"weeds" is such a misnomer in many instances, such as milkweed and dandelions and clover being very important.
Whatever that weed is with the little spikey-ball-nodes that get into your pets hair, or in your laces and socks - that weed sucks - but nature has a balance between insects and "weeds" that we shouldnt be decimating with glyphosate...
Monsanto is more a threat than climate change. Because killing the shade, plants, ecosystem etc will make it compoundedly harder for the general ecosystem (which means food pollination) will be more heavily affected by greater average temps.
> Whatever that weed is with the little spikey-ball-nodes that get into your pets hair, or in your laces and socks
In Scotland it's called "Sticky Willie" which is nowhere near as rude as it sounds.
Its primary function in the ecosystem is providing long thin sticky plants for children or childlike adults to stick to each other's clothing without the victim noticing, and seeing how long it takes them to figure it out.
I found your comment amusing, which is why I vouched for it. Otherwise all your other recent comments seem to be dead for whatever reason, meaning only people like me who have showdead=1 can see them. Just to let you know.
Cockleburrs? They seem to grow well in the US Midwest (at least about 40 miles west of Chicago.) We also get stick-tights which are much smaller.
As for my "lawn", I mow whatever grows at the highest height I can set my mower. No fertilizer, no toxins. Whatever grows is appreciated. Except thistles, cockleburrs and stick-tights. I have a variety of grasses, American violets, clover, ajuga and lots of other stuff. I also pull portulaca and add it to my salads.
Probably as a result of where I grew up (rural southeastern US, 20 miles from the closest population center over 1k people). But I have never considered dandelions to be weeds. Just another interesting plant in the multitude of grasses that made up our 3 acre front yard.
Clover, dandelions, crabgrass, dallisgrass, etc were just part of our yard. We also used it often as grazing for the horses as an alternative to spending hours mowing every few weeks. So any attempt as species control would have been undone by the horse manure anyways.
Dandelions are considered weeds in a botanical sense because they are non-native invasive plants in the United States. Same with clovers, crabgrasses, dallisgrass, and many other common lawn plants.
That's only true for certain species in the Taraxacum genus. There are many Taraxacum and other chicories native to North America which most people would still call "dandelion".
Most popular lawn grasses were created using selective breeding. People will argue about whether they are properly considered native to anywhere, or whether they belong in some third category of man-made organisms.
If you live some place with a winter, you will have a barren patch of dirt then. If you live somewhere with a long, cold, wet fall or early spring, then you hill have a tiny field of mud for the local animals to wallow in.
If you live within throwing distance of a neighbor who does not wish to have a lawn of dandelions, you will be a target of ill feelings for your invasive weed colony.
Lawn grasses have been selected to keep the ground covered and tolerate being walked on and played on. If you don't want to walk on or play on your yard, then there is a wide choice of ground cover that keeps the ground covered all year long and isn't a wildly airborne spreading invasive weed.
To dovetail off the current sibling comment -- what you are describing is still a monoculture.
You could create a beautiful multi species meadow that would cycle through different plants with the seasons. Or you could build vegetable garden beds surrounded by wood mulch. Or use a low lying no-mow ground over.
I'm not sympathetic to the neighbors who might not like it, though. If their yard's ecosystems isn't resilient then that's their problem.
I read that they’re good nitrogen fixers so I left mine this year (they really should be our provincial flower), dead-heading them before the seed puffs appear. I’m also working on a nettle patch in one corner as they are the preferred egg laying spot for certain butterflies.
There are lots of amateur and professional breeders working on improving traditional and non-traditional crops. Some of the what's being improved are considered weeds. My interest is in perennial crops, and there's lots of interesting work happening in this area!
The Experimental Farm Network is a great place to find out about projects and order seeds: https://www.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/. The Kaleidoscope Kale grex is a great one to start with. They look nice in beds with flowers and other ornamental plants too.
Climate change is going to cause people in wealthy countries to rediscover all sorts of foods they would previously have spurned.
I find it interesting that the "famine culture" (eat "everything but the squeak") has survived in chinese cuisine despite the rise in wealth -- perhaps due to the rapidity of the rise.
