to the Midwest? There are places where you can drive hundreds of miles and see almost nothing but corn and a bit of soy.
If you take the backroads you’ll find pigs, cows, a bit of alfalfa and hay, sweet corn and the odd field of popcorn. But along the interstates it’s corn, soy and more corn to the horizon.
But that's the thing, in temperate climates, nothing makes calories as well as corn. Since growers just respond to the external incentives to create ethanol and meat and everything else that's made from those calories, they are actually meeting the need in the most environmentally responsible way. Or put another way, if we were to transition to not corn, which 200 million acres of virgin habitat should we cut down?
corn is an awful crop
I've only been gardening a season but I've already come to the same conclusion. The corn stalks were the divas of the bed, wilting days before anything else and underproducing. Especially compared to the squash plants.
I've only been gardening a season but I've already come to the same conclusion. The corn stalks were the divas of the bed, wilting days before anything else and underproducing. Especially compared to the squash plants.
Oh dear, corn is an exceptionally terrible garden crop - a high-producing stalk gives you 2-3 ears at maximum, saps the nitrogen in the soil, and requires a ton of space. You'd need to plant a huge volume of it to get any sort of decent harvest. It's a shame, since fresh sweet corn is delicious, but it's something where I'd rather just buy some from a guy who grew a quarter acre of it as a hobby crop.
If there is ever an apocolypse leaving me dependent on personal agriculture, I’m planting nothing but squash. Until then keep it away from my backyard.
I would rethink your post-apocalyptic single-crop garden if I were you. Diversify, diversify, diversify.
If you're in the US and starting with squash, then the logical option would be:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)
I've found companion planting beneficial, but have had terrible luck with the corn aspect of 3-sisters. It seems best suited for warmer US zones (6+), where corn can go in the ground well before beans. Otherwise, the beans will quickly overtake the corn.
I always have some tomato cages ready as backup, because even if the corn is big enough to support the beans, a gust of wind can blow it all over.
Also, deer eat corn shoots. Damn you, deer. Damn you.
I always have some tomato cages ready as backup, because even if the corn is big enough to support the beans, a gust of wind can blow it all over.
Also, deer eat corn shoots. Damn you, deer. Damn you.
I didn't care much for squash until I discovered spaghetti squash. I'll usually find space for at least one plant now.
I love spaghetti squash! Sadly, you rarely see it in the UK. In fact, you rarely see any squash except butternut here, which i'm not a fan of.
There's a farm somewhere south of London which does pick-your-own pattypans, and apparently at harvest time is overrun with South Africans, who evidently feel very strongly about them.
There's a farm somewhere south of London which does pick-your-own pattypans, and apparently at harvest time is overrun with South Africans, who evidently feel very strongly about them.
I've never heard of pattypans, they look absolutely delightful! I may have to experiment with them in the garden next year.
I loved butternut squash until we grew it and generated 98248928 squashes.
Yes, we mandate a percentage of corn based ethanol in our gasoline, and the crop insurance system is set up for monoculture. We also don't make any attempt to price in the externalities of resource intensive industrial agriculture.
The gasoline thing isn't necessarily ridiculous. Some portion of ethanol in gas helps it burn cleaner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate
It also has a lower energy density than gasoline and problems with gumming up fuel injectors, and collecting water in fuel tanks which leads to corrosion.
edit: ethanol is hygroscopic; meaning it attracts and collects water
edit: ethanol is hygroscopic; meaning it attracts and collects water
> problems with gumming up fuel injectors, and collecting water in fuel tanks which leads to corrosion.
I'm pretty sure that these are economic benefits.
I'm pretty sure that these are economic benefits.
Sure, if you subscribe to the philosophy of planned obsolescence.
GDP is a very narrow and short term view of economic benefit.
I really don't understand why anyone supports ethanol. It's a poor fuel compared to gasoline and any minor improvements to fuel ignore the externalities.
It's another massive subsidy to the farming/fertilizer industry.
The EREOI of Corn as a fuel is pretty bad.
If all this subsidy money were used to instead move to EVs, it'd be better spent.
It's another massive subsidy to the farming/fertilizer industry.
The EREOI of Corn as a fuel is pretty bad.
If all this subsidy money were used to instead move to EVs, it'd be better spent.
The idea was that you could reduce US dependence on foreign oil imports, and also make a positive impact on CO2 emissions (since biodiesel is CO2-neutral) by gradually switching the US over to biodiesel. Corn was an obvious choice since the US already subsidized farmers significantly to produce that crop. On paper that didn't seem terrible at the time.
Later it was noticed that the US biodiesel program had had a substantial impact on global corn prices, which probably causes deaths in developing countries[1].
I think it's widely considered to be a bad idea at this point, but as late as 2009 I can find reference to expansions in the program[2].
Completely agree that redirecting our subsidy dollars into modern tech would be a much better investment; the default should be no subsidies, and we should pick strategic investments to ensure our relevance in the coming decades.
[1]: https://www.treehugger.com/cars/us-doctors-say-biofuels-coul... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel_in_the_United_States#R...
Later it was noticed that the US biodiesel program had had a substantial impact on global corn prices, which probably causes deaths in developing countries[1].
I think it's widely considered to be a bad idea at this point, but as late as 2009 I can find reference to expansions in the program[2].
Completely agree that redirecting our subsidy dollars into modern tech would be a much better investment; the default should be no subsidies, and we should pick strategic investments to ensure our relevance in the coming decades.
