[Terrapreta] Fwd: PHOTOS ABOUT CATTAIL

[Richard Haard]

There are some other realities.

Seasonally dry fields can be only of marginal use for agriculture  
there may be a period when field is accessible
we grow cattails at our nursery as 1 and 2-0 plants. Starch  
accumulates well in fall roots. Does this also happen in wild  
populations?
Equipment can be adapted. I have suggested a lifter-shaker as is used  
in our bare root nursery, there is also potato digger which in the  
nearby skagit valley works in very mucky soils during winter

lastly floating harvester/dredge can be adapted from system used by  
clam diggers.

Basics on real usefulness of 'wild stands' and mitigating env impacts  
needs to be studied. Strictly biomass for methane production? or  
capturing starch for ETOH ? the former would only require mowing like  
pasture and not digging.

It may be best to set up cultivated stands with plants of uniform age  
at least after initial harvest

On May 20, 2008, at 11:21 AM, Kevin Chisholm wrote:

> Dear Brian
>
> Brian Hans wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Certainly, it would be nice to be able to harvest Cattails, but how  
> can this be done??? The roots tangle together in a most  
> uncooperative manner, such that they need heavy machinery to deal  
> with them. Some people feel that Cattail roots are anchored around  
> the Gates of Hell. :-)
>
> In natural circumstances, they generally seem to grow in bottomless  
> bogs, that are great places to lose heavy machinery. :-)
> What would you suggest as a practical concept for growing and  
> harvesting Cattails?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Kevin
>> 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
>>    <http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/search/books/DEUKEC.html>   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://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Typha%7Eorientalis 
>>> >
>>>
>>>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattail
>>>
>>>    Why is it important?
>>>    m
>>>
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>>
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