Travel II

"From the time I was a child I have been an inquisitive doubter. I needed to feel it, taste it, hear it, try it when it came to anything others tried to tell describe to me. An example is that I could intellectually accept that the Holocaust was real and evil. But, standing in Nuremberg, on Hitler's parade grounds, in front of the reviewing stand, on a windswept, dreary day in November, I could FEEL the evil that permeated the place.


It is a shame that all American kids don't have the opportunity to visit Gettysburg and Arlington to see and feel what sacrifice and honor is.

Seeing pictures of the Mona Lisa in a coffee table book, I can appreciate its mystery and beauty. Seeing it in person at the Louve you FEEL her eyes. You see the texture of the paint.

I didn't want my world view to be filtered through the perception and biases of journalists or politicians. I SAW and felt poverty in Haiti. We are so naive in America. Our pets eat and sleep better than most of the world's children. Americans have no concept of poverty. You will never convince me that we have poverty in America despite what the journalists and political folks want us to believe.

Compared to the wealthy in America, you could agree there are less fortunate people here but poverty? It's almost laughable when you compare what we think of as poverty to the world's standards.

I have sought medical treatment in Canada while traveling. Our leaders would have you believe that any system of socialized medicine is sub par and access is limited. Their system was just fine.

We are being routed through Dubai on our return flight next month. For five hours (not much time I admit) I will see first hand what it is like to be woman in a Muslim country. I will be able to experience for myself and make my own opinion, not that of some journalist or writer with a political agenda.

I am not saying that travel is the only way to broaden one's horizon, and I feel sincerely blessed to go where I've been, but I will say I was motivated to go looking for myself because I was tired of the small mindedness of people who had an opinion about everything and everyone and had barely left their home county, much less their state or country . They speak with such authority yet their authority is derived from second or third hand knowledge.

Several in my birth family members are those I describe above. It never occurs to them to seek knowledge on their own. Maybe they are afraid of something besides the plane ride?

Ed.

Sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia) - Healthy or Holy

Ed's post about alfalfa just started a war on legumes!
More seriously, it reminded me of how sainfoin was one of the predominant legumes before horses gave way to tractors and alfalfa replaced it altogether in European countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Poland and most of Eastern Europe.

The name "sainfoin" comes from the French "sain" (healthy) and "foin" (hay), probably from the Latin name of the look-alike but smaller alfalfa, "medicago" (same root as medicate). Sainfoin makes the most palatable hay for livestock, is a non-bloating legume, and also fights intestinal nematode parasites, so the name gets confused at times with "saint foin", or holy hay.

Sainfoin is mostly pollinated by honey bees, although the whole range of pollinating bees and other insects will gather its nectar. Sainfoin honey is delicate, great for toast, herbal tea and baking, but is becoming rarer as growing sainfoin is also declining worldwide. Sainfoin honey is very clear and liquid on harvesting, and becomes white with yellowish strikes upon crystallizing.

There are two main kinds of sainfoin, the most common comes from the Middle East and is being grown as a biennial or triennial, allowing up to 2 crops of hay or even seeds (and honey) per year. The original species lasts up to 5-6 years but allows only one hay crop per year. So it is no wonder that the more productive alfalfa has replaced it in modern agriculture.

Sainfoin is planted at 35-45 pounds of husked seeds per acre on finely leveled ground in spring or end of autumn, or 125-145 pounds if using the one-seeded pods whole. The pivot roots grows as far as 15-20 feet deep, with numerous lateral roots. The seeds require a special inoculant. The rhizobia growing on sainfoin roots are much more diverse than the ones on cultivated alfalfa or clover, and have not been studied much to this day. Eventually it all resolves into producing more nitrogen, but I can't help comparing it to feeding the soil with whole wheat as opposed to white flour. Talking of wheat, sainfoin works great in a rotation with small grain cereals. Or, as was the usage for the common single crop variety, together with wheat, oats or barley planted in spring, so it could grow slowly under the protection of these cereals for the beginning of the season.