[1]: https://www.treehugger.com/cars/us-doctors-say-biofuels-coul... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel_in_the_United_States#R...
So the whole "biofuel" conflation has me confused. I know about a dozen years ago, it was a good meme, but there are big differences between ethanol vs. biodiesel [1]
Corn isn't used to make biodiesel. Also biodiesel allowed usage of existing waste product (e.g. sludge from a McDonalds) would work with biodiesel converted engines.
Luckily hybrids and EVs entered the scene and now we have zero-emission vehicles that are far more sustainable than ones using any liquid fuels.
There is no reason to push for anything but EVs and hybridized fleets everywhere. EVs are faster, less maintenance and the range issue is pretty much resolved for the vast majority of use cases. I'm frustrated when I have to drive an ICE vehicle - pickup is slow and no regenerative charging means it stops slowly as well.
[1] http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-...
Corn isn't used to make biodiesel. Also biodiesel allowed usage of existing waste product (e.g. sludge from a McDonalds) would work with biodiesel converted engines.
Luckily hybrids and EVs entered the scene and now we have zero-emission vehicles that are far more sustainable than ones using any liquid fuels.
There is no reason to push for anything but EVs and hybridized fleets everywhere. EVs are faster, less maintenance and the range issue is pretty much resolved for the vast majority of use cases. I'm frustrated when I have to drive an ICE vehicle - pickup is slow and no regenerative charging means it stops slowly as well.
[1] http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-...
Ah yep, thanks, s/biodiesel/corn ethanol spiked diesel/.
Is there another smog-reducing, ground-level-ozone-reducing gasoline additive you'd prefer instead?
Hybrids and EVs are the answer - spending billions on making gasoline additives out of foodstock is not the answer.
Immediate cessation of ICE vehicles is not realistic. The changeover will necessarily be gradual. Dumping all of the cash over to EV tech from ethanol production causes a different set of problems.
As someone who's fairly unfamiliar with farming - do weeds not tend to pop up in tilled soil? I figured weed seeds would still land and sprout. (Or do most weeds reproduce via underground roots?)
Does clover just crowd the weeds out, denying them sunlight? And why are weeds harmful to crops, while clover isn't?
Sorry for asking basic 101 questions, but I'm not sure I even know enough to Google around effectively, and don't want to take a random walk wikidive.
Does clover just crowd the weeds out, denying them sunlight? And why are weeds harmful to crops, while clover isn't?
Sorry for asking basic 101 questions, but I'm not sure I even know enough to Google around effectively, and don't want to take a random walk wikidive.
Well, I only have experience with about an 18m^2 garden, so I'll copy an excerpt from my MOFGA link:
> Dutch white [clover] forms a low, dense understory that controls weeds, fixes nitrogen in the soil and remains as a cover crop after the grain harvest.
So the clover doesn't compete directly with the wheat, which grows much taller, and it also fixes beneficial nitrogen in the soil for future growth, and the clover helps to prevent other weeds which will compete with the wheat. That's my understanding at least.
As for tillage, I believe it levels the playing field, giving one's desired seeded crop an advantage over any established weeds.
This PennState article has a good overview:
https://extension.psu.edu/an-introduction-to-weed-management...
> Dutch white [clover] forms a low, dense understory that controls weeds, fixes nitrogen in the soil and remains as a cover crop after the grain harvest.
So the clover doesn't compete directly with the wheat, which grows much taller, and it also fixes beneficial nitrogen in the soil for future growth, and the clover helps to prevent other weeds which will compete with the wheat. That's my understanding at least.
As for tillage, I believe it levels the playing field, giving one's desired seeded crop an advantage over any established weeds.
This PennState article has a good overview:
https://extension.psu.edu/an-introduction-to-weed-management...
> So the clover doesn't compete directly with the wheat, which grows much taller
I've got some clover that would give wheat a good run for its money on plant height. However, normally you broadcast the clover well after the wheat has been planted so that it is just starting to establish itself during wheat harvest. There is little to no competition between the crops due to timing their growth phases.
I've got some clover that would give wheat a good run for its money on plant height. However, normally you broadcast the clover well after the wheat has been planted so that it is just starting to establish itself during wheat harvest. There is little to no competition between the crops due to timing their growth phases.
There are a variety of reasons people till, and a variety of things that it helps, as well as hurts. Its a quite contentious issue.
So far as weeds go - if you think of tillage, it will incorporate all vegetative matter back into the soil and you end up with a clean dirt surface to plant in. Tillage in particular is useful for two reasons here - tilling is a method of quickly incorporating amendments into the root zone of plants - those amendments may be a green manure cover crop, animal manure, lime, etc. Tilling also increases new surface area of soil to air, resulting in a massive kill of soil bacteria. This "bloom" of bacteria increases nitrogen availability.
This also churns up all of the weed seeds that were buried in the soil, and you will quickly get weeds in a tilled surface as they now have ideal growing conditions, where before they were buried in the dirt too deeply.
So you still get weeds with tillage. The reason Roundup resistant crops were developed, is to allow the farmer to spray glycophosphate broadly, and kill off these weeds without killing the desired crop.
So far as weeds go - if you think of tillage, it will incorporate all vegetative matter back into the soil and you end up with a clean dirt surface to plant in. Tillage in particular is useful for two reasons here - tilling is a method of quickly incorporating amendments into the root zone of plants - those amendments may be a green manure cover crop, animal manure, lime, etc. Tilling also increases new surface area of soil to air, resulting in a massive kill of soil bacteria. This "bloom" of bacteria increases nitrogen availability.
