Drought tolerant crop plants

I live in California, where we have had water restrictions for many years.  It is frustrating for me, because I am a farmer.  Farms operate on water.  Crops die when there isn't water.

In an environment where water is scarce, growing drought tolerant crops is a great way to decrease risk of loss while decreasing consumption of valuable resources.  Additionally, growing drought tolerant crops is a great way to build soil and reduce evaporative losses from the soil because drought tolerant plants have natural biological systems in their leaves to protect their internal water supply, while converting sunlight into chemical energy and useful crops.

desert herbs

Many drought resistant crops produce essential oils in their leaves, or have other mechanisms to protect their leaves from the effects of summer heat and reduced water availability.  The leaves of drought tolerant edible herbs get coarser and more flavorful as they adapt to a drier environment, meaning that the summer heat and dryness are actually an important part of making the crop more aromatic and therefore, more valuable.

Greenhouse cultivation of these crops is generally pest free since the oils in the plants are also often a mechanism to reduce palatability for insects.  Most bugs will go running directly in the opposite direction when they get a whiff of a plant like fringed sage, which has a strong camphorous odor.

Aromatic, repellant plants, when grown in between rows of tomatoes, successfully repels most insects, so that no chemicals have to be applied to the tomato plants.  It's true that some insects may not be completely driven away by this trick, but generally, I believe that this way of growing plants produces two different crops simultaneously, without having to go around spraying all kinds of stuff on anything. 

Drought tolerant crop plants

• goji
• paulownia
• wormwood
• fringed sage
• wyoming sage
• any of the artemesia genus
• silver sagebrush
• sage
• white sage
• elektra sage
• santolina

Plants from this group, grow and propagate reliably and with reduced water requirements once established.  Roots usually grow down till they reach sufficient water to sustain themselves indefinitely without irrigation.  This ability is what has helped these amazing plants to remain alive through environmental adversity, such as it exists in the deserts and in other arid wild-lands.

fringed sage

A field of white sage, in the morning, just after a rain, is a beautiful thing to behold.

Essential oils have many uses, including protecting harvested grain from insects. 

Generally, these oils have a pleasant, camphorous or piney odor.

Most of these plants have extensive networks of roots that prevent them from being transplanted successfully.  Cultivation from seed requires a little care and patience, and they are generally easy to care for once established.  Plants that have been heavily pruned will survive stress better with more strength and continued vitality.  The leaves of artemisia plants are generally soft and velvety with a silver/grey hue.  Old growth has a dingy, grey appearance, while fresh, new growth is bright and sparkly.

References:

• Silverleaf propagation - Artemisia cultivation

Poo Power!

The largest wastewater facility in New York City, The Newton Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, is being redesigned and re-engineered to produce methane fuel and fertilizer from raw sewage.  It's totally awesome.

Giant digesters, in the shape of massive steel eggs, are capable of processing 1.5 million gallons of sludge every day.  It's exciting because all that bio-matter is capable of returning to the soil, where it can benefit agricultural operations.

The posts on this blog are kind of a first draft attempt

I'm converting them over to pages, that will show up on the right side of the webpage under normal viewing conditions.  Then the blog posts will be updates about the progress of the book, or more little notes about things related to the book.

moringa blossom

Thank you for reading.

Paul Sober

Welcome

This is a book about a positive future.  There are many books out there about how bleak the future is.  There are many people, who are much more intelligent then I and who have had a much better education then I have had, who proclaim with certainty that we are all doomed and that the world will come to an end quite soon, with fire and brimstone falling down from the sky.

If those kinds of people are correct, then we're all going to die, and that's not much of an ending.  It's certainly no way to sell a book.

We need to figure out how to reduce the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and bring our environment into balance.  It is important, and in this book, I hope to show how profitable it can be.  Also, I hope to communicate to people how this is already underway in many different communities around the world.  In fact, the places where the most exciting kinds of activities are occurring is often in the most poverty stricken areas, where people have no choice, but to generate a working solution in order to survive.

Some scientists and engineers have proclaimed that our planet is only capable of supporting 40 billion human beings.  The intention exists to shatter that estimation.  Our planet is actually capable of producing more then enough food to feed over 400 billion humans sustainably.

Systems will need to adapt to these realizations, and the fact is that there is no real shortage of food, nor will there ever really need to be a shortage of food, ever, on this planet, if we can approach the problems before us as intelligent, enlightened human beings, who work together against insurmountable odds.

The most pressing problems that we are currently facing in terms of feeding the populations of the planet, are mostly related to supply chains and economics.  There is plenty of food on the planet to feed the current populations.  In fact, many people are startled to find out that many of the populations of the world, in tropical areas, that have historically been defined as starving, are now well-fed and have regular access to sufficient nutrition for good health and normal physical development.

In Thailand, and in other tropical countries around the world, people are growing a plant called Moringa.  Moringa is a fast-growing tree with many different uses.  The seeds are ground and pressed to release an oil that is clear, nutritious and with a mild flavor that is a real blessing for cooking and for producing clear light in lamps.  By-products from this process include a seed cake that is capable of purifying drinking water and also makes an excellent fertilizer.  When mixed with neem seed cake, it is like a miracle in the soil.  Everything grows healthier and stronger.

Almost like magic, the soil is improved and output increases.  There is enough food for everyone and our global resources are protected from exploitation by selfish, inconsiderate individuals and organizations.  Without an educated approach, it is as if everything just crumbles in your fingers.  Without morality, it's as if all your efforts are just sprayed out on the ground before you, wasted.

In some countries, the medical system is so effective that people spend much of their time enjoying their lives and working towards goals that they believe in.  In countries like this, the people know that they are healthy.  Where the people who live there, live in the embrace of wonderment that is God, or Allah, or whatever your name for the infinite truth is.


Communities where the soil was barren, and the people lived in squalor and poverty, they are now incredibly wealthy.  The world is changing and the people who aren't wasting their energy and their time destroying each other are becoming more and more healthy and more and more prosperous.  Their world is gaining value every day.  Their children are growing healthier and stronger every day.  Their efforts are gradually gaining importance over time.

They live in a world where it is a crime to hurt or injure each other.  Where people are imprisoned for committing crimes, and where those prisons are almost empty. 

There are medical offices in the world, right now, where you can go to get cured.  Where they use computers with probabilistic software to figure out exactly what is wrong and then they generate a treatment that will cure you, often without medication.

There are surgeries that used to cost thousands and thousands of dollars, and that resulted in the patient having to take pills for the rest of their lives.  Now those surgeries are replaced by a procedure, performed by a technician in a few minutes with a machine that only costs a few hundred dollars. 

There are conditions that used to kill people within a year or two, that are now treatable with just some simple changes in diet.

How do I know all this to be true?  Because my daughter is alive and healthy and just a few years prior, she would have died in the hospital, and nobody would have been able to say anything about it that would have made any sense at all to a caring, loving parent.  She would have just been another child that didn't make it, and she's alive now.  She sings and makes up stories and she makes friends and draws and she's just a little miracle.