[Andy Carson]

Fascinating. Another question. Why two smaller turbines instead of one larger one?

[Andy Carson]

@near horse 25208 wrote:

Also, any thought to the fact that some of the food/starvation issues in the world have more to do with the agricultural policies of said country than it does with the ability to produce enough food to feed its population? Many countries that require large amounts of annual food aid to feed their own people are exporting large quantities of commodity crops like coffee and cacao to industrialized markets abroad.

Hi Geoff, I think the safety/morality/conflict of interest issues of surrounding GM foods have been beat to death in this thread already, so I am moving on. In the end, I think I have changed my mind about the patenting of living organisms, but I still think that GM has great potential for good if applied correctly. I think we will have to agreee to disagree about this, and I am fine with this.

I do think you bring up an interesting point reguarding developing countries growing commodity crops rather than subsistance crops. I have not thought about this alot, but I suspect this might be a result of free market economics. Industrialized countries (such as the US) produce so much grain so cheaply, it would be difficult for subsistance farmers to compete on a straight “dollars per pound” or “dollars per calorie” basis. Indeed, in Dylan’s documentary, a Mexican corn farmer admits that he spends more to grow his own corn (even with saving seed) than to simply buy cheap US corn. He grows it for taste, which is a large motivation for me as well. This is a luxary that starving people can’t afford… I think it makes perfect sense for farmers in developing nations to focus on crops that cannot be grown so cheaply in industrialized nations. I think coffee and cacao are perfect examples of this. I think it makes wonderful economic sense for these small farmers to grow these specialty crops and trade them for less valuable crops they can live off of. The green revolution did promise to feed the world, and was successful at increasing grain production by 250%. This should have more than doubled food avaliability, but people still starve because population growth follows global grain production very closely. In other words, there is now more food, but there are more mouths to eat it too. Though tragic, it is somewhat predictable that as long as there is food, people who don’t know any better will reproduce until it’s gone and some starve. But what to do about it? It will probably be hard to convince landowners in developing countries (especially those with a choice) to leave behind cash crops and grow subsistance crops that will yield less than if they simply traded thier cash crop for cheap western grain. Complicating the issue is that some countries don’t have enough high quality land to feed thier populationn reguardless of the techniques used. What is the purposed nature of the “agricultural policies” that fix the problem??? Are they supposed to mandate subsistance farming? How would you feel about the government telling you what you have to grow? Should the policies increase tariffs of foreign grain even if large segments of the population can’t afford the grain and starve? Should these countries subsidize grain production with non-existant coffers? Should they outlaw trade with industrilized countries? Maybe nationalize and redistribute land to people who do not know what to do with it? Are western nations really going to stand idolly by while populations starve because of these self-sufficiency policies? This is a complex problem and I do not pretend I have a complete solution for it. I do believe that providing good crops and teaching productive food production techniques is probably part of the answer. Perhaps by giving these countries the best tools and techniques instead of perpetual handouts, they will eventually obtain higher levels of self sufficiency. It is likely that there are also agricultural policies that are not optimal, but I would guess many are a result of standard capitolistic practices and globalization. Which specific policies are you refering to? Even if these policies are horrible, what should be done? Should western nations get into the buisness (even more than they already are) of lawmaking in developing countries???

Just to be clear. I do not see this as a result of GM food, this general problem has been occuring with high yielding non-GM crops for many years. One could make a very good argument that similar economic forces were at play during to Irish potato famine more than 100 years before anyone knew what genes really were, much less how to manipulate them.

[Andy Carson]

This is great. I love these designs that are so far away from what I would have guessed an optimal design be (I would have guessed something more similar to a postcard from Holland) 🙂 I will be following this thread closely, as my place is also windy much of the year and I was not liking my power bill this winter. I am curious if there was thought put into what wind velocities might be too high? Would you predict the turbine will need shut off if the wind is very strong? Perhaps this is another strength of this design over the vane-type design???