This also churns up all of the weed seeds that were buried in the soil, and you will quickly get weeds in a tilled surface as they now have ideal growing conditions, where before they were buried in the dirt too deeply.
So you still get weeds with tillage. The reason Roundup resistant crops were developed, is to allow the farmer to spray glycophosphate broadly, and kill off these weeds without killing the desired crop.
> But hey if it means farmers grow less corn then I'm all for it!
It is billed as a wheat replacement. It may erode wheat acres in the future, but is unlikely to touch the corn acres. People would already be growing more wheat and less corn if the profitability was there. But it isn't. There's a reason why farmers have nicknamed wheat "poverty grass".
It is billed as a wheat replacement. It may erode wheat acres in the future, but is unlikely to touch the corn acres. People would already be growing more wheat and less corn if the profitability was there. But it isn't. There's a reason why farmers have nicknamed wheat "poverty grass".
I found it interesting that 40% of the corn crop goes to produce ethanol. According to the article, that works out to 91*0.40= 36.4 million acres. This is about the same as all the farmland in Iowa (32 million acres). The average power output of this land by ethanol production is about 40 Gigawatts [(13.2 billion gallons of ethanol per year) X (89 million Joules/gallon) / 3.154e+7 seconds per year/1e9]. With the advent of electric cars, taking into consideration the energy used in producing the ethanol and the lower efficiency of internal combustion power, you could probably replace that farmland energy output with ten 2 Gigawatt nuclear power plants.
It would be cool if the environmentalists and the farmers on the marginal areas of the great plains could get together and work on opening up a huge prairie preserve while building a dozen nuclear power plants to replace the lost energy. Bring back the huge herds of Bison. After all, as said elsewhere in this thread, the Ogalalla Aquifer is starting to run dry.
It would be cool if the environmentalists and the farmers on the marginal areas of the great plains could get together and work on opening up a huge prairie preserve while building a dozen nuclear power plants to replace the lost energy. Bring back the huge herds of Bison. After all, as said elsewhere in this thread, the Ogalalla Aquifer is starting to run dry.
If any other celiacs clicked this out of curiosity, it contains gluten. From another article -
>It has a funny cylindrical shape that defies conventional milling machines, and also contains a weird amount of gluten — too little to bake well with, too much to be marketed to people who avoid it.
>It has a funny cylindrical shape that defies conventional milling machines, and also contains a weird amount of gluten — too little to bake well with, too much to be marketed to people who avoid it.
I wonder if it would be good for brewing. Irregular shape is fine, as you don't really want super fine milling, and gluten content isn't super relevant. If it has a strong flavor, it could be a neat way to add an extra dimension to beers, not to mention potentially lowering the environmental impact.
Apparently, Patagonia makes a Kernza beer.
https://www.patagoniaprovisions.com/pages/long-root-ale
https://www.patagoniaprovisions.com/pages/long-root-ale
Yup it sounds like someone is making beer with it, it says
"A local microbrewery called Bang now makes a Kernza beer named Gold". I'm curious what it tastes like too!
I haven't read the article in depth, but I wonder if like wheat when using large quantities of wheat in mash, if you need to add rice hulls to prevent a stuck sparge, not that, that is a big issue though.
I haven't read the article in depth, but I wonder if like wheat when using large quantities of wheat in mash, if you need to add rice hulls to prevent a stuck sparge, not that, that is a big issue though.
From the article, describing its use in pastry
> tasted like nuts and crackers, coffee and grass
I imagine you could make a killer amber or brown ale.
> tasted like nuts and crackers, coffee and grass
I imagine you could make a killer amber or brown ale.
Might be interesting as part of a bourbon mashbill, too.
Ooh neat, yeah I bet that could be awesome in a brown ale.
Rather off topic, but you might be interested in this: https://www.sprowtlabs.com/2017/02/23/how-to-malt-at-home/
(One day I'd like to try it, although first, to improve my basic beers :)
Not sure how easy it is to get this grain though... ;)
Rather off topic, but you might be interested in this: https://www.sprowtlabs.com/2017/02/23/how-to-malt-at-home/
(One day I'd like to try it, although first, to improve my basic beers :)
Not sure how easy it is to get this grain though... ;)
looks like a cool project
>Jackson believed that his vision was possible, but he imagined it would take 50 to 100 years of plant breeding—ambitious when you consider how many millennia it took to create the grains we have now.
Less ambitious when you consider that it took millennia with a far smaller number of people who had less knowledge about genetics and breeding, were capable of farming far fewer plants per year, and did not employ a systematic experimentation program to develop their crops.
Less ambitious when you consider that it took millennia with a far smaller number of people who had less knowledge about genetics and breeding, were capable of farming far fewer plants per year, and did not employ a systematic experimentation program to develop their crops.
>Less ambitious when you consider that it took millennia with a far smaller number of people who had less knowledge about genetics and breeding, were capable of farming far fewer plants per year, and did not employ a systematic experimentation program to develop their crops.
When Jackson started out, no one had decoded a genome.
When Jackson started out, no one had decoded a genome.
Honestly, 50 to 100 years sounds like overkill.
Granted, some crop plants can be tougher to engineer since many of them are excessively polyploid, but it seems like 5 years in the lab, 10 years in greenhouses, and 20 years on test plots should be more than enough. And you could probably do it with only two partner universities, four tenured doctors, eight postdoc fellows, and 32 grad students.
