[Terrapreta] Fwd: PHOTOS ABOUT CATTAIL

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Richard

Richard Haard wrote:
> 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. 

I don't know thew terminology, but I presume this is for 1 and two 
plants in separate clumps. If so, then this would be very much easire to 
hargest than would be a tangled mat.
> Starch accumulates well in fall roots. Does this also happen in wild 
> populations?

I am not sure, but I believe it does; the plants store energy and 
nutrients so that tehy can come back to life after teh dormancy season.

> 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

Certainly, equipment can be adapted. In teh case where teh land has a 
"dry season" where it can be traversed, or in teh case where there is a 
"hard bottom, beyond which teh machine won't sink, harvesting should not 
be overly difficult.
>
> lastly floating harvester/dredge can be adapted from system used by 
> clam diggers.

The problem here would be the forces involved. Big forces = big buoyancy 
requirements = big machinery, or the need for a hard bottom, to support 
"spuds" that will take the digging load.
>
> 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.

As I understand it, the starch is stored in the root system, and the 
"above ground" growth is mainly cellulostic. There are probably cheaper 
sources of cellulostic biomass in areas where cattail biomass grows.
>
> It may be best to set up cultivated stands with plants of uniform age 
> at least after initial harvest.

I get very discouraged at the potential for Cattail Harvest when I see 
the entanglement in local bogs with deep soft bottoms. However, there 
may very well be an opportunity for "Cattail Plantations" that are laid 
out in ways to permit easy harvesting, and perhaps they can be 
harvested  in a manner that makes regrowth and subsequent  harvesting 
easier. For example,  perhaps a  "strip harvest pattern" would make it 
easy for subsequent harvests.... the strips to be harvested would have 
"weak strips" on both sides, and they may be much more readily harvested.

Perhaps "wild cattail harvesting" is a loser, but that a Cattail 
Plantation that was part of a municipal sewage treatment system could 
make enormous good sense, both environmentally and economically. From 
what I understand, a Cattail Plantation could make an excellent Tertiary 
Sewage Treatment Plant.

Best wishes,

Kevin
>
> 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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>>
>>
>
>