[Andy Carson]

I think it’s all about the patent protection. I don’t think that the patents should have been issued in the first place, but if one wants to protect a patent on a reproducing thing, than I think these kinds of agreements would be necessary. What if we take the opposite view, that abundant presence of GM crops on a farmers land was NOT patent infringment. Wouldn’t everyone simply buy the cheap crop off of GM growers and use it for seed??? If caught planting, they could always fall back on the statement that they “didn’t intend to plant this” or it “must be a result of cross-pollination.” As GM crops are so common, this would be hard to disprove. So, the patent would functionally be destroyed. Destroying the patent protection is probably a good thing, but I think this is the venue of the legistators, not the courts. One of the points Dylan’s video brings ups is that while most people in the US do not believe living things should be patented, there has never been a simple up or down vote on it. I would personally love to see one. I think without the patent issue, many of the “evils” of GM foods would be deminished and perhaps the public would be a little more open to some of the potential “goods”. Food for thought… Non-GM foods are also patentable and many are patented already. If it weren’t for the dominance of the patented GM crops, I would predict we would be seeing identical issues with patented non-GM crops.

[Andy Carson]

By the way, I watched the video that Dylan recommended. Very well done provocative video. I higher recommend watching it. Some of the info is somewhat slanted. For example, I looked into the Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser case (as the court decision as explained in the video didn’t make sense to me). The reasoning for the court ruling in Monsantos favor was that they argued that Schmeiser knew of the resistance to roundup and had purposefully chosen to keep the seed from this round-up resistant section for seed and that is how 90+% of his canola ended up being round-up resistant. It was not that (as the video stated) accidental round-up ready canola present in a farmers field would constitute infringement. Whether he actually did this is a matter of debate, but if he did than I agree that that would be patent infringement. This makes better sense to me. Now, whether there should be patents in the first place is another question… I think I was a little on the fence about this before the video, but after the video I think I lean further away from patenting living, reproducing things.

[Andy Carson]

Dylan,
Nice to meet you and thanks for your thoughts. I think golden rice is a great example to discuss, and a wonderful example of what GM food can accomplish. For those not familiar with it, a wikipedia article is quite informative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice. Vitamin A deficiency is a serious problem in developing counties, killing 1-2 million people annually and blinding a half million more. Big deal. Early versions of golden rice would have required people to eat very large amounts of rice to get thier RDA of vitamin A, but most recent versions of golden rice deliver the full RDA of vitamin A with only 75 grams eaten. But golden rice has not been widely implemented. Why??? Certainly not because it doesn’t work!!! Greenpeace is opposed to all GM food reguardless of how many people it saves. I think some of the arguments against GM foods have been laid out previously in this thread. Some I find quite persuaive, some not so much. I still do not see any important difference between selective breeding and high tech genetic modification. For me, the most persuasive argument against GM is that it might result in a lack of biodiversity. This is proabably true, and I would personally prefer greater biodiversity, but I am not sure want 1-2 million people to die PER YEAR as a result of my personal preference. To put this number of deaths in scale, the total number of deaths from the Irish potato famine was 1 million dead over about 5 years (or ~0.2 million per year). So really, the best example of a lack of biodiversity (at least the best I can come up with) kills a relatively small number of people quite infreqently. In contrast, 5-10 times that number of people die EVERY YEAR from nutritional difficiencies that could be prevented with GM foods… Some might say that these nutritional deficiencies could also be solved by giving away free vitamins, but I do not think perpetual handouts and a good long term solution and they have certainly not worked thus far. Probably getting off track a little here… I know I am going to have to agree to disagree about alot of this…

[Andy Carson]

I have some old disks I can pick through to find a nice row marker. I think this will be a nice addition. Thanks for the thought.