50 years seems more like the timeline for domesticating Vulpes vulpes, which started in 1959, and has the notable limitation that foxes can't have thousands of offspring per year, whereas cultivated plants can.
Granted, some crop plants can be tougher to engineer since many of them are excessively polyploid, but it seems like 5 years in the lab, 10 years in greenhouses, and 20 years on test plots should be more than enough. And you could probably do it with only two partner universities, four tenured doctors, eight postdoc fellows, and 32 grad students.
50 years seems more like the timeline for domesticating Vulpes vulpes, which started in 1959, and has the notable limitation that foxes can't have thousands of offspring per year, whereas cultivated plants can.
> 50 years seems more like the timeline for domesticating Vulpes vulpes, which started in 1959, and has the notable limitation that foxes can't have thousands of offspring per year, whereas cultivated plants can.
A bull or stallion can't normally have thousands of offspring each year, but the miracle of modern cloning or insemination or surrogacy techniques allows it. :) The fox breeding program took as long as it did mostly because of budget limits. If they had had an unlimited budget, they could have had a much larger fox population allowing for much more extreme levels of selection each generation and used techniques like artificial insemination to make selection even more extreme, and of course today more money would also buy marker-assisted selection techniques... (I don't know if anyone has worked out insemination techniques for foxes but, well, that's probably just more money too.)
If for some reason you wanted to redo the fox program now and had $1b to throw at it, I'd be surprised if it took more than 10 years (set up a population of 10k foxes, whole-genome all of them, start inseminating from the elite 1-10% for multiple assessments + GWAS, cycle as fast as they reach 1yr & sexual maturity; each generation gets you ~1SD behavioral change, 10 years get you ~10SDs).
Fast, cheap, big changes, marketable on the EU/USA as 'not a GMO' - choose three.
A bull or stallion can't normally have thousands of offspring each year, but the miracle of modern cloning or insemination or surrogacy techniques allows it. :) The fox breeding program took as long as it did mostly because of budget limits. If they had had an unlimited budget, they could have had a much larger fox population allowing for much more extreme levels of selection each generation and used techniques like artificial insemination to make selection even more extreme, and of course today more money would also buy marker-assisted selection techniques... (I don't know if anyone has worked out insemination techniques for foxes but, well, that's probably just more money too.)
If for some reason you wanted to redo the fox program now and had $1b to throw at it, I'd be surprised if it took more than 10 years (set up a population of 10k foxes, whole-genome all of them, start inseminating from the elite 1-10% for multiple assessments + GWAS, cycle as fast as they reach 1yr & sexual maturity; each generation gets you ~1SD behavioral change, 10 years get you ~10SDs).
Fast, cheap, big changes, marketable on the EU/USA as 'not a GMO' - choose three.
I don't understand how taking 25M acres of wheat production and turning that into 75M acres of Kernza produces a net environmental benefit. Which 50M acres of native habitat are we going to cut down? That's the size of a North Eastern state... we should be going the other direction and increasing yield and decreasing total acres if we want to restore native habitats. There's no way that the lower inputs (and wheat doesn't take much) of Kernza justify destroying the native habitat of an entire state.
But the yield is increasing rapidly, and there is far less energy use, fertilizer which pollutes streams and the ocean, pesticides, and tillage which causes soil loss and releases co2 into the atmosphere.
I don't think there is any doubt this is the direction we need to go. Unless, of course, you are interested in maximizing the profits of certain corporations.
I don't think there is any doubt this is the direction we need to go. Unless, of course, you are interested in maximizing the profits of certain corporations.
Actually, there is great doubt. Many environmental campaigners are coming around to intensification broadly as the path out of our current environmental problems. Check out http://www.ecomodernism.org/ a bunch of ex-greenpeace types that are concerned with practical solutions. Tripling yield takes a long time and wheat, and especially corn, is on an exponential improvement curve. https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/yieldtren...
Or get people to eat less meat. It's something like 30:1 ratio for beef -- ie. one calorie of beef is equivalent to 30 calories from other vegetal sources, not to mention other knock on environmental impacts.
I guess I don't understand how it's become a forgone conclusion that it is a bad thing to make land productive to humans.
> (About 40 percent of American-grown corn in 2016 was turned into ethanol; 37 percent was used to fatten livestock or ended up damaged or miscounted; and a minuscule fraction entered the human diet, mostly as corn syrup.)
It's just a tiny aside in the article, but this makes me wonder just how much energy and resources are being wasted in agriculture. Especially since that sentence construction implies that the 40% ethanol is meant not for human consumption, which leads me to think it's inefficient biofuel.
It's just a tiny aside in the article, but this makes me wonder just how much energy and resources are being wasted in agriculture. Especially since that sentence construction implies that the 40% ethanol is meant not for human consumption, which leads me to think it's inefficient biofuel.
Corn ethanol _is_ an inefficient biofuel. It uses more energy to produce than it generates, but thanks to the federal government there's a mandate to include it in gasoline, so we keep producing it.
Using it as an oxidizer, even at some energy loss, likely makes lots of sense. It's relatively easy to handle, not that nasty, etc.
It's probably not an energy loss though:
http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2016/02/23/a-critical-rev...
(But still not enough of an energy gain to be acting like it is a good energy source)
It's probably not an energy loss though:
http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2016/02/23/a-critical-rev...