In any case, the available choices will be different, and probably fewer.
It's all about framing. Lobster was previously a poor person's dish, suitable only for prisoners, slaves, and servants. Servants even made moves to limit the amount of lobster they could be fed. And then it became a luxury food. Kale also became popular thanks to marketing.
It’s fascinating to consider how much of food isn’t part of our diet simply because it doesn’t lend itself to large scale monoculture or has a higher production cost than alternatives.
After all, weeds are only unwanted plants, and ultimately, crops are simply wanted weeds, as they discuss.
The larger point is to bring an agricultural system that is sustainable in the long term (very long term), through the inevitable climate shifts that we know occur reliably and whatever the impact of human "enhancements" turn out to be — and which is looking pretty dramatic these days.
Coming back into balance with nature is critical, and learning to view ourselves not as separate from the earth but part of the big life support system ultimately leads towards a positively focused, sustainable future.
The authors point about this is really worth considering:
> Consequently, most breeders are only evaluating a small percentage of the available germplasm for things like disease resistance or cooking characteristics—not for environmental resilience.
I wonder whether LLMs will assist in this work? It won’t be a commercial opportunity for some time, but it’s critical that we start getting good at cataloging what we have and could create to make the balance work in a pragmatic way.
While the article is about weeds as a genetic library, there’s something to be said for just looking at weeds as potential crops in general.
I’ve lived in the woods three years now, and while I always knew that a lot of wild plants were edible, I had never really appreciated just how many, and how many flavours there are out there that we generally never try. I will often walk from a to b nibbling on various bits and pieces as I go - and yes, I know how to ID, and how to check toxicity so I don’t poison myself.
I’ve also dabbled with bug-eating. Earwigs are a particular favourite - they’re sour and spicy, and dried and ground make an incredible curry paste.
Anyway. Turns out we can eat a lot of stuff just fine.
My friend told me I had weeds in my flower bed and started pulling them up. He was probably right but I had let them stay because they were nicer than the flowers supposed to be there.
Outside of any concerns about the dangers of relying upon a monocrop, what is the most efficient available mechanism capable of feeding humanity using ~today's technology? Soylent green and other options on the table. Science fiction would lead me to believe we could all be fed from vats of yeast.
Potatoes feel really efficient (and according to the Martian, nutritionally complete), but would be happy to hear others. As per the article, the answer is probably in weeds, something like kudzu. Some kind of insect recycling system for protein variety from edible waste also seems appropriate.
Perennial polyculture food forests built from as many species native to the local environment as possible. Processed and preserved nearby using renewable off grid energy sources including cellulosic ethanol produced from organic waste products.
Edit: You can't separate the "concerns about monoculture" from "efficiency" (whether that means outside energy inputs or calorie production or whatever). Every plant/animal species has its own specific advantages, nutrient needs, seasonal cycles, etc. If you use a monoculture then you are necessarily missing out on capturing some advantages (e.g. sunligh) and creating a dependence on outside inputs. Polycultures create a holistic ecosystem that can optimally partition the available sunlight, soil, and water; create mutually beneficial feedback loops, and foster the diverse microbial & pollinator populations necessary to sustain plant life.
For all of 2016, Andrew Taylor ate only potatoes. There were a few caveats to his potato diet: He ate both white potatoes and sweet ones, and sometimes mixed in soymilk, tomato sauce, salt and herbs. He also took B12 supplements. But, overall, he ate potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He took four blood tests over the year which he claims all came back normal. He even lost weight and felt more energized.
The human diet is probably split into several major categories and I think a one size fits all solution is probably not forthcoming.
The first category which makes up the bulk of our diet are caloric cereal crops, or starchy tubers. In the calorie category it's all about getting the most starch out of a given land area. All these permaculture, food forest idealists, conveniently don't talk much about calories. Starch is a pretty simple molecule/polymer, I wouldn't be surprised if we find a way to synthesize it from energy and hydrogen feedstock.
