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MLT Newsletter

Fall 1989


It's been an unusual Fall. The sunny days and splendid colors quickly gave way to early snows. Then came a thaw and a slew of warm days followed by heavier snows and another thaw. High and low temperature records  were broken as the days of the weeks teetered between bluster and balm.

I don't want to read too much into the fickle weather, but I never know what to expect from one day to the next.  That makes it difficult to keep a path clear from the mudroom to the kitchen.   There the threshold is littered with boots, parkas, tennis shoes, mittens, mukluks, windbreakers, watch caps, garden gloves and sweaters as my family may need any of this stuff at a moment's notice.

The only constant these days is too little sunlight and too much darkness.   The  chickens haven't  been  laying for  three weeks. They just  stand around and  get fat  on table  scraps and  layer mash.  I really should think about running a couple of lights out to the coop.  Meanwhile, I'll stew some hens.



LAND TRUST FARM NEWS

1989 was quite a successful and productive year at the Land Trust Farm.  The alfalfa fields did well in hay.  The  new quarter acre semi-circle garden of freshly  bulldozed ground around the new pond yielded bountifully  in sweet corn, melons, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables.  Only the potatoes failed to come up.

The farm is proceeding well in its successional path in permaculture.  Structures such as windbreaks, pond systems, and a greenhouse are established and improving with time.   New  tree canopies are starting to take shape in areas previously open.

To review, much work has been done in Zones I and II through plantings and construction and the work continues.   In outlying areas, trees and shrubs have been consciously planted in marginal soils as beginnings of broad scale multi-story tree crop systems. These areas add up to nearly two acres of what was formerly erodible or dry land.

The coming year will see many new plantings.   These are to include currants, blueberries, grapes, and other trees and shrubs already propagated from cuttings in the greenhouse.    Other plantings include 200 filberts to utilize the north-facing edge along the south property line. More honey locusts will also be planted in the broad scale permaculture areas.

Additional developments include a solar hot water system and solar-electric fencing  along property lines  for fall grazing.

Today, with our first snow and  the harvest just about completed, it's time to "throw another log on the fire" and think about that winter forage system for the cattle; or maybe I should really think about cutting some firewood.

-Jonathon Towne, Co-manager,
Land Trust Farm


THE FORESTS OF BABYLON
-Michael Straka

The most urgent world crisis is the ruin of the Earth's environment,  and at the heart of the crisis is the plight of world's forests.  I have never been to Brazil and have never been in a tropical rain forest, yet I helped to organize the Seattle Rainforest Action Group because the tropical rain forests are among the last wild places  and, arguably, the most ecologically critical.

And what of our forests?    Every time I am in the Cascade Mountains my eyes see the beauty and the  pain—forested lush mountains and stumpy eroded clearcuts.   What can we do?   Write letters,  call congress people, give money to a canvasser, monkey wrench, cry, or simply ignore it all?  A meditation teacher once told  me that prayers are more powerful than bombs; but I still look out for myself and put a kryptonite lock around my bicycle. Likewise, we cannot merely give lip service to the notion of protecting the forests.  Certainly, the Brazilians and Malaysians must reverse their assaults upon the forests.  At the same time, the clearcutting of the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest must stop if this whole business of saving forests is to move beyond  the temporal and into the manifested.   Brazil still retains over 80% of its original forests while the continental United States is more than 95% cut.  Who's the chimney and who's smoking?   All of us must suck up our guts  and make serious lifestyle changes that will have tremendous reverberations around the world.   Instead of the pot calling the kettle black, we must challenge other nations to do as we do and not as we say.

On  a  recent trip  to the  United  Nations, a  Brazilian senator rebutted criticisms of his country's  forest management by citing the clear-felling of the temperate forests of Oregon.  As I write this,  our senate  has just  passed legislation that disallows judicial review of timber sales.   Now the Forest Service will be selling  10 billion board  feet of timber in the next 14 months regardless of the presence of endangered plant and animal species.  The corporate greed that will soon make stumps, sawdust and ashes out of our national  forests is no different than that which is laying waste to th tropical forests.  I ask you now to consider the impact of a  massive letter-writing campaign by Asians and Europeans to the United States Forest Service asking them to stop the senseless obliteration of America's last stand of old growth.  Would such an effort change government policies? And when US citizens are prohibited from using courts of law to challenge the forest industry,  it is  ludicrous to expect the prime minister of Sarawak to drop charges against tribal people arrested for blocking logging roads on their homeland.