(But still not enough of an energy gain to be acting like it is a good energy source)
>Using it as an oxidizer, even at some energy loss, likely makes lots of sense
Ethanol is C2H6O. Two carbons, six hydrogens, one oxygen. Not a lot of oxygen in that molecule. Calling it an oxidizer akin to LOX or N2H4O3 is unusual.
Ethanol is C2H6O. Two carbons, six hydrogens, one oxygen. Not a lot of oxygen in that molecule. Calling it an oxidizer akin to LOX or N2H4O3 is unusual.
Yes, oxygenate is the correct term.
AFAIK the argument is that the CO2 is produces during combustion was captured from the atmosphere while the plant was growing, so it's neutral in terms of CO2 emissions (not taking into account other sources of CO2 emissions during the fabrication of the ethanol).
Fossil fuels on the other end take carbon that was sleeping in the ground and leave it in the atmosphere after combustion.
At least that's what I hear over here in Europe, maybe motivations are different in the US.
Fossil fuels on the other end take carbon that was sleeping in the ground and leave it in the atmosphere after combustion.
At least that's what I hear over here in Europe, maybe motivations are different in the US.
> At least that's what I hear over here in Europe, maybe motivations are different in the US.
The real reason corn-based ethanol is politically supported in the US is because of an artifact of the US federal political process. Iowa is the first state to hold caucuses [1], to a first approximation explanation. This exerts an effect similar to first mover advantage: their outcomes have a disproportionate effect upon other states' primaries [2] (linked article gives a better, more nuanced explanation than a glib "they're first"). Not coincidentally for this topic, Iowa grows a lot of corn [3], the most of any state in the US, and more than all of Mexico combined.
The two major parties are terrified of pissing off Iowa voters who personally depend upon the corn economy in Iowa. So corn-based ethanol stays encrusted into the US federal political landscape, until an Alexander-like politician cuts it in half, Gordian Knot-mythos-like [4]. Either that, or until Iowa's shortsighted monocropping causes them to irretrievably lose their topsoil, and they can't grow anything at scale, and removing the subsidies becomes moot; at the macro scale, they're eroding their topsoil with no end in sight. I SWAG a few more decades before we reach an inflection point, where input costs to prop up poor topsoil corn growing start to negate the subsidies' artificial boost. That's going to really suck for our food supply system, if it comes down to that.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses
[2] https://people.howstuffworks.com/iowa-caucus.htm
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot
The real reason corn-based ethanol is politically supported in the US is because of an artifact of the US federal political process. Iowa is the first state to hold caucuses [1], to a first approximation explanation. This exerts an effect similar to first mover advantage: their outcomes have a disproportionate effect upon other states' primaries [2] (linked article gives a better, more nuanced explanation than a glib "they're first"). Not coincidentally for this topic, Iowa grows a lot of corn [3], the most of any state in the US, and more than all of Mexico combined.
The two major parties are terrified of pissing off Iowa voters who personally depend upon the corn economy in Iowa. So corn-based ethanol stays encrusted into the US federal political landscape, until an Alexander-like politician cuts it in half, Gordian Knot-mythos-like [4]. Either that, or until Iowa's shortsighted monocropping causes them to irretrievably lose their topsoil, and they can't grow anything at scale, and removing the subsidies becomes moot; at the macro scale, they're eroding their topsoil with no end in sight. I SWAG a few more decades before we reach an inflection point, where input costs to prop up poor topsoil corn growing start to negate the subsidies' artificial boost. That's going to really suck for our food supply system, if it comes down to that.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses
[2] https://people.howstuffworks.com/iowa-caucus.htm
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot
But if autarch is right, that it uses more energy to produce then it generates, is that energy to produce it carbon neutral? If not, then using ethanol as fuel is not carbon neutral, because of the carbon of the energy used to produce the ethanol.
It takes a lot of energy to cultivate corn and produce ethanol. Think of all the trucks, tractors, and other machinery involved; and energy-intensive fertilizers like ammonia. In many cases it take's more energy (i.e. fossil fuel energy) than you can recover, and even when there's a net gain it's far too little compared to the alternatives. See vanderZwan's post below.
Please see Wiki about oxygenates in gasoline:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate
Yeah, I still remember the basic laws of thermodynamics ;). If only they taught those in high school too.
Aside: sometimes I wonder if spending some time to teach more advanced concepts of science in more "conceptual" ways wouldn't be a lot more useful for the general public than the current style of education.
You can get a perfectly fine intuition and "first-principle" understanding of laws of nature running the world around you, without ever worrying about calculus, and it's quite useful.
Aside: sometimes I wonder if spending some time to teach more advanced concepts of science in more "conceptual" ways wouldn't be a lot more useful for the general public than the current style of education.
You can get a perfectly fine intuition and "first-principle" understanding of laws of nature running the world around you, without ever worrying about calculus, and it's quite useful.
What do the basic laws of thermodynamics and intuition do to inform you about the EROI of biofuels?
That growing corn and then turning it into ethanol to burn in your cars is unlikely to be sustainable or more energy-efficient than extracting fossil fuels.
Basic matter of thinking in terms of conversion losses. It probably helps to know that currently every calorie produced by Western agriculture costs about ten calories worth of fossil fuels, but still.
EDIT: I realised just now that I took Michael Pollan's word on that 10:1 number without checking it, mea culpa. Quick search on the web gives me this though: http://people.uwplatt.edu/~dalecki/newperspectives.pdf and that graph on the sixth page (or "page 184") does look pretty damning on ethanol as a fuel (I'm making no statements on its qualities as an oxidizer).
