all photos © Timothy Crews unless otherwise credited PERENNIAL RESEARCH Winifred Bird asks Timothy Crews of if perennial can compete with annuals and what their future is in

erennial crops are essential to Researchers at the Land Institute, enough for public release, however. permaculture. They free the a plant science center in the heart of “This is just something we all P farmer from the labor and America’s industrial farm country, have to wait for,” research director ecological harm of clearing large want to change that. Using richly Timothy Crews said in a recent stretches of land to replant yearly, diverse native prairies as their model, interview. “It is a deep permaculture build soil and provide year-round the scientists here are attempting to project that, when we reach the habitat for wild creatures. breed perennial grains that build soil, point of having something workable, Fortunately, those looking to build yield abundantly, and require few [permaculture farmers] will love, a richly productive landscape have external inputs. On 200 acres of because it really will meet a lot of the hundreds or even thousands of experimental fields in Salina, Kansas, criteria of a permanent agriculture.” perennial , nuts, herbs, vege­ they are crossing wild and domestic Others are skeptical. Kenneth tables, compost, fodder and oil varieties of , painstakingly Cassman, a food security expert at crops to choose from. selecting high-yielding individuals the University of Nebraska, argues Yet when it comes to – from fields of wheatgrass and testing that perennial grains will never the seed-bearing grasses that out perennial . beat out annuals when it comes to provide almost two-thirds of The Land Institute is the world’s yield, and that matters a lot given humanity’s calories – the situation leading research the world’s growing population. is drastically different. Farmers did institute. It was founded by the The permaculture farmer, writer, not domesticate a single perennial visionary biologist in and contributor to this magazine, grain over 10,000 years or more of 1976 with the goal of fundamentally Chris Smaje, has called the Land agricultural history, and the revolutionizing agriculture. Today, its Institute’s vision both “ecologically handful of experimental varieties staff numbers 30 and its assets total rather implausible” and overly available today yield far less than 14 million US dollars. The institute reliant on a “magic bullet” solution their annual counterparts. has yet to produce a grain good to agriculture’s woes. Researchers www.permaculture.co.uk pm 87 | 61 Previous page: A field of Kernza (TM) producing intermediate grass.

Left: Erosion on a conventional Midwestern grain field after heavy rain in April 2013.

Below left: Land Institute research assistants harvest the kernza/ plot.

energy in establishing the roots and vegetative structures they need for

photo © Fred McColly long-term survival. To breed high-yielding perennial grains, scientists must shift the energy balance back towards seed production without tipping it so far Lost Soil that the plant is no longer producing A 2007 study, for instance, showed the strong roots it needs to survive that soil disappears from plowed multiple seasons. They can also take land at a median rate 95 times faster advantage of the fact that perennials than it forms. (Northern Europe’s tend to have a larger energy pie to gentle rains make it something of an start with: they generally start exception to this rule, Crews acknow­ growing earlier than annuals each ledged). Crews and his colleagues spring and photosynthesize sunlight believe the best long-term solution for more days each year. to these problems lies in a transition There are two basic strategies to perennial grain polycultures. for this breeding work. In the first, “Every year [conventional] researchers grow wild perennials farmers start with a highly disturbed like wheatgrass and gradually ecosystem that has no roots in the domesticate them by saving seed ground. It’s cleared of all vegetation, from plants with large, plentiful, it’s almost like primary succession,” evenly-maturing grain (or as Crews he said. “So many problems that we should focus on creating “a sustain­ just think of as being part of the able food supply at the level of the package of agriculture – nutrient food and farming system itself leakage, , carbon loss, rather than in the genome of our weed invasion – are actually attributes crop plants,” he wrote in a recent of this highly disturbed ecosystem. issue of the journal Agroecology They’re very predictable in ecology. and Sustainable Food Systems. And yet if you look at the mature In other words, annual grains native ecosystem in this region, the grown on a small scale using non- prairie, you do not have soil erosion, industrial methods can be sustainable you do not have nutrient leakage, too. Or can they? The question gets you do not have weed invasion into to the crux of the Land Institute’s a mature standing community.” argument in favor of perennials, Thus the drive to create grain and Crews debates it vigorously. fields modeled on the prairie. The “In terms of carbon loss and dilemma is that the annual cereals nutrient leakage, if you open up farmers grow today are much better 3x3m (10x10ft), it is going to take at producing human food than their place whether you are a postage stamp perennial prairie grass cousins. gardener or not,” he said. “You can Annuals must pass on their genes in check erosion more easily at that a single year, so they pour between scale in paddies or terraces, and if one- and two-thirds of their energy the land is fully exposed at certain into producing multitudes of nutrient- times such as a dramatic precipitation rich seeds. Perennials, on the other event, you could lose a lot.” hand, invest a greater share of their

62 | pm 87 www.permaculture.co.uk Below and right: Kernza breeding plots. The white bags are used to bag seed heads which will be cut off, taken back to the lab, and assessed for many traits such as seed size, weight and shape.

Far right: Roots of the Silphium oilseed crop. puts it, “plant out 14,000 and find 200” of the best). In the second, they cross distantly related annual and perennial varieties, such as wheat and wheatgrass, in an attempt to bring perennial characteristics into the annual. These are difficult tasks, long ready for release. relegated to a thin scattering of At the Land Institute, breeding idealistic agronomists. Recently work currently focuses on four crops: though, interest has grown. The wheat, a domesticated wheatgrass U.S. Agency for International they call kernza, sorghum, and Development and the Bill and silphium (an oil crop in the sunflower Melinda Gates Foundation are both family). Staff are also experimenting investing in perennial grain research, with polycultures that combine these and in 2013, a workshop organized crops with legumes or other plants. by the Food and Agriculture Although yields remain well below Organization of the United Nations those for annuals (kernza produces on the topic attracted experts from one-third to one-sixth the grain of around the world. Chinese plant conventional wheat, for instance), breeders are perhaps closest to Crews is confident of improvements success, with a suited to come. to erosion-prone upland fields nearly “We’re not even close to leveling off on yield increase in any of the breeding programs that we’re Winifred Bird is a freelance journalist pursuing right now,” he said. As for who writes about the environment, the practical details of cultivation, architecture, and culture for publications Crews said much work remains to in the United States and Japan. be done. “Weeds are not nearly as Currently based in Illinois, she spent big of an issue in perennial systems, ten years in rural Japan, learning but there will be more weeding about foraging and food preservation than one encounters in the prairie,” and trying out local farming methods. he wrote in an email. “The unique management challenges will be Timothy Crews is Director of Research more in managing competitive at the Land Insitute. His own research balances between species. One focuses on carbon, nitrogen, and might need to manually cut back phosphorous economies of perennial legumes at certain times to force grain intercrops, especially grain- the release of nitrogen during grain legume biocultures. He holds a PhD fill, or burn the whole plot in the in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology winter to shift the competitive from Cornell University. balance between species. We are just beginning to consider these For more information on the Land management approaches.” Institute visit: https://landinstitute.org Whatever they discover, it is sure to be of interest to permaculture 1 http://tiny.cc/fao-staples gardeners and farmers all around 2 http://tiny.cc/perennial-vision the world 3 http://tiny.cc/soil-erosion www.permaculture.co.uk pm 87 | 63