Then there is protein/nitrogen sources, which today are obtained from animal and legume products. Legumes are undoubtedly more efficient than animal products but are unfortunately still pretty heavy land users. My guess is we'll be eating food fortified with precision fermented proteins pretty soon. Some of those proteins will be mixed with soy, and the synthetic starch and used to produce chicken/fish feed.
And then finally there's the third category, vitamin and mineral containing foods (fresh greens, fruits, nuts etc). This is where "weeds" come in. I think in a lot of ways this is already pretty much solved by glasshouse/hydroponic cultivation and is already being practiced on a huge industrial scale.
At the end of the day I don't think there's really a serious risk that climate change completely disrupts modern agriculture. Yes it will cause massive changes to the varieties, techniques, and distribution of what we grow but we'll be able to work around it.
Efficiency is exactly what you don't want. There is a tradeoff between efficiency, minimising some parameter such as effort or water input, and resilience in the face of uncertainty.
If you are "most efficient" you can't withstand even a small drop in the availability of critical inputs, because you are already using the least amount possible.
What we need is diversity, a large repertoire or store-cupboard of things that we know about and can make use of.
I'd encourage folks to think beyond just annuals and diversify into perennials (especially tree crops -- fruits and nuts). In almost every place in the world, except the arctic or highlands, one can grow dozens or even hundreds of species of tree crops.
James[1] C Scott's needs to to do another take on his classics "The Art of Not Being Governed"[2], and "Against the Grain"[3] but for those of us who wanna face the Anthropocene with a full belly.
47 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 100 ms ] threadWhatever that weed is with the little spikey-ball-nodes that get into your pets hair, or in your laces and socks - that weed sucks - but nature has a balance between insects and "weeds" that we shouldnt be decimating with glyphosate...
Monsanto is more a threat than climate change. Because killing the shade, plants, ecosystem etc will make it compoundedly harder for the general ecosystem (which means food pollination) will be more heavily affected by greater average temps.
In Scotland it's called "Sticky Willie" which is nowhere near as rude as it sounds.
Its primary function in the ecosystem is providing long thin sticky plants for children or childlike adults to stick to each other's clothing without the victim noticing, and seeing how long it takes them to figure it out.
It's weird, I've only ever noticed those on the west coast.
As for my "lawn", I mow whatever grows at the highest height I can set my mower. No fertilizer, no toxins. Whatever grows is appreciated. Except thistles, cockleburrs and stick-tights. I have a variety of grasses, American violets, clover, ajuga and lots of other stuff. I also pull portulaca and add it to my salads.
Those are burrs. (also: burweed, burrweed ?)
There is no definitive definition for weed due to the term being location specific.
I read somewhere, dandelions where popular for lawns a century or to ago. Forgot where I saw that.
Clover, dandelions, crabgrass, dallisgrass, etc were just part of our yard. We also used it often as grazing for the horses as an alternative to spending hours mowing every few weeks. So any attempt as species control would have been undone by the horse manure anyways.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=1&subview=...
If you live within throwing distance of a neighbor who does not wish to have a lawn of dandelions, you will be a target of ill feelings for your invasive weed colony.
Lawn grasses have been selected to keep the ground covered and tolerate being walked on and played on. If you don't want to walk on or play on your yard, then there is a wide choice of ground cover that keeps the ground covered all year long and isn't a wildly airborne spreading invasive weed.
You could create a beautiful multi species meadow that would cycle through different plants with the seasons. Or you could build vegetable garden beds surrounded by wood mulch. Or use a low lying no-mow ground over.
I'm not sympathetic to the neighbors who might not like it, though. If their yard's ecosystems isn't resilient then that's their problem.
The Experimental Farm Network is a great place to find out about projects and order seeds: https://www.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/. The Kaleidoscope Kale grex is a great one to start with. They look nice in beds with flowers and other ornamental plants too.
I find it interesting that the "famine culture" (eat "everything but the squeak") has survived in chinese cuisine despite the rise in wealth -- perhaps due to the rapidity of the rise.
In any case, the available choices will be different, and probably fewer.
After all, weeds are only unwanted plants, and ultimately, crops are simply wanted weeds, as they discuss.