Americans are five percent of the world's population, yet we consume well over 50 percent of the world's  resources.   As environmentalists point fingers at Brazil for burning 30,000 square miles of rainforest in 1987 and spewing over 500 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere,  the combustion of fossil fuels in America during that same year contributed more than one billion  tons of carbon into  the atmosphere.  Scientists believe that the excess carbon in our atmosphere is leading to the warming of the planet—the greenhouse  effect—that will melt the polar ice caps, flood coastal cities, displace millions of people, and disrupt planetary weather patterns in ways we can only speculate.

Many people, when asked about their concerns for the environment, will respond that yes, they are for protecting  the environment, "up to a point".  All too often that point is only near the end of their noses. It's easy to make the stepchild third world nations--where the vast majority of tropical rain forests exist-- the villains as we edge to the brink of techno-doom.   The real challenge for most Americans, Japanese,  and  Europeans is in reducing their own consumption of energy and resources.  How many people do you know who are willing to have less income and fewer possessions if it means a cleaner environment?  The  dismal realization is that soon there will be no choice.

The environmental crisis affects us all.  Capitalists and socialists are all part of the problem, and all are part of the solution.  From the frigid climes of Antarctica to the forests of Central America to the flood plains of the  Mississippi River, pollution and ecologic decay are rampant across every continent. The unchecked global  economy that prevents the superpowers from fighting each other in World War IV is the fuel feeding the fires consuming the forests in what is now World War III:   the war against nature.   Progress, profits and greed are our security, and the third world wants that security which we've always enjoyed.  I shudder to think of a billion Chinese suddenly liberated by democracy as we know it and driving their cars to McDonalds for  styrofoam wrapped burgers.   Sorry folks, but the can't go on like this.

So what about our own forests?   The question still floats around me and nudges against the neon lights above  me.   Stay tuned America.  This is no re-run of the 60's.   We know that tomorrow will not be like today.   There will be billions of more people. There will be more pollution of the air and water while we intend to spend a trillion  dollars on stealth bombers.  And it will be more difficult to get away for a weekend because someone else has already gotten there.    (Editor's  Note:  Former Kalamazoo resident, Michael Straka is an activist living and working in Seattle.  This January he will be a part of a field expedition that will travel to southern  Chile to study the temperate forests).

THE CONCEPT OF PERENNIAL POLYCULTURE AT THE LAND INSTITUTE
-Caton Gauthier

In February  of 1989, I traveled west in an old black Buick, leaving behind several layers of iced-over  snow and a -20 degree windchill in central Illinois.   Headed towards Salina, Kansas, I was about to meet Wes Jackson and  begin a 10-month internship at the Land  Institute, a  private research and educational organization devoted to sustainable agriculture, founded by Wes and his spouse, Dana.  Driving down 1-70, having crossed the Mississippi River, I reached the Kansas  border.  In the  three-and-a-half hour drive from Kansas City,  Kansas, to Salina, I got an introduction to the State's topography.    The view was expansive, the sky immense, and the hills gently rolling.   At sunset, I passed through the Flint  Hills, which were dotted with small juniper trees accenting the brilliant pink sky.  Those tiny juniper trees were virtually the only woody vegetation I had seen since I  crossed the Kansas-Missouri  border.  Wheat and sorghum stubble peered above the light snow cover on rolling fields while cattle grazed the virgin prairie grasses on steeper slopes.

My first observations of Kansas  topography and vegetation turned out to be important ones for  understanding the principles of the Land Institute's  research:   to develop a  seed producing agricultural system that mimics  native vegetation.   The Land Institute recognizes that the prairie has evolved over centuries of harsh climatical conditions including heavy winds, low annual precipitation, and short heavy downpours when the rain does come. The landscape has evolved with large grazers such as bison, deer, and elk, and both human-caused and naturally occurring fires.  As a result, the native prairie has developed characteristics which can endure these   conditions while remaining stable and productive.

LOOKING AT THE PRAIRIE

Most of  the plants  on the  prairie are  perennials—plants that grow for many years, as do trees,  rather than for a single year, such as corn.  Perennialism allows roots to develop extensively— both vertically to  reach the water table deep below the soil's surface and laterally to anchor plants and soil, holding them in place during harsh winds and downpours.

Plants on the  prairie grow in  a polyculture consisting of many species rather than as a single species.  A polyculture allows the ecosystem to maximize the use of nature's resources (e.g. the sun, moisture and soil   nutrients) both spatially and temporally.  About 50 to 80 percent of the prairie's  aboveground vegetation is warm season tall or mid-grasses.   The mid-grasses tend to be more drought tolerant than the tall grasses, but these warm season grasses hold the common characteristic of thriving in the hot, dry  summer months.   The native grazers, bison,  prefer warm season  grasses whereas the introduced grazers, cattle, prefer cool season grasses.

