[Terrapreta] Fwd: PHOTOS ABOUT CATTAIL

[Brian Hans]

I frequent Thailand quite often and live in Wisconsin. T. angustifolia  is in both places, thick. Cattails represent a tremendous annual C and NPK... source that is virtually 100% recycled into CO2 and worse, CH4 and loss of Nutrients down stream (Ocean dead zones). Human fix more N than biology does, and all that P, K digging doesnt just evaporate... there is far too much C and NPK being pumped into our environment. 
   
  I vote that we develop the ability to harvest cattail marshes. I think (as an ecologist) that we can do this with more benefit than damage. A invasive spp. monoculture marsh doesnt offer a whole lot of biodiversity and ecology anyhow except as a kidney. And by removing C and NPK... from the system, we are very much enhancing that filtering capability of the marsh. Farmer gets his C and NPK back for a small price. 
   
  I cant wait for a portable gasifier tractor that can be run like a combine... in my lifetime. 
   
  Brian
   
  Richard Haard <richrd at nas.com> wrote:
  Michael   

  It's a stretch on this list but Ben and I have Been discussing this for over a year in the context of biofuels utilizing the starch in the rhizomes and also reinventing agriculture  by utilizing land considered marginal for purposes of traditional farming and native plants that might become new crops with additional uses for food, fiber and economic endeavor for local farmers. We've been working over this topic on the gasification list but I suppose Ben posted here because we are more oriented to farming/growing plants. 
  

  For me the link to terra preta is the link to agriculture as is / was practiced by native peoples in different parts of the world. In my part of the world a well known ethnobotanist, Dr Nancy Turner, was editor for a book (conference proceedings) titled keeping it living   in which the authors countered the popular supposition that the native peoples of the PNW  were simple hunter gathers and instead they were actively cultivating plants long before contact with the Europeans. 
  

  from the review
  

   Keeping It Living tells the story of traditional plant cultivation practices found from the Oregon coast to Southeast Alaska. It explores tobacco gardens among the Haida and Tlingit, managed camas plots among the Coast Salish of Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia, estuarine root gardens along the central coast of British Columbia, wapato maintenance on the Columbia and Fraser Rivers, and tended berry plots up and down the entire coast.
  

  Especially interesting to me is the fact that the method of cultivation of these native peoples was passive in a natural environment and also that some of the early settlers respected the heritage of these original peoples and as they settled into their places, intermarried, took the effort to learn their methods and uses of native plants. A long time friend of mine now deceased was fourth generation descendant who had kept this knowledge alive. For some time I would interview her on this topic and one story she told me was about her childhood living on San Juan Island during the great depression years and it was their knowledge and use of native plants that kept them alive. 
  

  Perhaps , just like terra preta there is something here that may show us how we are going to be making our energy and food after the oil is gone. 
  

  Thanks for the link to NZ Typha species. There are 4 species in Argentina including the ubiquitous Typha latifolia of North America. 
  

  Rich
    On May 18, 2008, at 2:24 AM, Michael Bailes wrote:

  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Typha~orientalis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattail

Why is it important?
m

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