The larger point is to bring an agricultural system that is sustainable in the long term (very long term), through the inevitable climate shifts that we know occur reliably and whatever the impact of human "enhancements" turn out to be — and which is looking pretty dramatic these days.
Coming back into balance with nature is critical, and learning to view ourselves not as separate from the earth but part of the big life support system ultimately leads towards a positively focused, sustainable future.
The authors point about this is really worth considering:
> Consequently, most breeders are only evaluating a small percentage of the available germplasm for things like disease resistance or cooking characteristics—not for environmental resilience.
I wonder whether LLMs will assist in this work? It won’t be a commercial opportunity for some time, but it’s critical that we start getting good at cataloging what we have and could create to make the balance work in a pragmatic way.
I’ve lived in the woods three years now, and while I always knew that a lot of wild plants were edible, I had never really appreciated just how many, and how many flavours there are out there that we generally never try. I will often walk from a to b nibbling on various bits and pieces as I go - and yes, I know how to ID, and how to check toxicity so I don’t poison myself.
I’ve also dabbled with bug-eating. Earwigs are a particular favourite - they’re sour and spicy, and dried and ground make an incredible curry paste.
Anyway. Turns out we can eat a lot of stuff just fine.
https://leafforlife.org/gen/reported-edible.html
with just a pincer of salt!
Potatoes feel really efficient (and according to the Martian, nutritionally complete), but would be happy to hear others. As per the article, the answer is probably in weeds, something like kudzu. Some kind of insect recycling system for protein variety from edible waste also seems appropriate.
Edit: You can't separate the "concerns about monoculture" from "efficiency" (whether that means outside energy inputs or calorie production or whatever). Every plant/animal species has its own specific advantages, nutrient needs, seasonal cycles, etc. If you use a monoculture then you are necessarily missing out on capturing some advantages (e.g. sunligh) and creating a dependence on outside inputs. Polycultures create a holistic ecosystem that can optimally partition the available sunlight, soil, and water; create mutually beneficial feedback loops, and foster the diverse microbial & pollinator populations necessary to sustain plant life.
Great to have in a short term famine, but definitely not for surviving long term.
For all of 2016, Andrew Taylor ate only potatoes. There were a few caveats to his potato diet: He ate both white potatoes and sweet ones, and sometimes mixed in soymilk, tomato sauce, salt and herbs. He also took B12 supplements. But, overall, he ate potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He took four blood tests over the year which he claims all came back normal. He even lost weight and felt more energized.
The first category which makes up the bulk of our diet are caloric cereal crops, or starchy tubers. In the calorie category it's all about getting the most starch out of a given land area. All these permaculture, food forest idealists, conveniently don't talk much about calories. Starch is a pretty simple molecule/polymer, I wouldn't be surprised if we find a way to synthesize it from energy and hydrogen feedstock.
Then there is protein/nitrogen sources, which today are obtained from animal and legume products. Legumes are undoubtedly more efficient than animal products but are unfortunately still pretty heavy land users. My guess is we'll be eating food fortified with precision fermented proteins pretty soon. Some of those proteins will be mixed with soy, and the synthetic starch and used to produce chicken/fish feed.
And then finally there's the third category, vitamin and mineral containing foods (fresh greens, fruits, nuts etc). This is where "weeds" come in. I think in a lot of ways this is already pretty much solved by glasshouse/hydroponic cultivation and is already being practiced on a huge industrial scale.
At the end of the day I don't think there's really a serious risk that climate change completely disrupts modern agriculture. Yes it will cause massive changes to the varieties, techniques, and distribution of what we grow but we'll be able to work around it.
Efficiency is exactly what you don't want. There is a tradeoff between efficiency, minimising some parameter such as effort or water input, and resilience in the face of uncertainty.
If you are "most efficient" you can't withstand even a small drop in the availability of critical inputs, because you are already using the least amount possible.
What we need is diversity, a large repertoire or store-cupboard of things that we know about and can make use of.
Check out a few resources:
https://crfg.org/homepage/library/fruitfacts/
https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/index.html
https://oikostreecrops.com/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Not_Being_Governed
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Grain:_A_Deep_Hist...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyzi9GNZFMU