Basic matter of thinking in terms of conversion losses. It probably helps to know that currently every calorie produced by Western agriculture costs about ten calories worth of fossil fuels, but still.
EDIT: I realised just now that I took Michael Pollan's word on that 10:1 number without checking it, mea culpa. Quick search on the web gives me this though: http://people.uwplatt.edu/~dalecki/newperspectives.pdf and that graph on the sixth page (or "page 184") does look pretty damning on ethanol as a fuel (I'm making no statements on its qualities as an oxidizer).
"Basic matter of thinking in terms of conversion losses. "
While it is true that Western agriculture uses a lot of fossil fuels, that isn't necessarily the case for all possible models of agriculture.
Plants get their energy from the sun. They don't drink it from a gas pump.
Yeah, there'll be "conversion losses" (i.e., less energy will show up in the plant than was produced by fusion in the core of the sun), but it's hard to see why that matters in any realistic sense.
While it is true that Western agriculture uses a lot of fossil fuels, that isn't necessarily the case for all possible models of agriculture.
Plants get their energy from the sun. They don't drink it from a gas pump.
Yeah, there'll be "conversion losses" (i.e., less energy will show up in the plant than was produced by fusion in the core of the sun), but it's hard to see why that matters in any realistic sense.
Also, conversion losses do matter, because a lot of efficiency calculations cheat by forgetting (or perhaps "forgetting") to include them, as a hidden form of externalising energy costs. For example:
> [If we compare] the thermal efficiencies from modern cooking stoves with those from stoves used in poorer households, we see that the improved biomass stoves in developing countries beat our "high-tech" cooking technology with a factor of two to three (graphic below).
> The main discrepancy with these figures is caused when one doesn't take into account that electricity first needs to be produced in power plants which sometimes convert less than a third of the primary energy into electricity. This is not an issue with gas or biomass stoves, where a primary fuel is directly converted into heat for cooking.
> Evidently, there is something wrong with the western approach to sustainability. Converting heat into electricity which is then converted back into heat, at 20-40% efficiency, is similar to building a Rube Goldberg machine; it's a needlessly complex operation compared to simply converting the primary fuel into heat to boil water. Essentially, any electric cooking device is an insult to the science of thermodynamics.
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-co...
... huh, I guess that's last sentence where I got my thermodynamics remark from.
> [If we compare] the thermal efficiencies from modern cooking stoves with those from stoves used in poorer households, we see that the improved biomass stoves in developing countries beat our "high-tech" cooking technology with a factor of two to three (graphic below).
> The main discrepancy with these figures is caused when one doesn't take into account that electricity first needs to be produced in power plants which sometimes convert less than a third of the primary energy into electricity. This is not an issue with gas or biomass stoves, where a primary fuel is directly converted into heat for cooking.
> Evidently, there is something wrong with the western approach to sustainability. Converting heat into electricity which is then converted back into heat, at 20-40% efficiency, is similar to building a Rube Goldberg machine; it's a needlessly complex operation compared to simply converting the primary fuel into heat to boil water. Essentially, any electric cooking device is an insult to the science of thermodynamics.
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-co...
... huh, I guess that's last sentence where I got my thermodynamics remark from.
"Also, conversion losses do matter"
Not when it comes to the fusion reactions occurring in the sun.
Cooking stoves aren't really relevant here at all, but of course the reason we use these so-called "Rube Goldberg" methods is so that we don't have to go chop wood and then attempt to regulate the temperature of a wood-burning range. If you haven't done that, you (and the author of your linked article) should try it sometime. Hint: it's not easy. Both of my great-grandmothers could bake fancy cakes in a wood-burning oven, to take just one example, but that's a skill I will never have.
Not when it comes to the fusion reactions occurring in the sun.
Cooking stoves aren't really relevant here at all, but of course the reason we use these so-called "Rube Goldberg" methods is so that we don't have to go chop wood and then attempt to regulate the temperature of a wood-burning range. If you haven't done that, you (and the author of your linked article) should try it sometime. Hint: it's not easy. Both of my great-grandmothers could bake fancy cakes in a wood-burning oven, to take just one example, but that's a skill I will never have.
Are you wilfully trying to not see the point I'm making or something? Electric cooking is always sold as more energy efficient than the alternatives, while it turns out that gas is by far the most energy efficient option for Western cooking if you do the actual calculations. And you still don't have to chop your own wood that way.
When it comes to growing corn: of all the sunlight that comes in, how much of that is converted into potential energy by growing corn? How much external energy and resources does it cost to grow corn otherwise? How much energy and resources does it cost to turn that corn into biofuel?
By comparison, how much sunlight can be converted to electricity by photovoltaics? How much of that energy is lost when getting that electricity into an electric vehicle? How much extra overhead do the batteries have compared to fossil fuels due to extra weight, given their lower energy density?
Those are all questions of conversion losses. If you honestly want to say that they are not, or that they don't matter, I would like to know why. Because I do not understand what the comparison with the Sun's generated energy has to do with anything.
When it comes to growing corn: of all the sunlight that comes in, how much of that is converted into potential energy by growing corn? How much external energy and resources does it cost to grow corn otherwise? How much energy and resources does it cost to turn that corn into biofuel?
By comparison, how much sunlight can be converted to electricity by photovoltaics? How much of that energy is lost when getting that electricity into an electric vehicle? How much extra overhead do the batteries have compared to fossil fuels due to extra weight, given their lower energy density?
