Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Why apples to oranges comparison. AG is AG. S. America is being ripped to shreds turning jungle habitat to beef farming and d op e. A castrophe as we speak. Where the greenies!!!!!??
I did some growing with the Ag extension in Fairbanks and they HAVE THE GOODS. And so more than helpful, really made my day. Need feet on the ground for real info .
I have to get out there and visit those folks this winter and talk. Im taking the time off.
Someone has to be responsible to feed the sheep yaknow.
Market update ; the RE market is going from bad to worse---( the lower 48 crash will take out Alaska R.E. to an extent) , dont buy--- we got the Obakarama DOW rise -- GET OUT- its over!!. If the market dosent take you to the cleaners Inflation will. Dow 6000 at best in the next 2 years--- INEVITABLE / possible 3000 ; Take control! And turn off the damn tv and be a REAL ALASKAN MY FRIEND. THINK Its worth the stretch.......
ITS ABOUT TIME (unedited been workin 6-14's tard sob)
Hummmm, I've spent a lot of years in tropical climates. Perhaps you know this, the first time I saw it I was taken by surprise. Here in N.C. I can easily get peppers to grow, mild green chilis, jalapenos, tabasco, bell-several varieties, and, my all time favorite---Poblanos. In Latin America, peppers are considered a landscaping landmark, they come back year after year, each year producing more fruit. They don't winter over here in N.C. I have to replant each year, but, I can get a lot off of each plant. I figure they will die out in Alaska as well and become annuals. My question is, Do you grow Peppers? If you would like to try, I have some seeds I would send you. Maybe they will grow, don't know if they will or won't. I would suggest starting with the more healthy varieties, try Jalapenos and/or Poblanos first. (in case you didn't know, the Poblano is the pepper that gives Mexican food that distinctive flavor, they are not hot but very flavorful. When green, they are poblanos, if they turn brownish/purpleish they are called anchos, and.... if BBQ'ed and smoked, they are called Chipotle - same pepper, three different and distinct flavors, not hot but very flavorful.
Hummmm, I've spent a lot of years in tropical climates. Perhaps you know this, the first time I saw it I was taken by surprise. Here in N.C. I can easily get peppers to grow, mild green chilis, jalapenos, tabasco, bell-several varieties, and, my all time favorite---Poblanos. In Latin America, peppers are considered a landscaping landmark, they come back year after year, each year producing more fruit. They don't winter over here in N.C. I have to replant each year, but, I can get a lot off of each plant. I figure they will die out in Alaska as well and become annuals. My question is, Do you grow Peppers? If you would like to try, I have some seeds I would send you. Maybe they will grow, don't know if they will or won't. I would suggest starting with the more healthy varieties, try Jalapenos and/or Poblanos first. (in case you didn't know, the Poblano is the pepper that gives Mexican food that distinctive flavor, they are not hot but very flavorful. When green, they are poblanos, if they turn brownish/purpleish they are called anchos, and.... if BBQ'ed and smoked, they are called Chipotle - same pepper, three different and distinct flavors, not hot but very flavorful.
Thanks Dusty for the invite to share your bounty in seeds. Seeds have been hard to come by this year.
Give me till October when Im done down below and get back to THE BIG LAND.
N.C. is very dry country in summers correct? Im sure some peepers would grow in AK. Ill visit the Extension and see what they have--- an impressive group and they are US.
I have to add, this leg down in the RE/ Financial arena MAY be just a prelude to another 3 legs to come in drops and mayhem in the RE and broad markets.
Have to wait to buy anything-- notice the dollar$ has fallen off a cliff and has 40% more possible to drop.
Im my Opinion its possible another bubble will inflate the confidence of the sheep so they feel safe again to mortgage to the 9's AGAIN. That will move confidence 2 years forward.
Its all a confidence game and fool the sheep into spending like fools and bleed every drop out of our wealth and use foreign slave labor to subsidize our reality. SAD SAD SAD. What do the terms Conservative? Liberal? Conservationist? Environmentalist? mean when 2nd and 3rd world countries are the USA's slaves? WHAT A DISASTER SELFISH PLEASURE HAS CREATED ON EARTH!
Some years yes, some years no, this year we actually got quite a bit of rain, we did not enter drought conditions until early this week. Ergo, I have had a bumper crop of my peppers. Slightly smaller in size, but wonderful flavor and a whole lot of them!!! They do better in the wet years than the dry, which is why I thought Alaska may be a good spot for them, they grow rapidly and prolifically, (so did my tomatos this year, my neighbors have sworn to do a rain dance next spring so they can get my extra tomatos, and peppers). When you are ready for seeds, just give me a mailing address and I'll send some to ya. Would you like both Jalapenos and Poblanos? Won't cost you any thing but time and a little work.
Some years yes, some years no, this year we actually got quite a bit of rain, we did not enter drought conditions until early this week. Ergo, I have had a bumper crop of my peppers. Slightly smaller in size, but wonderful flavor and a whole lot of them!!! They do better in the wet years than the dry, which is why I thought Alaska may be a good spot for them, they grow rapidly and prolifically, (so did my tomatos this year, my neighbors have sworn to do a rain dance next spring so they can get my extra tomatos, and peppers). When you are ready for seeds, just give me a mailing address and I'll send some to ya. Would you like both Jalapenos and Poblanos? Won't cost you any thing but time and a little work.
ewww... I got my hand out for some of your seeds if your sharing!!! let me know!!! love them little hotties!!
ewww... I got my hand out for some of your seeds if your sharing!!! let me know!!! love them little hotties!!
