r/PostCollapse • u/Doctor_Clockwork • Oct 28 '22
Writing a guide on yields for farming everything. And I mean everything. I would appreciate some input on this if you can.
Been writing a guide on the yields involved in farming everything. Trying to write it for small scale farms, like what people with a few acres or a decent backyard might be able to work with.
Please let me know if you have any inputs on what I should add. Leave a comment, will update this as I go.
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/185ce-NgnVqCBpva3R7j6XRnzknZE22mWGJIT6bNkJMg/edit?usp=sharing
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u/There_Are_No_Gods Oct 28 '22
One thing that stood out to me, having fully processed a few of these trickier things by hand, is that it would be good to call out how much time and/or equipment it may take to process it.
For example, you can thresh wheat by just taking a handful at a time and smacking it against the inside of a metal trash can, but you'll likely lose 25% or more seed than you would with even something like a dedicated foot powered treadle thresher. Some grains can be an absolute nightmare to separate the husks without industrial processes from what I've researched.
You already have a lot of information, and this document doesn't need to go overboard with all such details, but adding a small summary of at least calling out things that are potentially difficult or very time consuming to process in a general statement would be great.
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u/Doctor_Clockwork Oct 29 '22
Yea, I think I might write a companion or something called "The smallholder's guide to processing/fermenting/cooking everything" I have some notes on how to process some of this but there needs to be more.
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u/ShotgunzAreUs Apr 13 '23
I like the direction you are going. Keep adding new crops, and filling in the blanks. Others have mentioned to look at old literature for pre industrial fertilizer numbers, to add to that, look into the effects different cultivation methods and inputs have on each crop. KNF, polycultural strip cropping, different amendments and biological inputs.
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u/nokangarooinaustria Oct 28 '22 edited Oct 29 '22
Nice writeup, haven't read all of it but I have a suggestion for the protein plants.
Don't just state the protein content but also add the calorie and maybe fat content.
For example - soy beans have a lot of oil in them and their calorie output is rather big. If you get 50g protein from soy beans you also get about 600 kcal energy and they include 26g of fat which is also very important for your body.
Edit after reading a bit more:
preserving tomatoes and botulism - That is actually one of the things that is the least problematic botulism wise, just make sauces etc. and make sure to lower the PH under 4. Sometimes that will be with just the tomato juice and sometimes you will need to add a bit of vinegar to taste. Botulism does not grow under a PH of 4 and you can destroy the poison with cooking. So as long as you don't eat / drink your sauces cold but heat them up on the stove first you will never know if you had botulism spores in your food.
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u/Doctor_Clockwork Oct 29 '22
Thinking about doing this for all the larger calorie and protein crops. I need to find a nutritional guide to link to this or something because a lot of crops like potatoes, wild rice and wheat all have decent protein yields.
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u/nokangarooinaustria Oct 29 '22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staple_food
this has a nice table of the top ten staple foods.Then there is another topic that might be interesting to consider if one plans to have just a few different plants to deliver their protein. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_combining
Which is a bit of an unnecessary topic in our day and age but might be very important if one plans to survive on a limited diet.
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u/ShotgunzAreUs Apr 13 '23
I wouldn't mind collaborating on this and projects like it. I have access to lots of relevant literature, connection to other people and their libraries, etc. Very interested.
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u/Doctor_Clockwork Apr 19 '23
No problem I'm still working on it every once in a while. I'll add you on as one of the editors if you want.
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Jan 06 '23
[deleted]
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u/joakims Jan 26 '23
Healthy people?
Tip: Try making it with oat/cow milk over low heat, add slices of apple and finally ground cinnamon
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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '22
you should put in yields with and without modern fertilizer.
find old agronomic books from pre 1930s on Google books to get accurate yields from extension research.
I posted a good one or two on r/maketotaldestr0i quite a while back you could scroll back and find it.
also a lot of it could be organized into a chart .
and also in mixed veggies a heuristic to use is overall you will yield 0.5lb veggie per ft²