Cool season grasses take advantage of moisture and cooler temperatures for vegetative growth and reproduction.  They are active both in Spring and Fall,  and are less vigorous (sometimes even dormant) during the summer months.  Cool season grasses only comprise 5 to 15 percent of the total aboveground biomass and utilize sun, moisture and nutrients when tall grasses are still dormant.

The non-grass forbs also show great variation in their utilization of nature's resources.  In the Springtime, there are an array of wildflowers.   These plants start flowering in the Spring before vigorous warm season grasses  can shade them.  Long taproots allow forbs to utilize resources which grass roots cannot reach.  Taproots bring nutrients to the soil's surface via leaf and root decomposition.   Individual species may also have further specialized characteristics which allow them to enhance the fertility of the ecosystem.  For example, some legumes have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria called rhizobium.  The rhizobium not only benefit the host directly with nitrogen contribution but enhance the nitrogen level in the soil indirectly as leaves and roots of host plants decompose.   Also, the symbiotic relationship between mycorrhizae (a  fungus which grows in and around roots) and warm season grasses produce phosphorus cycling.

APPLYING NATURE'S PRINCIPLES

The Land Institute's work centers around understanding the native prairie ecosystem.  Several plants have  been selected for their ability to produce large quantities of seed and for the ecological niches they fill.   Currently, research is focused on four  species, three which are wild species:   Illinois bundle flower (Desmanthus illinoensis), Eastern gamma grass (Tripsacum dactIpides)  and leymus  (Leymus racemosus), and  one domestic annual, sorghum, which is being crossed with a weedy relative to produce a perennial sorghum. Illinois bundle  flower, a nitrogen-fixing  legume; Eastern gamma grass, a warm season grass; and leymus, a cool season grass, are grown in monocultures and together in  a triculture to monitor seed yields.   We would expect these plants to be more productive growing in a triculture since the three species utilize resources for reproduction at different times.  In a monoculture, all the plants in a plot compete for the same resources at the same time.  In the second year of the triculture study (1988), yields were compatible to yields of the same  plants grown in monoculture the same year (Gibans, 1988).  This study is to continue for a total of five years to indicate whether or not yields in polyculture are better than yields of monocultures.

In the sorghum breeding program, domesticated sorghum is crossed with a perennial weedy  relative, Johnson grass, with the  aim of creating a perennial grain sorghum.  Cultivated sorghum normally does not cross  with Johnson grass in the field  due to differing chromosome numbers.   Normal sorghum is diploid (having  two sets of chromosomes) but with culticene (a plant  hormone) treatment, chromosomes can be doubled to produce  tetraploid plants  (four sets of chromosomes).  Tetraploid sorghum is crossed with Johnson grass to  produce fertile  offspring, called  the Fl  generation. The Fl  generation has  intermediate seedhead,  leaf and rooting characteristics.  This year, the Fl generation was backcrossed to the cultivated sorghum  parent with  the objective of  increasing seed  size and decreasing the vigor  of the rhizomes (underground stems), a characteristic inherited from the Johnson grass parent. Rhizomes are the  root-like structures which allow  Johnson grass to overwinter.   However,  the  rhizomes  are so  vigorous  that Johnson grass is  considered a highly undesirable,  noxious weed. Plant  breeders  at  the  Land  Institute  wish  to  capture  the overwintering characteristic without creating a new noxious weed. Hopefully, backcrossing with  the sorghum  parent will reach the objective of reducing rhizome vigor.   The sorghum breeding program is performed in greenhouse  isolation to prevent weed infestation in the surrounding environment.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER

Growing perennial plants for seed production makes a lot of sense when looking  to a future of diminishing petroleum supply, global warming and  soil erosion.  With perennial grain crops, fields would be plowed less often and would require little to no irrigation.  By growing species which are adapted to their environment in a polyculture, the agroecosytem would be better able to withstand diseases and insects without the addition of petroleum-based pesticides.  But there are still many questions that have to be answered before the Land Institute's proposed perennial polyculture will be successful.

Perennial polyculture research for seed production is a long process, especially when working with wild plants.
Wes Jackson predicts that it will take at least 50 years to develop a system that can be used by farmers.

Reference

Gibans, Beth.  1988 (To be published in 1989, title unknown) The Land Institute Research Report.

More information on Land Institute research can be  obtained from Land Institute Research  Reports for 1986,  1987 and 1988.   They can be requested by writing to: The Land Institute, 2440 E. Water Well Rd., Salina  KS 67401.

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