The advantages of perennial crops is well known. Perennial plants are plants that are planted once and grow many times through many seasons thus saving time and money. They have long roots that add organic matter to the soil and keep the soil healthy. So, if they are so great is there any way to convert annual crops to perennial so time, money and soil can be conserved?
In the early 1980s, New York Times released an article that explored this very own topic. The article mentions that an Argentine-American collaboration led to a discovery of a perennial corn (Sullivan 1982). They discovered that when crossing normal corn with a distant wild relative, teosinte, a new breed of corn was produced which happened to be perennial (Sullivan 1982). This perennial corn can be more harvestful, feed more people since it continuously grows, and requires less capital for the farmers to plant it. With all these great benefits from discovering a perennial corn the researchers are figuring out if this concept applies to other crops as well. They are actively looking for more crops to transfer from annuals to perennials.
Since its discovery in the 1980s, the knowledge that corn could be perennial has been known for many years now. However, there has not been the implementation of the perennial corn onto the fields. This is mainly due to the uncertainty if the perennial corn is the same as the annual corn. There are still studies underway to make sure that the two corn breeds are identical and that perennial corn does not harm people in anyway. Only after this conclusion has been made, can it be implemented onto farm fields. Once that begins to happen, perennial corn can return all the great benefits of perennial plants such as saving money, time and keeping the soil healthy.
Works Cited:
Sullivan, Walter. “CROSS BETWEEN CORN AND A WILD RELATIVE YIELDS A PERENNIAL CROP.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Feb. 1982. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
Yuan Pu Chiu says
This post is rational in the way that if perennial corn is able to produce without much of negative impact to human beings, it might save a large number of time and investment to re-plant each year. However, annual plants usually tend to produce more than perennials do since they only live one year long, and logically more harvests are available. Also, corn is just like rice and wheat which are usually annual crops that can feed more people; though, they aren’t as benefitial as perennials to soil quality. To achieve the maximum benefit that perennial and annual plants may bring, a certain balance bwtween them is required instead of having one substitutes another.
Blaine T Wissler says
I found this post to be really interesting because when completing the activity from last module about the top 15 agricultural commodities, I saw that a lot of those crops were naturally perennials but were grown and harvested at annuals. This post shows the opposite of that, which caught my eye and shows that there is research going into converting annual crops to perennials to presumably lessen the negative impact that agriculture can have on the environment. I just wonder how many farmers would be willing to switch to a perennial in place of an annual to help the environment, even if it meant less yield and less profit.
Lindsey Rullman says
Interesting post!The perennial farming method always has its advantages but so does annual farming and I think that’s why it is so controversial. According to the Top 10 Corn Producing Countries from MapsofWorld.com, the United States is ranked #1. I believe this is because of the fast production and high yields that are produced on our farms. In order to keep up with the high demand of corn, the annual farms have to take advantage of its system and produce large amounts of corn in a short amount of time with the help of fertilizers and other chemicals. That is why I believe most of the production of corn is done in annual farms.