As hay, sainfoin is either grown alone, or mixed with other grasses such as fescue. It adapts to more types of soils (especially dry land)  than alfalfa or clover, except for stagnant water, and can be cut at different stages of growth, offering a longer harvesting period which can be helpful in case of detrimental weather. The finest hay should be harvested just before first flowering. The regrowth is harvested too but is usually a bit coarser, while still very palatable to horses and cattle or goats because of its sweetness. One acre of sainfoin produces 7,00 pounds of hay dry matter on non-irrigated, over 8,000 pounds on irrigated ground according to Montana MSU, about 80-90% of alfalfa yield over 2 crops per season. Cultivar WL320 reached over 11,000 pounds in Oregon with 3 crops per season. In Montana and the Western Plains, sainfoin is often harvested only once, the regrowth  is used for direct grazing. Some great pictures of 300 acres of sainfoin in Idaho here.

For seed production, as with wild rice, all seeds are not mature at the same time, so a middle point must be chosen to maximize the number of seeds harvested. The green seeds will continue maturing as they dry and will be just as viable as the mature ones. Until such a time as sainfoin becomes as important as the so-called cultivated "wild rice", which is now a GMO plant at 100%, with the gene that makes all its seeds mature simultaneously. In case you thought that the brown-black wild rice seeds in your rice mix were still harvested 3 times by shaking the uncut stems over the bottom of their kayaks by Native Americans... The seed must be kept very dry, especially at the beginning, as it has a strong tendency to ferment before it dries out. So, long flat beds work better than heaps. Yield reaches up to 1,000 pounds per irrigated acre.

Sainfoin has been cultivated in Europe since the Middle Ages, and after nearing extinction in the recent period, currently experiences a rebirth thanks to pelletization, which allows the more costly to grow sainfoin to be sold at higher valued prices. A lot of the original biodiversity of sainfoin, whose orchis-like flowers range from light pink to bright purple, has probably been lost already: Only 3 cultivars were (and are) still present on the seed catalogs in France when interest in sainfoin resurfaced, but new ones have started to be marketed in the U.S. after a break of over 25 years.

Its antiparasital role also contributed to the recent interest in sainfoin, and seems to be caused by the tannins present in its hay, which deters nematodes from reproducing in the guts of livestock. Regions traditionally known for their sainfoin honey have mostly moved since to rapeseed honey, but are trying to recover this sainfoin specificity setting up controlled flower origin labels for honey.
Dioscorides, Galen and Pliny mention sainfoin as a medicinal herb with leaves that are fortifying, resolutives, diaphoretic and diuretic, whatever the 2 middle ones mean! ;)

Another old French name for sainfoin is "esparcette", from the Provencal esparceto (meaning "spread out"), which gave the current German, Danish, Finnish and Spanish names for it. Still, not as funny as the Spanish "pipirigallo" (I assume because chickens love the seed) or the Hungarian "Takarmánybaltacim", or even the Latin name "Onobrychis" which basically means "assnip", making donkeys as raving mad for it as cats for catnip.

Chimel.

P.S. Had to remove quite a few anonymous spam posts, the ransom of Ed blog's success...  ;)

The Origin, Distribution and Naming of Alfalfa

This is especially for my friend Bill.  I found this in my old college notes of 1969.  Dr. Paul Henderlong was my Forages 412 instructor.


Alfishfisah, probably close to the Arabic word for "mother of crops," can arguably be called the world's most important forage crop.  This crop was the first to be and is the most widely domesticated, with references tracing back to the first attempts of man to sustain himself with agriculture.  The reference we have dated back to the Hittite tablets, 3,300 years ago.  It is by chance that alfa is the Number One letter in the Greek alphabet?  Many countries in West Asia still call the crop alfa-alfa.

In an evolutionary sense, alfalfa is almost indestructible, making it well adapted to extremely varying climates and usages.  Its origins are thought be in in ancient Media, which is in the NW corner of modern day Iran or Persia.  A second center of diversity is probably Turkestan, in Central Asia.  The Media types evolved under pronounced continental conditions, hot and dry summers with cold  winters.  This is how it got its persistence.  Several types currently found in North America are most likely derived from these, having gained adaptability to arid and hot climates or non-dormant.