Those are all questions of conversion losses. If you honestly want to say that they are not, or that they don't matter, I would like to know why. Because I do not understand what the comparison with the Sun's generated energy has to do with anything.
"Are you wilfully trying to not see the point I'm making or something?"
No, I'm pointing out that:
1) "Efficiency" isn't the only goal in life. It would be more "efficient" for the entire population to live in barracks and eat some kind of nutritional gruel for every meal, but few would choose to live that way. We do things "inefficiently" for our convenience and pleasure all the time, and there is nothing wrong with that. For instance, I'll bet you have your own computer rather than using a shared computer at the public library, even though that would be more "efficient".
2) It doesn't really matter how "efficient" the conversion of solar energy to carbohydrate is, because it's free. That matters for other energy inputs in the process (e.g., the gas burned in running tractors) but not the sun itself.
No, I'm pointing out that:
1) "Efficiency" isn't the only goal in life. It would be more "efficient" for the entire population to live in barracks and eat some kind of nutritional gruel for every meal, but few would choose to live that way. We do things "inefficiently" for our convenience and pleasure all the time, and there is nothing wrong with that. For instance, I'll bet you have your own computer rather than using a shared computer at the public library, even though that would be more "efficient".
2) It doesn't really matter how "efficient" the conversion of solar energy to carbohydrate is, because it's free. That matters for other energy inputs in the process (e.g., the gas burned in running tractors) but not the sun itself.
> We do things "inefficiently" for our convenience and pleasure all the time, and there is nothing wrong with that
It is when we are discussing the limits of sustainability and growth, and to deny that is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand.
If you prefer to not think about that and on a personal level keep up the American tradition of wasting tenfold more resources than the rest of the developed world for practically zero gain in quality of life, be my guest, but stay out of conversations about what method of energy production is and isn't sustainable
> It doesn't really matter how "efficient" the conversion of solar energy to carbohydrate is, because it's free.
You are so incredibly blatantly wrong here. It might be free in the sense that nobody owns the sun. It's not free in the sense that we have a limitless supply of it.
In the latter sense, the thermodynamic sense[0], we have a limited amount of solar power to go around. Unless we ever figure out how to build Dyson spheres or something.
Last century's advances are largely built on spending fossil fuels that were basically millions of years worth of stored solar energy, we can't keep wasting more of it forever.
We're on a finite planet, with finite resources, including energy, and an increasing amount of people.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_free_energy
It is when we are discussing the limits of sustainability and growth, and to deny that is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand.
If you prefer to not think about that and on a personal level keep up the American tradition of wasting tenfold more resources than the rest of the developed world for practically zero gain in quality of life, be my guest, but stay out of conversations about what method of energy production is and isn't sustainable
> It doesn't really matter how "efficient" the conversion of solar energy to carbohydrate is, because it's free.
You are so incredibly blatantly wrong here. It might be free in the sense that nobody owns the sun. It's not free in the sense that we have a limitless supply of it.
In the latter sense, the thermodynamic sense[0], we have a limited amount of solar power to go around. Unless we ever figure out how to build Dyson spheres or something.
Last century's advances are largely built on spending fossil fuels that were basically millions of years worth of stored solar energy, we can't keep wasting more of it forever.
We're on a finite planet, with finite resources, including energy, and an increasing amount of people.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_free_energy
"It is when we are discussing the limits of sustainability and growth"
We aren't anywhere near the "limits of sustainability and growth".
"It might be free in the sense that nobody owns the sun. It's not free in the sense that we have a limitless supply of it."
The sun puts out about 1.2×10^34 joules each year. The Earth's total energy production is about 5x10^20 joules. In other words, the sun puts out 24,000,000,000,000 times our total energy production from all sources.
"Limitless"? No. Effectively limitless for practical purposes? Yes.
"We're on a finite planet, with finite resources, including energy, and an increasing amount of people."
1) We're not limited to one planet.
2) Population growth has slowed or stopped in many countries. The "Soylent Green" fears of the 1970s turned out to be utterly baseless, and there is no evidence that they will ever come to pass.
We aren't anywhere near the "limits of sustainability and growth".
"It might be free in the sense that nobody owns the sun. It's not free in the sense that we have a limitless supply of it."
The sun puts out about 1.2×10^34 joules each year. The Earth's total energy production is about 5x10^20 joules. In other words, the sun puts out 24,000,000,000,000 times our total energy production from all sources.
"Limitless"? No. Effectively limitless for practical purposes? Yes.
"We're on a finite planet, with finite resources, including energy, and an increasing amount of people."
1) We're not limited to one planet.
2) Population growth has slowed or stopped in many countries. The "Soylent Green" fears of the 1970s turned out to be utterly baseless, and there is no evidence that they will ever come to pass.
> that isn't necessarily the case for all possible models of agriculture.
No, but then we change the discussion: we were talking about the (in)efficiencies of corn ethanol. Hence my Western agriculture qualifier, because that is the context in which it is generated as a biofuel.
If we look more broadly, then a whole lot of alternatives look a lot better obviously.
No, but then we change the discussion: we were talking about the (in)efficiencies of corn ethanol. Hence my Western agriculture qualifier, because that is the context in which it is generated as a biofuel.
If we look more broadly, then a whole lot of alternatives look a lot better obviously.
The 10:1 likely rolls in animal products and low calorie vegetables, which aren't corn either.
