[PrairieMule]

I just got back from a conference on cattle and pasture management and I am a bit disturbed. Over the three days eight different professors of agriculture from Texas A&M discussed methods of optimizing pasture growth and management with soil supplements, herbicides and mad made agriculture products. Well they don't seem very focused on some of the potential ramifications of peak oil. It's like they assume we will always have access to things like potassium, boron, 240D herbicide, veterinary grade antibiotics and such. Just load up a ton of magic dust on delivery truck and have it delivered to be spread it on your fields.

Same thing with polywire electric fences. The wonder tool made of synthetics that will replace the barb wife fence, or at least 8 years until the plastics degrade from sunlight.

Perhaps the men of science had too much faith in Ethanol alternatives to diffuse our addiction to cheap abundant energy and other petroleum based products? I say that because that was their response to the rising costs of energy inputs-Ethanol. I did pipe up about the EROEI and lack of infrastructure with corn Ethanol but it did not exactly start a roaring debate.

Don't get me wrong these were extremely intelligent people in the methods and ways of agriculture. To their credit they did mention several low tech growth strategies as alternatives for optimizining plant growth, weed control, soil chemistry. Honestly I was a little intimidated to point out the possibility that in the next five years the emperor will not be wearing any clothes-or at least synthetically based clothes.

On the flip side-Brother, have you heard the good news about Tifton 85 bermuda grass?.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', '
') I did pipe up about the EROEI and lack of infrastructure with corn Ethanol but it did not exactly start a roaring debate.

[Daculling]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'T')he problem I see is that farming is so dependent on modern methods and I have to wonder how anyone could make a go of it if they have nothing coming in from the outside.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', ' ')It's like they assume we will always have access to things like potassium, boron, 240D herbicide, veterinary grade antibiotics and such. Just load up a ton of magic dust on delivery truck and have it delivered to be spread it on your fields.

[PenultimateManStanding]

It might be best to be some loner in the swamps somewhere trapping, if that's what you mean by subsistence. But as I was suggesting above, it will be by government having monopoly control over fertilizer, fuel, and supplies that farmers will be brought to heel. They won't have to shoot them. They might get to keep their 'titles' but it will be a fictitious title. They will receive emergency instructions and do as they are instructed. Maybe some will be arrested, but most will cooperate because of 'patriotism' and an intensive propaganda campaign. It's going to be an intense national emergency. Before "Big Government" collapses as Kunstler imagines will happen, there will be an all-out effort to consolidate emergency powers. It's only natural of course, that's where the population will look for answers.

[killJOY]

I'm assuming you went there for professional reasons?

Otherwise...WHY? I'd rather choke on my vomit than listen to such "experts."

The people who built and survived for two hundred years in Maine in the house I live in raised animals without attending a single goddamn professional conference in their lives. They just worked.

CATTLE EAT GRASS.

SHIT MAKES GRASS GROW.

SOME GRASS NEEDS TO BE CUT AND DRIED FOR WINTER.

WINTER SHIT PILE GETS SPREAD WHEN GROUND IS DRY.

We've just learned by doing here, and, granted, we're not rich, but we get a little milk every day.

This society is so infatuated on its own complexity that there are always fifty thousand conferences that try to intimidate you into thinking I CAN'T BE A FARMER! I DON'T HAVE A PHD!


The only PhD you need is PILED HIGH (and) DEEP in the spring time.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrairieMule', ' ')It's like they assume we will always have access to things like potassium, boron, 240D herbicide, veterinary grade antibiotics and such. Just load up a ton of magic dust on delivery truck and have it delivered to be spread it on your fields.

[Chaparral]

I've sort of run into the same thing. People pay lip service to "organic" and "free range" and "IPM" and all that but at the end, whatever they propose depends on all those PVC. polyethylene sheeting, herbicides, tractors and cheap transportation, huge inital inputs of soil amendment etc. Somehow, they just don't get the big picture.

If nat gas goes off the cliff, I have a hard time seeing how the gov't will be able to seize farmland for food prod'n for the masses. The land will be exhausted and won't produce crap in the absence of that cheap n' easy inorganic N. Those command n' control plutocrats seem too fixated on their own machinations and worldviews to realize the utter all-encompassing enormity of whats coming. It's not just the oil.

The only thing I could see doable with your average worked over row crop land is to start planting up cover crops and N-fixers in preparation for a return to the old days.....or should I say, the new days as envisioned by Bill Mollison and others. That is assuming you can pour money into a field for 5 to 7 years min before really getting anything out of it. I'm not looking forward to the financial prospects of trying to rehab a spare 20 acres or so.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Chaparral', '
')If nat gas goes off the cliff, I have a hard time seeing how the gov't will be able to seize farmland for food prod'n for the masses. The land will be exhausted and won't produce crap in the absence of that cheap n' easy inorganic N. Those command n' control plutocrats seem too fixated on their own machinations and worldviews to realize the utter all-encompassing enormity of whats coming. It's not just the oil.

[PrairieMule]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', '
')CATTLE EAT GRASS.

SHIT MAKES GRASS GROW.

SOME GRASS NEEDS TO BE CUT AND DRIED FOR WINTER.

WINTER SHIT PILE GETS SPREAD WHEN GROUND IS DRY.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daculling', '.')..If you only need to feed yourself you need not worry. It's call subsistance. Forget about making money...

[PrairieMule]

Chapparal,

If you mean Nitrogen based fertilizer, I agree. No way is any farmer or rancher going to call up and ask for a ton to be delivered if gas is $5 plus a gallon or if as you say the natural gas markets go nuts like you can today.

It may end up like PMS said, fertilizer distribution controlled by the goverment (USDA or homeland security?).

[Daculling]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daculling', '.')..If you only need to feed yourself you need not worry. It's call subsistance. Forget about making money...

[Chaparral]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '.')..and devote all your energy to concentrating on holding off the hordes of hungry former city dwellers who will endlessly be trying to overrun you and take whatever foodstuffs they can glean from your land.

[pea-jay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ne of the possible business strategies I've been mulling over is the rehabilitation of abused row crop land followed by the subdividing of it into smaller parcels that would fit the scale of permaculture enterprises. A LLC could be formed and the participants could pony up $ or sweat equity to buy in or sell out. The plutocrats could get behind that idea if there was something in it for them