[Andy Carson]

The forecart might be a good place to start, but I have never really got that excited about using it in the field. The plots I have are about 80*500 feet, so I will have about 23 rows. Winching up and down 23 times isn’t the end of the world, but as I can simply pick up the back by hand and shift it, I will probably be annoyed using the winch that much. Also, I have concerns about keeping the planter up in the air with the forecart. The planter is somewhat heavy, but it’s mostly that it is quite long. The 300 pound center of gravity would probably end up about 4 feet back from the forecart axle. That doesn’t give as much mechanical advantage as I would like to give my horse hold the front of the cart down with the shafts. Also, it makes the whole rig very long. I would definately have to widen my headlands. This is a bit of an asside, I know, but I can definately see myself becoming annoyed at the lack of maneuverability that are often inherent to large pieces of equipement that can’t be moved (or even budged) by hand. I think working a single makes me spoiled in this reguard. If a piece of equipement has less maneuverability to it than say, a wheelbarrow, I get annoyed and start thinking about how it can be simplier. This it to a large degree personal preferance. I will have to put some more thought into row marking. I thought that I would be able to see the row I space off of it. The spring tines, are actually half the distance, so I was thinking I could use them for spacing (in other words, line the tine up with the old tine track). As I think I will end up putting skids on these, I might need a different plan. I still ahev to think I will be able to see the row I just planted. I will be walking over it and there are 10 total wheels passing through that space doign this and that. That’s got to leave a mark?

[Andy Carson]

Perhaps I will mount some skids to the ends of the spring tines to slide over the residue instead of dragging it. I think this is a good fix. The tines do assume a slight rearward angle when the coulter is in the ground, and they are spaced about 5.5 inches apart, so I was hoping they wouldn’t drag anything. Skids are easy though… I played with wheels a bit on the ends, but the design got complicated really fast. At least on paper, the wheels would need to follow the terrain, which would require some sort of spring arrangement (as do the spring tines). The springs themselves would need to be pretty strong to prevent tipping (by my estimation), and probably under some tension during normal operation. This removes weight from the coulter, which could be overcome with more weight on the planter, but I am trying to avoid that. I also had some concern about the planter running away if it was an “all wheel” arrangement. This is probably unlikely, but I can push it on concrete without too much difficulty and a runaway would be very very bad, so I think I’m going to stick with skids. I am going to mount some handles on the back to pick it up with. It’s really pretty easy to pick up the rear of it, as so much of the weight is up front. I am curious about the overall weight, especially because there aren’t many obvious places to mount weight (especially if I want to mount the weight low). As this will be used on ground that will be disked or “chiseled” and disked, is there an idea of how much weight I should be shooting for? I think it weighs about 300 lbs as it sits. I am curious if this weight is worth a try??? I am still toying with the diea of finding a place to sit on it. This would make it 500 pounds and I myself have a unique “automatic balancing” feature that most weight doesn’t have. I also don’t have to pick myself up (any more than normally) when I move maneuver the planter.

[Andy Carson]

I got alot done on the planter mods and thought I would share. I played around with techniques to keep the planter from tipping and found out that it’s not as big of a problem as I thought it would be. The planter is heavy and tall, but most of the weight is carried very low in the wheels, coulters, and frame. I bolted an angle iron to the front and mounted a couple heavy spring tines off to the side and it’s quite stable just with these. I can always go wider if I need to later. I also played alot with how to drive the seeder mechanism. At first, it seemed the seeder mechanism took quite a pull to get it to work, then I realized it was all gummed up from treated seed debris. I spent a half day cleaning everything and putting it back together. It ran ALOT easier after that. In the end I decided to run it off a biycle wheel, partially because the chains match. I found a used boys mountain bike that had a smaller 20 inch wheel and had a wide range of gears in the back and knobby tires. The tires have enough traction to run the mechanism even without additional downforce. One of the nice things this bike was it was one of those “suspension bikes.” Flipped upside down, using the rear suspension component off this frames lets the wheel move up and down with the contours of the land with pretty even downforce. The range of gears on the bike, together with the two gears left on the planter, allow for spacing from 2 inches to about 7.5 inches. I can flip off seeder fingers to achieve even great spacing, up to 1 seed every 90 inches or so. I think it’s ending up to be a pretty slick machine. I hope it works as well as I think it will…

[Andy Carson]

