|
Post by DarJones on Sept 26, 2010 11:04:54 GMT -8
Nope. Not even close. The most productive beans yield 30 to 50 bushels per acre under intensive cultivation. Remove the chemical fertilizers and that same acre will produce 10 bushels or less. By comparison, potatoes can produce up to 50,000 pounds per acre though typical yields are about half that much. For comparison, that is 2,000 pounds of beans vs 25,000 pounds of potatoes.
Given that potatoes outyield all other food crops for a given area cultivated, wouldn't it make sense to grow potatoes with more protein?
DarJones
|
|
|
Post by PatrickW on Sept 26, 2010 11:57:19 GMT -8
There's no way to compare your numbers with anything.
First of all if I look on the Internet, I see a number of references to lentil/bean yields higher than 3 tons per hectare, which is about 2500 lbs/acre. Most pulses are around 10% protein, where potatoes are only about 2% -- if you don't peel them. Assuming no one peels their potatoes, this put the yield of protein per acre roughly double for potatoes. If the potatoes get peeled??
When plants are grown nitrogen is needed to make protein, and in organic culture legumes will take this from the air and potatoes will take this from the ground, leaving it more depleted.
I also have a hard time believing your figure of 20% yield of pulses without fertilizer. This depends on so many factors, and as a rule where claims have been made that yields with conventional farming is higher, given the right varieties and conditions it's usually possible to match or exceed conventional yields with organic culture. Usually for example these yields are made with varieties bred for conventional farming grown in monocultures and without the benefit of proper rotations.
Few crops can match the yield of potatoes, but in terms of health benefits I'm completely unconvinced a high protein potato has any relevance here.
|
|
|
Post by DarJones on Sept 26, 2010 17:22:18 GMT -8
Bean yield is dependent on species, variety, nodulation with nitrogen fixing bacteria, available soil nutrients, sun, and water. I did not have to go look up the yeild of beans or the yield of potatoes. I live where both are grown commercially and I have planted, cultivated, and harvested both until I was tired of seeing them. Work on a potato harvester from dawn to dark and you will see about 250,000 pounds of spuds. No matter the species, all beans and peas should be innoculated before planting. Common bush and pole beans can fix up to 50% of the required nitrogen if innoculated. Skip the innoculation and you are dependent on having the right organisms in the soil. Testing has repeatedly proven that this is NOT the case. Cowpeas are the best of the common legumes for fixing their own nitrogen. You can grow perfectly acceptable crops in just about any soil with reasonable levels of phosphorus and potassium. Production is improved with addition of up to 80 pounds of actual N per hectare. Common beans (Phaseolus Vulgaris) are very inefficient at producing their own nitrogen. Even with the best innoculant coverage, they only produce about 50% of the nitrogen needed. Translating into hectares, you would need roughly 200 pounds of actual N per hectare to get a commercial crop. Typically about 80 pounds of that can be met by using innoculant. As for potatoes, all of the nitrogen has to be met by external sources. I've seen fertilizer applied to potatoes at rates of 2000 pounds per acre of 17-17-17. I suspect irrigated potatoes could double that amount, but I have not looked up recommendations. There was no intent to 'compare' my numbers. The sole intent was to show that potatoes produce 10 times as much edible output as beans. In poor countries where every calorie counts, potatoes will be grown before beans every time. This was the exact scenario that played out in the Irish potato famine. The exception is in tropical climates where cowpeas are highly adapted and are a large part of the culture and where potatoes happen to be unadapted. Keep in mind that I am expressing my opinion. We all have opinions. It seems the course of wisdom would be to revise our opinions from time to time when they seem to be out of step with reality. Unfortunately, some of us are married to our opinions. Do you know what it is like to have your opinion voiced over your shoulder (usually in a female voice) saying something like "What do you think you are doing now, I DON"T approve". This type opinion is very difficult and costly to revise. DarJones
|
|
|
Post by PatrickW on Sept 27, 2010 3:48:45 GMT -8
DarJones,
You started this thread buy posting an advertisement. It was even labelled as an advertisement. We then went on to discussing it as a serious food for combating world hunger. Just in the last few posts, we went from talking about protein, to lbs per acre, mixed together with conventional and organic cultures. I'm sure I could go through everything and pick out lots of other loss of continuities and conflicts. There's just no having a sensible discussion or debate this way.