I could share jalapenos y poblanos easily enough, the sweet green ones ....well, at this point in time I really don't have enough to share, first year with them and have enough for a row next year, this year I only had one plant. DM me w/address and I will send seeds.
To the folks Ive been in touch with about the Coop collective in the Valley etc. . And others who know AG in AK is growing and needs all the help it can get.
I wonder what the fallout from the Dairy closing has been? More imports from the lower 48 ?
Heres the Data My Alaskan Friends ;
The Stockman Grass Farmer is published monthly in tabloid format.
Farmers don’t take the initiative to learn on their own, so they are always over-capitalized. They suffer from “heavy metal poisoning,” that is, they constantly have to pay for mountains of equipment they use only infrequently. Their ownership of land also overcapitalizes them. The land value must be discounted according to its productive value. Real estate development has jacked up prices of land with a mountain top view. That land happens to be out in the country, so competition from real estate development has raised land prices so high that agriculture can’t buy that land and make it pay. [That most farmers must borrow to stay in business doesn’t help, either. Most are caught so tight in the usury trap, that they end up working all year for nothing more than the bank and a new note. – F.S.]
Farmers today can’t do what their daddies did and prosper. They’re in a deflation cycle but they are still playing an inflation game, so they produce too much. They also want to own land before they have the productive ability to use it. Before you buy land, you have to be able to make it pay. It makes far more sense to rent than to own until you are able to make it pay.
ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING Farmers’ attitudes are the biggest problem, and that’s a product of years and years of government subsidies. CRP – Conservation Reserve Program – has functioned as rural euthanasia. Think about it. The government rewards those who have destroyed their land. You let erosion ruin your land? Fine! We’ll give you a subsidy!
What about the environmental effects of using so many agricultural chemicals? Plowing destroys organic matter. The nitrogen you put down as fertilizer doesn’t go to the plant directly. Rather, it breaks down organic matter and that nitrogen goes to the plant. Only putting land back into pasture can rebuild its organic matter. In the South especially we tend to lose organic matter because of our high summertime heat.
WHO’S TO BLAME? The state of American agriculture is the farmer’s own fault. He must begin to take responsibility for his own foolishness. Too often farmers suffer from the Rich Man’s Son Syndrome: if I get into trouble, Daddy will bail me out. Farmers say, If I get into trouble, the government will bail me out. Even farmers don’t trust farmers, because they know farmers’ attitude is “Everybody is cheating me so I’ll cheat everybody I can.”
WHICH WAY OUT? Once you go down the high-capitalization farming road you can only come back through bankruptcy. What is their only choice? To turn away from it. There is something at work I call the Law of the Economic Paradox. The exact opposites of economy work, but they don’t work in the middle. The Amish can make money farming. Huge agribusiness can make money farming, but those in the middle can’t.
GRASS IS GREENER It’s not the application of nitrogen that’s hurting but all the bare ground. Forty percent of all the grain grown in the wold feeds ruminant animals. Why not pasture? We’ve bred animals for fast weight gain on grain. Why not select those that thrive on pasture?
Land put into pasture doesn’t need as muchfertilization. In Argentina they put land into grain for three years, then in pasture for five to seven years, and they can grow corn without nitrogen fertilizer.
High capitalization farming ties up money in things losing value -- land, tractors, equipment, etc. – as opposed to assets gaining value – lambs, calves, and cows. We have to abandon the high capitalization model for a low capitalization model. Abandoning the high capitalization model gets around the environmental problems completely.
But it is always easier to change people than to change people’s minds. The old generation will have to pass away and make way for a whole new generation to take over. Old paradigm minds don’t change. Their psychic and physical investment in the status quo is too great. Nothing but a radical change will work. Just like a mature forest, agriculture needs a hurricane to clear it out and let the trees underneath grow.
The best course would be for the government to completely takes its hands off agriculture: benign neglect. Get the government out, then stand back and let whose who must fail, fail. As long as the government subsidizes farming, new people won’t enter.
P;ease explain how putting land into pasture allows one to grow corn w/o applying nitrogen?
You speak about --grasses-- alot.
Grasses do not put nitrogen back into the ground.
Legumes ( clover, alfalfa,soybeans etc) do however.
What might put nitrogen into the ground from grass pastures is the manure from the cattle grazing them. However, for that to have any affect on the following corn crop, you would have to have the cattle packed so densly on that pasture it would resemble a feedlot.
You mentioned a dairy closing.
In the early 70's every dairy magazine in the lower 48 featured the --" New Frontier of Dairying--Alaska"
People were flocking to Alaska to start dairy farming ( I met a guy recently who worked up there installing dairy equipment on all those new dairy farms.
Suddenly-----------POOF !
Everything went silent in farm magazines about the " New Frontier" of dairy farming and those dairy farms began folding like a deck of cards.
I'll bet tiday I could count on one hand the number of dairy farms in Alaska.
Heck, the California gold rush lasted a lot longer than the dairy farming boom in Alaska.
The dairy market in US is dominated by the two big players and smaller operations are being squeezed out one by one. They're loosing something like $.40 on every gallon of milk while the CEO of Dean boasted to the share holders that the record profits are here thanks to the ever- low wholesale milk prices. Figure it out for yourselves.
MM does seem to have a grim outlook on just about everything... in a way he's right, but the potential of this nation can not be underestimated.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
(unedited been workin 6-14's tard sob)