In Gene Logdon’s book “Small-Scale Grain Raising” (another excellent resource), he mentions that weed control is the primary challenge that small scale organic farmers will face with wheat. I find this especially interesting in that other small grains that I have used (oats and rye) seem so weed competative in my hands. I have not grown wheat on my ground, but am curious if there are heirloom varieties that might be more weed competative. Perhaps these varieties got left behind in the pursuit of ever higher yields??? That’s alot of speculation on my part… Interestingly, Logdon also mentions the possibility of planting wheat as a row crop to enable cultivation. Apparently, this is a old Chinese practice, and I can see that weed control would be easier this way. I plan to plant peas as a row crop this year (rather than the more typical solid planting). Similar concept, I’ll have to see how it works…

[Andy Carson]

That might be the best way to go Tim, but I’ll have to draw this out. I do have a forecart, but I just don’t use it much. I am concerned about the ability of the forecart/seeder combo to turn tightly unless either the attachment point can rotate (as if drawn as an implement) or if I can figure out how to lift it. I have this thought that guys who use 3 point hitch planter units lift them up when they need to turn tightly… Maybe this is wrong? Also, the attachment point would have to resist the tendency of the planter to tip from side to side and simultaneously be capable of some forward and backward tilting so as to follow the contours of the land. I’ll have to play with it a bit still, but my first temptation was to mount some outriggers off the front of the unit that extend to the left and right about 3 feet and put some skids on the bottom. With the right gear ratio, I can probably drive the unit off a gear mounted to front coulter. All that could be drawn behind the forecart too. I don’t think I am going to sit on the back of the seeder, as it really sinks down and feels unstable when I sit there. It’s also a bit too wide to be comfortable… If I end up not using the forecart, I am also going to have to put some thought into how I might cover that front coulter. My horse doesn’t usually step back, but that thing looks nasty. It is, actually, I got a small wound moving it.

[Andy Carson]

It took a long while to find someone parting out an otherwise perfectly good no-till planter that I could take one unit off of, but I finally found one. This unit is off a Kinze 2000 planter and has a Dawn row cleaner and coulter unit on the front. Probably overkill to have the coulter and the row cleaners, but they came as a unit and I thought I would try it out. Now to adapt… The bad news is that I have to rig up some system to turn the seeder mechanism as the drive wheels are (obviously) gone. The good news (great news!) is the thing has an “off” switch of sorts on the side. Nice to not have to lift this thing!!! I might even turn that space where the insecticide box was designed to sit into a human seat. I looks like there is room there for me as long as I don’t through the thing out of balance… Another unexpected bonus was the guy selling this planter also had a cultivator in EXCELLENT condition that I bought for $50 and about an hour of help putting away hay. I’ll keep you all updated about adapting this planter. It sound like there might be some interest out there.

[Andy Carson]

Another very useful resource for me has been media from the Nordell’s (I have attached a thread below). One thing I really like about thier techniques is that they were all designed to be performed with animals from the ground up. They sell a great video (mentioned in the thread) that I highly recommend. Thier systems are based more around vegetable production than the field crops I grow, and they rotate thier ground between cover crop one year and vegetables the next. The levels of weed control they achieve with their techniques are impressive, but it takes half the ground out of production. I am betting that if one is clever about selecting weed resistant field crops, one can get a useful crop every year, despite a few weeds. This might be challenging if one was purely interested in vegetables, but many useful traditional crops (such as buckwheat, field peas, etc) are weed competative and are often used as cover crops. I see no reason why one couldn’t harvest them as well.
http://www.draftanimalpower.com/showthread.php?t=2928&highlight=nordell

[Andy Carson]

I think I am mostly sceptical of pure no-till in animal powered organic production because I have a hard time imagining how weed control will be performed. Cleverly chosen covers and rotations do alot to smother weeds, but I think there will always be a few “escapees” that need dealt with one way or another. I have had good luck controlling weeds prior to planting with a disc (after some modifications), but I call this minimal tillage rather than no-till. One thing that I learned doing this last year, was that often times, you will make one pass (or several passes) over a piece of ground and think that you haven’t done much. A couple days later, though, you can go back and see you did indeed kill the weeds. It’s a major mental shift from when I worked on a tractor farm and you would have to be braindead to not be able to tell the difference between the black ground you have been over and the light brown dusty ground you haven’t been through yet. That residue, for all it’s good attributes, does block your vision!

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