Perennial Staple Crops of the World Permaculture Research Institute This article reviews perennial staple crops, a little-known group of species with tremendous potential to address world problems. Ricardo Romero of Las Cañadas in perennial staple food forest featuring peach palm, macadamia, air potato, banana, and perennial beans. Perennial Staple Crops are basic foodstuffs that grow on perennial plants. These plant sources of protein, carbohydrates, and fats can be harvested non-destructively – that is, harvest does not kill the plant or prevent future harvests. This group of crops includes grains, pulses (dry beans), nuts, dry pods, starchy fruits, oilseeds, high-protein leaves, and some more exotic products like starch-filled trunks, sugary palm saps, and aerial tubers. These trees, palms, grasses, and other long-lived crops offer the unique possibility of crops grown for basic human food that can simultaneously sequester carbon, stabilize slopes, and build soils as part of no-till perennial agricultural systems. Much research is also called for.
30 Year Study: Organic Farming Outperforms Conventional, Chemical Farming By friendseat.com Based on a 30-year side-by-side trial [See full report pdf] of conventional and organic farming methods at Pennsylvania’s Rodale Institute, organic farming outperformed conventional farming in every category. Rodale Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research, claims the Farming Systems Trial (FST)® at Rodale Institute is America’s longest running, side-by-side comparison of organic and chemical agriculture. The farming trial started in 1981 for the purpose of studying what happens during the transition from chemical to organic agriculture. After an initial decline in yields during the first few years of transition, Rodale Institute claims the organic system soon rebounded to match or surpass the conventional system. Fast Facts *Organic yields match conventional yields. *Organic outperforms conventional in years of drought. *Organic farming systems build rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system.
Measures of well-being: Chilled out DESPITE global economic gloom, the world is a happier place than it was before the financial crisis began. That is the counterintuitive conclusion of a poll of 19,000 adults in 24 countries by Ipsos, a research company. Some 77% of respondents now describe themselves as happy, up three points on 2007, the last year before the crisis. All such polls come with a health warning. Two conclusions emerge. The second conclusion challenges the received notions of mankind's moods. But the Ipsos study shows the highest levels of self-reported happiness not in rich countries, as one would expect, but in poor and middle-income ones, notably Indonesia, India and Mexico.
What is the difference between cinnamon and cassia? Although related, cinnamon and cassia are not obtained the same plant. They should be treated as separate foods, both from a nutritional and a health standpoint. Scientifically speaking, there is only one true cinnamon, which is most commonly called "Ceylon cinnamon," and comes from the plant Cinnamomum zeylanicum. An alternative scientific name for Ceylon cinnamon is Cinnamomum verum, which simply translates as "true cinnamon." The term "cassia" never refers to Ceylon cinnamon but rather to other species of cinnamon, including Cinnamomum cassia (alternatively called Cinnamomum aromaticaum) and Cinnamomum burmannii. While most simply referred to as "cassia," you'll often find Cinnamomum aromaticaum being referred to as "Chinese cinnamon" or "Saigon cinnamon," and you'll find Cinnamomum burmannii being called "Java cinnamon" or "Padang cassia." What true cinnamon and cassia do not have in common is their coumarin content. References Anderson RA.
Hidden Valley Hibiscus - Are Hibiscus Edible? If your pet or your toddler just munched down part of your hibiscus, don't panic! Hibiscus are definitely edible by creatures both great and small. Hibiscus flowers are traditionally used for tea in Asia and the Nile Valley area of Africa. Many hibiscus teas are made from a different species of hibiscus, called Hibiscus sabdiriffa, but Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, the ancestor of the modern, exotic hibiscus, is also frequently used for tea. Tea makers report that all parts of the hibiscus plant can be used, but that the flowers make a sweeter tea, and the leaves make a more astringent tea. Hibiscus tea was traditionally used to soothe or help a variety of ailments, from coughs and skin diseases to high blood pressure, gallbladder attacks, heart disease, and even some cancers. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis is used as a food and food flavoring too. At HVH we get frequent requests for hibiscus leaves and flowers as food for reptiles - iguanas and turtles mostly. © 2013 Hidden Valley Hibiscus.
How Agroforestry Works" The green movement is becoming more and more popular, gaining momentum daily. And there are many popular systems and programs that can help restore some of Earth's depleted resources. Agroforestry is one practice that does just that. From its name, you're probably able to see it has something to do with combining agriculture and forestry. A more formal explanation is that it is an ecologically based natural resources management system that was devised to promote sustainability within economic, environmental and social sectors. Although it is practiced worldwide in both tropical and temperate regions, agroforestry has been most extensively practiced in developing nations. First, citizens were starting to consider what negative impacts they were having on the environment. There's a lot of positive information available on agroforestry. Read on to discover just how agroforestry works.