The Turkestan types evolved under milder winter conditions.  Because agriculture, and especially irrigated agriculture, has been practiced here for as long as history records go, the types evolved with their own characteristics and resistance to diseases and insects.  A third origin of modern day alfalfa is from a hybrid between Medicago Sativa and the yellow flowered M. falcata, called M. varia.  The M. falcata types evolved under extreme cold conditions in the area from Siberia to the Black Sea and the Himalayas(winter hardiness.)

The Persian origin of alfalfa also explains the taxonomic identification as Medicago or plant from Media.  The word medicine most likely derived from the plants of Media, used by the ancient Persians, and other tribes who gathered on the Mesopotamian Plains to cure illnesses.  In Italy, alfalfa is still widely called "erba medica," almost literally "medicinal herb."  The species name of Sativa is perhaps derived from the Latin for overabundance, for its ability to provide fantastic yields of green forage.  Perhaps this explanation is wishful thinking.

When the Persian Empire extended its influence into Greece around 500 BC, alfalfa was brought along as fodder or forage for horses.  From here it was taken through Italy into central Switzerland.  Alfalfa was particularly adapted to the calcareous soils around Lake Lucerne, thus the name lucerne for this crop in Europe, except Spain and Portugal.  The biggest expansion of the crop was the the Moors, travelling from present day Turkey through Northern Africa into Spain and Portugal around 700-800 AD.  When the early Spanish explorers ventured with their horses in to the New World, they brought the crop called alfalfa with them.  Alfalfa proliferated in Argentina, Chile and Peru, and was brought into Northern Mexico and California by the Jesuit Priests and Conquistadors around 1800.

About the same time alfalfa was moving westward into Italy at the beginning of the Christian Era, alfalfa was also establishing itself in the east.  Early Chinese Emperors found the crop well suited for fodder and forage for their herds in Northern China.

About 100 years before alfalfa was brought to the United States via the Spanish South American route, the crop was brought into the New World by early British and French explorers.  They introduced it to the East Coast of the US and Australia and New Zealand.  It was called Lucerne here because of its European introduction.

I will finish this story in the future.

Ed Winkle

P.S. by Chimel: I think I finished the story already by publishing Part II before noticing this Part I was not published yet...  ;)
P.P.S. Lucerne or luzerne in French comes from the Provencal luzerno for the glow-worm, because of the shiny seeds.

Awesome Radish

We saw some awesome radish this week, some of the most interesting I have ever seen.  My friend took 149 different cultivars or varieties from the world seedbanks and planted them.  They selected 19 out of that bunch they wanted to look at.  I saw radish that I think will grow twice as fast and twice as big in the fall as the ones we plant at home now.  I saw one with more branches on it than I have ever seen and a massive, massive root system.  We need to find another specie or two to plant with the radish and the grass like rye to kick the biology up another notch.

This thing is advancing quickly thanks to work like this.  The future looks very exciting.  I see now I have not nearly explored the soil biology as much as I can.  We have barely scratched the surface.

We are on the north coast town of Whakatane New Zealand at the moment and I stopped at the local library to check my email.  I better go find my companions as it will soon be time to meet again after a little shopping.

The Blueberry Farm we just stopped at called Blueberry corner was wonderful.

Cheers,

Ed

Alfalfa Part II

The Dutch and British settlers also brought alfalfa to the New World along the trade routes to South Africa where it has been successfully used as a forage for the thriving ostrich industry.  It success in the eastern US has remained limited.

In western US the Chilean types were predominant, often called California or Arizona Common varieties.  The types spread eastwards.  In the mid 1800's, the typical German immigrant introduced a type that later to be named Grimm after him.  This type was an Medicago media, so naturally winter hardy after years of selection in the very cold climate of Minnesota.  It allowed alfalfa to be used in the cattle ranches of the norther plains.  This and later selections finally enabled the crop to establish itself throughout North America, from the East Coast to upper Canada in the late 1800's.