This forum has lots of very intelligent and interesting people, and I'm lucky enough to know many of them personally. To some degree, we all depend on a flowing discussion to express our own opinions and make our own arguments, just like you want to be able to do.
In terms of harsh and condescending statements that are difficult to recover from, how about this gem of yours from a few weeks ago?
We all go overboard on expressing our opinions from time to time, but I don't think I've seen anything so harsh or rude on this forum before.
I think it's great you can cite yields and fertilizer requirements off the top of you head. This isn't anything I can do. I recently posted a video on Tom's blog where he rattles off all the major tomato genetics, also something I can't do. I think we all have something we can rattle off the top of our heads, and for me one of those things happens to be something about the history of food science, both in the US and worldwide, something that all started with protein. I know a lot about this, because I am vegetarian and have done a lot of research and written a lot on it.
In short what happened was in the 1920s or 30s someone, I'm not sure who or if it was even a scientist, but someone decided the chicken egg was the perfect food. Basically, an egg made you grow fast and strong, so it must be good for you. This fascination with eggs went on for an amazingly long time. I remember as a teenager, some 50 years after this all started, discussions over how many eggs you should eat per week, how many were safe to eat every week, protein vs cholesterol, good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, saturated fat, and on and on and on -- all stemming from the composition of an egg!
Anyway, near the beginning, they looked at the egg and said okay, if this is the best food there is, how does it compare with other foods? What they discovered first of all was that it was almost all protein, especially the white. They started looking around at other foods, and discovered meat had very similar protein content, which is what started this whole government meat subsidies mess we see today. So important was the discovery that egg white was nearly all protein, all over the world, that many languages like Dutch and German took adopted this. In Dutch the word for protein is eiwit and German EiweiĆ, both meaning 'egg white'. Literally, if we were to be having this discussion now in Dutch, we would be talking about a 'high egg white potato'.
Then came the question how do you reconcile the fact that vegetarians eat less protein, but still seem to be healthy? Well along came Frances Moore Lappe, and wrote a book called Diet for a Small Planet. She pointed out there was protein in all sorts of foods, but said on the protein in eggs and other animal products was 'complete'. She asserted that vegetarians could eat 'just as healthy' a diet as meat eaters, if they practised 'protein combining', combining beans and rice, etc.
This has long since been dismissed as complete nonsense. People have lived for centuries all over the world, in many different places, without combining proteins in their diet, and have been completely healthy. What we now know is realistically people hardly ever develop any problems with a lack of protein, without having some other serious problem with their diet. We also know consuming too much protein is behind a number of modern diseases the west is now facing. Every few years the World Health Organization revises down their standard for protein in a healthy diet, and instead now focus on things like calories. Like we know from the years leading up to the Irish potato famine, people can do fine on a diet of little other than ordinary potatoes.
What the food companies discovered in all of this is people care about the components of their food! They discovered there is huge money to be made in low fat, low salt, high protein, low carbohydrate, sugar free, light and so on. Just like everyone became fascinated with the egg and protein, people really want to buy processed foods for what they contain and don't contain. More than anything else, this is what's caused the loss of biodiversity in our diets, because the food companies have told us what to eat, rather than us telling the food companies what we want them to make. It's what's made so many of us fat, and so dependent on processed foods that many people don't know how to cook meals any more.
Anyone who wants to talk seriously about the latest health claims from food companies on this forum isn't going to find me siding with them.
|
|
|
Post by DarJones on Sept 27, 2010 7:28:19 GMT -8
The thread started with a news article on yahoo that was also billed as an advertisement. It was repeated in various forms on several news organizations including reuters. Whether you call it news or advertisement is not really relevant. I posted it for the sole reason that it is highly relevant to the discussion theme on this board and it gave Tom an opportunity to mention possible breeding aspects of high protein potatoes.
