Planting annual wheat each year requires increased amounts of agricultural inputs (water, pesticides, fertilizers, and machinery). At the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, Wes Jackson is developing perennial wheat crops that reduce the use of petrochemical-based products while providing year around ground cover. This reduces erosion and the loss of valuable topsoil, all vital in combating climate change.
[This image was made possible with generous funding from the Post Carbon Institute]
The Land Institute
Salina, Kansas
24 August 2010
perennial=plant once
annual=replant every year
PERENNIALS HAVE LARGER ROOT SYSTEMS
1. improved soil stability=less need for tillage+reduced erosion
2. reduced fossil fuel consumption
3. better managed nitrogen
4. reduced need for pesticides
5. less labor intensive
6. increased soil water storage
7. better carbon firing
8. greater biodiversity
annual wheat (Triticum aestivum)
four feet long
intermediate wheatgrass
(Thinopyrum intermedium)
ten feet long
Workers separate seeds from the chaff of intermediate wheatgrass samples using a dehuller. These will be carefully analyzed by researchers. Each successive planting brings Wes closer to his goal, that of replacing annual wheat with more sustainable perennials. According to Wes, the domestication of wheatgrass is expected to take ten to twelve years, after which a commercially viable perennial wheatgrass will become available.
Wes Jackson, President of The Land Institute, earned a B.A. in biology from Kansas Wesleyan, an M.A. in botany from University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. in genetics from North Carolina State University. He established and served as chair of one of the country’s first environmental studies programs at California State University-Sacramento and then returned to his native Kansas to found The Land Institute in 1976. He is the author of several books including New Roots for Agriculture, Becoming Native to This Place and most recently Consulting the Genius of the Place. Wes is widely recognized as a leader in the international movement for a more sustainable agriculture. He was a 1990 Pew Conservation Scholar, in 1992 became a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2000 received the Right Livelihood Award (called the “alternative Nobel prize”). Life magazine named Wes Jackson as one of 18 individuals it predicts will be among the 100 “important Americans of the 20th century.” In November 2005, Smithsonian called him one of “35 Who Made a Difference.”
A new paradigm for Agriculture [video]
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