Until the the 1950's, most varieties were either variants of the Chilean common types or Grimm variegated, M. media.  use of such public or improved varieties has since decreased dramatically.  In the US, one can generalize by stating that by the 1950's, 80% of the varieties were unimproved and only 20% public now remains.  The Waterman-Loomis Company played a major role in the development of proprietary varieties.  In many countries around the world, a similar shift from publics can be seen, proving the value of improved quality forage products.

This ends one lecture by Dr. Paul Henderlong, my Ohio State University Forages 412 class I took back in 1969.  I hope you have enjoyed it.  We never produced much alfalfa on our farm because Timothy and clovers were so much better adapted and required less management.  Good alfalfa is difficult to grow in humid and normally wet Ohio.  I admire the farmers who grow good alfalfa here because it is no easy task.

We studied everything compared to Vernal variety which was the comparison standard in those days.  I think dad had a stand that lasted 17 years but we can raise 200 bushel corn on that field very easily today.  I remember Cimarron coming and going and many Pioneer and other varieties.

When I was the county agent guy, I read the Haymaker quarterly public publication out of Fresno, California.  Dr. Gary Lacefield was the expert to go to from the University of Kentucky in those days

LuAnn and I still love the color, smell and texture of fresh cut alfalfa.  No wonder livestock like it so well.

Ed.

Farmer: Independent entrepreneur or Big Ag employee?

And blind employee at that. Is there any job out there that has so many long term uncertainties about the cost of seed, fertilizer, pesticide, feed as well as a market price of their production totally unrelated to the production cost?

And the biggest uncertainty of all, weather, does not really make farming conductive to successful business planning, yet year after year farmers deliver the crops and animal products which, regardless of what courts have recently said about the right to the Internet service, are still the real fundamental and essential needs of the human being. So maybe farmers should be regarded the best managers there is, considering the constraints and uncertainties they deal with.

Well, perhaps I exaggerated, not everything is uncertain, we know for sure that prices of intrants are ever rising...  ;)

Chimel.

689YKY

That's the new license plate number on my purple plumb, 2004 Dodge Dakota.  Ryan hangin' on like a hair on a biscuit" Daugherty ran a carfax on it for me yesterday as he had some expiring.  I suppose he has been looking for another ride, too.  Anyway, LuAnn just calls after walking the parking lot, laughing at herself.  She had walked up to it thinking that's where she parked it but she saw the license plate and though it was from KENTUCKY!  Roll on the floor laughing or whatever you want here because we both got a big kick out of it.  I laugh at myself almost every day.

It's a new style plate with a blue background.  With the yellow FFA emblem on, I mean corn gold, it does look like a foreign plate at first glance.  She is used to looking for AF47LJ on the old red and white plate on Ole Red.  Ole Red got a new home last night.  I am handing it over the trusted hands of Charles, another Charles who needs a ride.  He has worked his butt of to get back financially where he can drive again.  I like him so I helped him out with a deal no one good refuse.

The worst thing is though I had to put a $120 starter on the darned thing, couldn't send it away like that.  I have been getting by on the bad starter and disappearing antifreeze for a year now.  It still runs good and I think he can get a couple of years out of it.  Those little trucks make 200,000 miles pretty easily and 300,000 if you are careful.  After that, they are pretty much junk or parts.

Tara called me worrying about getting her mother into Dubais and out safely.  She doesn't think her mother and be quiet and not look at Saudi's like Shariah law says.  She thinks we will be kept for investigation.  I said you have to give up those fears!  People go through that airport every day and you don't see anyone on the news!  That's my point she said, you never hear from them again!  Laugh out loud on that one but I hear her, too.

If I got sick there, LuAnn couldn't leave with my presence so I better not get sick!  I woke up with no voice but I know how to treat that and am.

Lots of my friends are reviewing the Herman Warsaw blog.  I want them to think about soil conservation and deep and balanced nutrient placement.  As Chimel pointed out. there was no GMO corn then and our yields have plateaued shortly after the arrival of them.  I know that any seed corn is in short supply because of the huge demand for seed this year.  Last year was not a stocks builder, either.

Ed.