The tenor of the thread has changed repeatedly as I responded to various 'closed' positions advocated by you. For example, you object to any and all GMO organisms. Fair enough, you are welcome to that position. I am currently taking a wait and see approach because I am not convinced that GMO's are totally bad. I am however firmly convinced that I will not knowingly grow GMO crops at this time.
You then proceeded to object to breeding a higher protein potato using existing genetics and standard cross breeding. I objected for the simple reason that developed countries have an overwhelming problem with excess carbohydrates in their diet, not with too much protein. A higher protein potato has potential to better balance diets in areas where growing them is possible. To the best I can determine, there are NO negative aspects to growing a higher protein naturally bred potato.
You then posited that they could just as easily grow legumes which would provide adequate protein in the diet. I responded with yield potential for beans vs potatoes so you could see that it is not possible to produce beans to the same scale as potatoes. If it had been possible, the Irish Potato Famine would never have occurred.
Then you questioned the yield potential information of commercially fertilized legumes sans fertilizer. I posted information about the relative potential of legumes to produce using nitrogen fixing bacteria alone vs using commercial fertilizer. All legumes produce more if external nitrogen is available whether from manures or from chemicals. The humble cowpea is almost an exception since it can produce nearly as well with innoculant as with fertilizer. Knowing where you live, I suspect you can't grow cowpeas very well.
re posting something totally derogatory about 'lemon suckers', that gets down to a cultural difference. To refer to someone as a lemon sucker here would be no different than referring to you as a vegetarian. One of my daughters is a lemon sucker. All it means to me and to the people I see daily is "A person who likes raw lemons".
The person I learned the most from in my life was the one who totally disagreed with me and then proceeded to prove that I was wrong, well, at least half wrong. We wound up figuring out that each of us had something out of kilter.
What is obvious at this point is that your mind is closed to even considering anything outside your own perspective. For that reason, I choose to discontinue this thread because the only possible outcome would be either uncomfortable or insulting to you. That would be outside the purpose of the board and of no benefit to anyone.
DarJones
|
|
|
Post by thefuture on Sept 27, 2010 8:08:20 GMT -8
Patrick, The problem is that kids can't easily eat enough ordinary vegetables to meet their protein needs. I suggest you verify this before replying. It is not an idle concern. DarJones My child - as do hundreds of millions around in the world - easily meets her protein requirements on a vegan diet. What reference do you have to suggest otherwise?
|
|
|
Post by Naturalcrossesonly on Sept 27, 2010 13:24:32 GMT -8
Nice response Patrick. Fighting these professional Monsanto trolls is hard work but its gotta be done thanks for your effort x
|
|
|
Post by frogsleap farm on Sept 27, 2010 19:09:19 GMT -8
Patrick, The problem is that kids can't easily eat enough ordinary vegetables to meet their protein needs. I suggest you verify this before replying. It is not an idle concern. DarJones My child - as do hundreds of millions around in the world - easily meets her protein requirements on a vegan diet. What reference do you have to suggest otherwise?
|
|
|
Post by Frogsleap farm on Sept 27, 2010 19:16:00 GMT -8
My child - as do hundreds of millions around in the world - easily meets her protein requirements on a vegan diet. What reference do you have to suggest otherwise? Sorry about the false start. There is ample evidence of widespread global protein-based malnutrition. Increased protein quantity/quality in widely grown agricultural crops would have huge human health benefits. Look beyond your own backyard.
|
|
|
Post by PatrickW on Sept 27, 2010 21:20:09 GMT -8
Sorry about the false start. There is ample evidence of widespread global protein-based malnutrition. Increased protein quantity/quality in widely grown agricultural crops would have huge human health benefits. Look beyond your own backyard. Like what?!
|
|
|
Post by thefuture on Oct 2, 2010 8:26:42 GMT -8
Sorry about the false start. There is ample evidence of widespread global protein-based malnutrition. Increased protein quantity/quality in widely grown agricultural crops would have huge human health benefits. Look beyond your own backyard. This doesn't answer the question at all.
|
|