Innovation News Hubb
Advertisement Banner
  • Home
  • Innovation
  • News
  • Contact
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Innovation
  • News
  • Contact
No Result
View All Result
Wellnessnewshubb
No Result
View All Result
Home Innovation

Study shows how mixed-grain crops can thrive where others falter

admin by admin
January 16, 2023
in Innovation


When most people think of a grain crop, they picture a field full of one type of plant. A new study, however, indicates that crops made up of mixed grains are both more resilient and higher-yielding than their conventional counterparts.

First of all, just to be clear, we aren’t talking about growing different grains – such as wheat and rye – in separate rows within one field.

Instead, we’re referring to crops known as maslins, in which the seeds of two (or more) grains are actually mixed together and sown. The result is a crop made up of the different plant types, intermingled with one another. They’re harvested together, processed together, and even ground into multigrain flour together.

According to scientists from Cornell University, maslin crops have actually been around for over 3,000 years. And while they still are utilized in places like Eritrea, India, Georgia, Greece, Sudan and Ethiopia, they’re largely unheard of in most of the world – this is mostly because the food industry prefers a uniform product, that can be processed in a standard, predictable fashion.

Nikoloz Lomsadze, senior pastor of a church in the eastern Republic of Georgia, looks over his field of mixed barley and wheat

Alex McAlvay/New York Botanical Garden

So, what’s so great about maslins?

The Cornell team states that for starters, even if the weather, pests or other factors adversely affect one grain type in such a crop, the other type will likely fare better. This means that farmers will ultimately still get a harvestable crop at the end of the growing season – that crop will consist of a relatively small amount of the one grain, and a larger amount of the other.

That ratio will also be present in the leftover grains used for sowing the next year’s crop. This factor allows the maslin to rapidly evolve, in that the proportions of the grain types are continually being tweaked in response to the growing conditions. As long as changes in those conditions follow a trend that flows from one year to the next, then each year’s maslin ratio should be optimized for the upcoming growing season.

As an added bonus, because the grains in any one maslin crop differ in their physical characteristics – such as height and root depth – adjacent plants of the different types are in less direct competition with one another for resources like soil moisture and nutrients. Therefore, they reportedly grow better than if they were planted only with grains of their own kind.

In fact, the researchers found that as compared to crops of solely wheat and solely barley, a maslin of Eritrean wheat mixed with barley produced 20% more wheat and 11% more barley.

A crop of mixed wheat and barley, growing in Ethiopia
A crop of mixed wheat and barley, growing in Ethiopia

Alex McAlvay/New York Botanical Garden

“Subsistence farmers around the world have been managing and mitigating risk on their farms for thousands and thousands of years, and have developed these locally adapted strategies to do that,” said the study’s first author Alex McAlvay, a former Cornell postdoctoral student who is now a researcher at the New York Botanical Garden. “There’s a lot we could learn from them, especially now, in a time of climate change.”

A paper on the research – which was initiated by Cornell grad Morgan Ruelle, when he was studying farming practices in Ethiopia – has been published in the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development.

Source: Cornell University





Source link

Previous Post

Happiness is linked to higher creativity

Next Post

4 Crypto Billionaires Found Dead Under Mysterious Circumstances During FTX Collapse

Next Post

4 Crypto Billionaires Found Dead Under Mysterious Circumstances During FTX Collapse

Recommended

Africa: WHO and Partners Launch World’s Most Extensive Freely Accessible AI Health Worker

4 months ago

Pressure-sensing glove may help reduce stillbirths in developing nations

1 week ago

Burly housing lets Insta360 panoramic camera take a deep dive

3 weeks ago

Innovations for Space Have Snowball Effect on Earth

2 months ago

Chic Shoe Care Appliances : shoe styler

3 months ago

Experimental strain sensor uses cuts to combine range and sensitivity

1 month ago

innovation-45

© 2022 Innovation News Hubb All rights reserved.

Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement unless specified. By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Navigate Site

  • Home
  • Innovation
  • News
  • Contact

Newsletter Sign Up.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Innovation
  • News
  • Contact

© 2022 Innovation News Hubb All rights reserved.

Our Spring Sale Has Started

You can see how this popup was set up in our step-by-step guide: https://wppopupmaker.com/guides/auto-opening-announcement-popups/