Orion Magazine has a short article about shizen nouhou, or “natural agriculture,” as practiced by a Japanese spiritual group called Shumei. This was founded by a certain Mokichi Okada, who after living through two world wars decided that agriculture could be one of the ways we can learn how to respect life, and thus heal the world. But a special kind of agriculture, involving no inputs at all, lest the land think we no longer trust it. It sounds crazy, I know, but the story of sophisticated Tokyo urbanites reconnecting with the land is rather affecting.
Teaching kids about fungi
Another thing CWR can do
Nitrification is the oxidation of ammonia to nitrite. It’s an important part of the nitrogen cycle and all that, but bad news for agriculture, because up to 70% of applied N fertilizer can be lost to plants this way. There are synthetic nitrification inhibitors out there (e.g. dicyandiamide), but now comes news that a wild relative of wheat is also pretty good at slowing down the process. Researchers have identified the bits of the genome involved in biological nitrification inhibition in Leymus racemosus, and have managed to get them to do their stuff in wheat too. ((Subbarao, G. et al. (2007) Can biological nitrification inhibition (BNI) genes from perennial Leymus racemosus (Triticeae) combat nitrification in wheat farming? Plant Soil 299:55-64.)) Is there nothing crop wild relatives can’t do?
Neolithic explained
Fiber, not food, the reason for agriculture?
Anacardium fossils found in Germany
Cashew’s deep roots.