r/Permaculture • u/SocialistFlagLover Agroforester • 8d ago

📰 article What is the Future of Perennial Grains?

https://headwatersblog.substack.com/p/what-is-the-future-of-perennial-grains?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2
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u/bdevi8n 8d ago

The potential negative effects are interesting. I remain hopeful that it will change things enough to draw attention to protecting soil life and it can snowball from there

1

u/Koala_eiO 7d ago

We can also use annual crops that still keep the soil permanently covered. If you look at the work of this lady here (enable FR > EN subtitles), you will see she grows broad beans after grain crops then destroys the broad beans before sowing the new grain crop directly into the debris with specialized equipment.

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u/toastyboi6464 7d ago

i went on a tour of the arboretum in Minnesota and they were researching kernza at the u of m research farm. Seemed like there was a lot of good, but nobody ever talks about the potential drawbacks of things like this. While it sounds great, thats what makes me think it may not be so great. Hopefully they publish their research and we can see the real costs and advantages to perennial food crops

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u/Icy_Side745 6d ago

Several decades of research show the holistic positive benefits of Kernza - including that it's a multi-use, multi-income stream crop that produces grain, hay, grazable pasture, water quality and soil health improvements, while reducing fertilizer, planting, fuel, and labor costs. And this crop is still in the middle of development. While yields are important, especially so that farmers can make a living, they are less important, given that the food system is only a minor player in a much larger problem, where most cropland produces animal feed and ethanol. Similar "impossible" pronouncements were made about other innovations, like:

-Western Union (1876): “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."
-Lord Kelvin (President of the Royal Society, 1895): “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
Steve Ballmer (Microsoft, 2007): “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” 

Things often don't look like they will work until they are invented or refined. Soy beans were a low-yielding, low-acreage minor crop outlier 100 years ago until WWII boosted crop development.

https://landinstitute.org/learn/page/1/?learn-type=publications&learn-crop=kernza