Meet Purity Gachanga a farmer from Embu, Kenya | World Agroforestry Centre Writer: Peter Gachie and Yvonne Otieno Do trees on farms work? Well ask Purity Gachanga. Purity joined a women’s Chama (An informal savings and microcredit system) and attended farming study tours and events organized by the World Agroforestry Centre and Kenya Agricultural Research Insitute (KARI) extension agents where she learnt and practised livestock rearing and growing of fodder trees. And yes, to Purity, all trees in the farm are useful. Purity participated in a study in early 90s that concluded that 3 kgs of fresh Calliandra fodder has the same effect in milk production as 1kg of commercial dairy meal. In the study, Purity and other farmers learnt that fodder trees should be mixed with basal feeds such as nappier grass of the ratio in 1:3. Some of the fodder trees grown in her farm include Calliandra calothyrsus , Leucaena leucocephala , Leuceana trichandra , Sesbania sesban , Morus alba , Desmondium Spp . and a variety of grass species that feed her cows.
Issue 15: November 2011 | World Agroforestry Centre In sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly one-third of the population is undernourished, growing both indigenous and exotic fruit for local markets has great potential to improve the diets of smallholder farmers and increase incomes, according to a new review by the World Agroforestry Centre. The study – recently published in the journal International Forestry Review – argues that the cultivation of indigenous fruit tree species in the region could make a much more significant contribution to the nutrition and livelihoods of local people if certain bottlenecks were removed. “In East Africa, the average daily intake of fruit is 35 grams per person, way below the World Health Organization’s recommendation,” says Ramni Jamnadass, head of the Centre’s Quality Trees research programme. “Agroforestry with trees that produce good quality fruit shows great promise for improving people’s physical and financial health”. Story by Geoff Thompson
Live architecture: Grow your own home - Technology & science - Science - LiveScience Tolkien's hobbits would feel right at home in new dwellings made out of living tree roots and designed to protect inhabitants from earthquakes. The homegrown architecture is just one of many eco-structures a new company hopes to roll out worldwide. The concept of coaxing living trees into useful objects, sometimes called tree shaping, arborsculpture, living art or eco-architecture, isn’t new. But now engineers and plant scientists from Tel Aviv University have taken their leafy designs to the next, and more practical and playful, level. Pilot projects under way in the United States, Australia and Israel include streetlamps, gates and playground structures made entirely from trees, as well as hospital park benches that grow their own foliage for shade. "Instead of using plant branches, this patented approach takes malleable roots and shapes them into useful objects for indoors and out," said Amram Eshel of Tel Aviv University in Israel. © 2012 LiveScience.com.
Forest bathing enhances... [Int J Immunopathol Pharmacol. 2007 Apr-Jun Why Trees Matter TREES are on the front lines of our changing climate. And when the oldest trees in the world suddenly start dying, it’s time to pay attention. North America’s ancient alpine bristlecone forests are falling victim to a voracious beetle and an Asian fungus. The common factor has been hotter, drier weather. We have underestimated the importance of trees. For all of that, the unbroken forest that once covered much of the continent is now shot through with holes. Humans have cut down the biggest and best trees and left the runts behind. What we do know, however, suggests that what trees do is essential though often not obvious. Trees are nature’s water filters, capable of cleaning up the most toxic wastes, including explosives, solvents and organic wastes, largely through a dense community of microbes around the tree’s roots that clean water in exchange for nutrients, a process known as phytoremediation. In Japan, researchers have long studied what they call “forest bathing.”
Seeds of Change Forest Bathing Welcome! If you want to lose weight, gain muscle, increase energy levels or just generally look and feel healthier you've come to the right place. Here's where to start: Visit the Start Here and Primal Blueprint 101 pages to learn more about the Primal Lifestyle. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter to receive 10 eBooks, a 7-Day Course of Primal Fundamentals, and more - all for free. Cut to the chase by visiting PrimalBlueprint.com. Thanks for visiting! No claw-footed tub in the woods here. Forests, like other wild settings, engage our senses in more subtle but evolutionarily familiar ways than our typical modern environments. Yet, the research behind forest bathing takes all this a dramatic step further. As a result of these studies, government entities in Japan are partnering with the medical industry to hold free health checkups at park areas and to create designations for “official” forest therapy sites. What I love about this research is the big picture implication.