We presented at Marbleseed's 35th Annual Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse WI February 24th, 2024. WOW! what an honor to have such an opportunity to present our project to date.
Access the pdf of our Marbleseed presentation (Predictive Yields for Small-scale Staple Crop Production in North Central States using Common Homestead Equipment and Minimal Inputs)
If you attended or if you've accessed the pdf - if you have questions, comments, etc., please leave your feedback in the comments section (it is moderated to avoid bot spammage, but we do check for "real" comments.)
Post-presentation survey comments by session attendees (and our reply):
Comments/Suggestions to the presenters?
- Appreciated the scientific approach and the presenters were thorough & approachable.
- Great presentation and excitement is palpable. (Scott-The audience was alert and very interactive.)
- Talk to ethnobotanists about indigenous complete nutrition meals (Scott-The goal of the grant was 'strictly' calories not a balanced diet. Our discussion got side tracked on proteins as a future consideration to study. I will investigate if there are any indigenous staple crops that we missed and would/could grow in our northern climate. There are some that don't grow well for us, sadly, such as sweet potatoes and yams.)
- Add more detail about planting schedules, companion planting and crop rotations (Scott-I will make a timeline to show when each crop type has work to do. We can also discuss companion plantings, although when growing enough to feed all the adults in the group, the block will be rather large. Crop rotations, another good idea to touch upon.)
- Appreciated the technical details and date presented.
- Interesting info
- Great presentation and visuals. Dive more into the African grains outside of amaranth. (Scott-to fit within the 60 minutes, I could only deep dive into all the barley details. In the final report, we'll cover everything. Besides grain sorghum (milo) and millet, perhaps my ethnobotanists exploration will find other African grains, however, they have to be suitable for northern climates for my application.)
- What was the rainfall/precipitation? (Scott-oh, good question. I will add 'actual' as well as average)
- What was the moisture content of the seeds before/after drying. (Scott-I have a slide on moisture content for harvest but deleted it for the sake of time. Next time.)
- Besides calories, how about time spent? (Scott-That is the plan for the next step, a spreadsheet that uses dates for each crop type and much time they take since nobody wants to plan 20 hrs of hard labor each day.)
- Great presentation. I am an AG engineer the graphs were descriptive, but I feel were to detailed for what was needed in this presentation. (Scott-ah yes, there were a couple I was considering 'hiding'. Having not been to Marbleseed before, I wasn't certain of the audiences' expectation.)
- I think the protein aspect is fascinating & I think you have enough protein from what you're growing without animals. (Scott- for the future, we mentioned planning to add legumes.)
- This is great! I can't eat grains but need grains for my animals who power the rest of my farm. (Scott-I will certainly add in our meat chicken experience and will make a stab at hogs.)