Ah, fair point there. I had not considered that.
This is really cool.
What I'd also like to see is cattle in the US moved off alfalfa and out of feedlots and returned to the range of the buffalo. Migrate a giant herd of cattle across this grass (selectively or early enough it still produces grain) and rebuild the soils of the midwest the way they originally were built. Perennial grass with migratory bovines.
What I'd also like to see is cattle in the US moved off alfalfa and out of feedlots and returned to the range of the buffalo. Migrate a giant herd of cattle across this grass (selectively or early enough it still produces grain) and rebuild the soils of the midwest the way they originally were built. Perennial grass with migratory bovines.
Technology and increased profit have pushed the production of wheat as far as possible without regard to the impact on the environment. If we find a more profitable way to produce this new grain that causes harm, we will pursue it. Just because it doesn't involve tilling [now] doesn't mean it won't be used in an exploitative way later.
If I was a wheat farmer, I'd sign up for sure to try this.
Being a wheat farmer, the lack of a local supply chain would keep me from considering it. Growing it is one thing, but if you don't have anyone to sell the end product to, it is all for not.
This is one reason why I think they need to push the home-growing aspect more. If they can get people introduced to the taste and concept, and it becomes some trendy thing like quinoa, the market for farmers explodes.
I don't know if that's actually viable. I've grown all kinds of veggies, but it'd never occur to me to grow grain. It takes a lot of space, for one thing, but also is difficult to harvest and process on a small scale (i.e. by hand).
Absolutely, it's not easy to process. But if it can be easy to grow like a decorative grass, space is less of an issue as it can be like a decorative grass. And my point is not that Americans will ever grow something like Kernza en masse, but if enough trendsetters do it, there's a greater market for farmers to sell to.
I'd be willing give it a try. But if used in typical decorative grass fashion (small clusters as border accents) it should generate about enough flour to make a muffin or dinner roll every year or so.
Is backyard production of quinoa driving its popularity?
Is backyard production of quinoa driving its popularity?
Probably not on quinoa, I have no idea. But something like Kernza needs a jumpstart to market, and if it is easy to grow in the backyard or in a community plot, that could be a jumpstart.
>more irregular in size than wheat berries
Wheat is one of those plants that humans have mastered. One person can farm thousands of acres of wheat. Generally that's only true of plants that are very uniform and that you wipe out each harvest. It would be very hard to replace it with a plant you can't use the same techniques on as the labor would be 100x probably.
Wheat is one of those plants that humans have mastered. One person can farm thousands of acres of wheat. Generally that's only true of plants that are very uniform and that you wipe out each harvest. It would be very hard to replace it with a plant you can't use the same techniques on as the labor would be 100x probably.
We're on the cusp of an era with an embarrassment of labour, however. This sort of crop might not be useful yet, but heterogeny is going to be a theme when gains to date in informatics and robotics begin to be reflected in mature agricultural technologies.
Kernza is harvested (and planted) with the same equipment that wheat is. Some irregularity isn't going to matter.
As the seeds are much smaller, this may or may not be the case. The article mentions mills not being able to handle the size, but it could also affect other things.
The seeds are huge compared to, say, quinoa, which is also harvested using a regular old combine. My comment wasn't hypothetical. That is how it is harvested already.
Breeding is increasing the size of the grains.
How nutritious is it relative to "the big three"?
I scanned through the article and could find no comparison...
I scanned through the article and could find no comparison...
from TFA: But to make it work, you must navigate a far-reaching system of milling, processing, fermenting, and baking.
as a baker, I wonder how/if this grain could perform in place of actual wheat. fermentation is a major step in almost every bread recipe.
as a baker, I wonder how/if this grain could perform in place of actual wheat. fermentation is a major step in almost every bread recipe.
from what i've read it has more protein but less gluten than flour, so most bakers use a mix of kernza and wheat flours, though it seems you should be able to add pure gluten
Can't wait for unintended consequences, like more dead insects or only aggressive crazy ones remaining, depleted soil, new long-term diseases, changing ecotypes etc. We are simply one big lab these days... Even if we aren't living in a simulation, we are run like a simulation.
The intended consequences seem pretty good though. I think Kernza is worth experimenting with.
Well... yes, that could happen. That's why you start small and scale your way up.
On the other hand, we've already got the unintended consequences of what we're doing, and they aren't all that benign...
On the other hand, we've already got the unintended consequences of what we're doing, and they aren't all that benign...
This is awesome. Tillage is far more harmful to prairie ecosystem diversity than herbicides and pesticides are. So increasingly farmers have been using herbicides and pesticides as an alternative to tillage.
I want to try cooking with this grain!
Also, Birchwood Cafe is great! Worth a visit if you are ever in the Minneapolis area!
Also, Birchwood Cafe is great! Worth a visit if you are ever in the Minneapolis area!
Another advantage, unmentioned in the article, is that it is easily possible to grow Kernza in a backyard with little intervention, and have enough grain to make a loaf of bread a week, or a couple pizza crusts. You need a mill, sure, but hand powered mills are pretty cheap ($50 for one that will work for the amount of Kernza you'll probably grow in your backyard), and in the midwest, your local library might have one to borrow. You might need a specialty mill, I'm not sure, my dad bought one of the heavy $500 hand mills when I was a kid and it had no problem with some Kernza.
I grew up in Salina, where the Land Institute is headquartered, and tangentially know some of the people mentioned in the article, so while I'm not an expert, I am a semi-interested lay person.