hans muster

One permaculture adage is: the problem is the solution. You seem to have too much rabbit food (or cavy food, or ...). Having to feed them motivates to weed, and the droppings serve as valuable soil amendment for your crops.

Maybe it is feasible for you?

Hi,
Interesting challenges, and questions.
Regarding your white corn population: Yes, theoretically it is possible to see pollination from other, commercial yellow (gmo…) corn. The only exception is if the yellow corn itself is a hybrid between a yellow and a white corn, then not all seeds would be coloured. This could for example happen if a neighbour replants the own seeds year after year instead of buying commercial seeds. If you have a sufficient population and diversity, you won't need to bring in new varieties every few years, you can let the population evolve on your land.

Regarding your blue corn questions, I am not sure I got them right. However, a quick internet search showed that the blue corn colour can be either in the pericarp (maternal seed coat) or the aleurone layer (derived from fertilization), and that it is based on several dominant genes, (at least 2) which must both be present to have a blue corn.

Therefore, if you plant your blue corn together, it will have a higher likelihood of producing blue cobs. To create a fully blue population without any other colour, the process depends on the genetics, if it is a blue pericarp or blue aleurone corn that you want, and have genetics for. If it is a blue aleurone, you increase the speed of selection if after a year or two you only take cobs which are entirely blue, instead of blue kernels in multi-colour cobs. As you see the colour only after pollination, you could do manual crosses between all the plants, always 2 plants pollinating each other, and then take only the cobs of couples which are entirely blue. Would require a lot of work, but then you have a start without other colours.

As for which one to detassel (blue or white) to create your population: It depends on your priority. If you want to keep your white population and have an experimental blue population, then you can detassel the blue population. This sets you back one year in the blue population, as then you have less blue in there, but you keep your white one. Detasseling the white one means that you lose your white population, setting you back there.

Do you mind writing here what kind of light you are using, with maybe a link to the product?

Do you know the Khan Academy?
They offer online courses for free (you can donate if you want), in math for example.
https://www.khanacademy.org/
Maybe this would be something for you or your nieces?

To flatten them, you can squeeze them between 2 metal plates, and heat them up in a normal oven. 200°C is enough, if I remember well. Then let cool down in shape, it should stay that way.

You could also use two flat stones, like leftover marble pieces from a countertop, weighing them down flat. But then it requires more time to reach the temperature in the oven.

Good to know, thanks for the message: Do you know the alcohol content of your grain mash? or do you ferment after filtering?
How much do they consume, and have you seen any adverse effects, eg. drunk ducks?

Jake Esselstyn wrote:I can't confirm that it is true, but a friend told me that a friend told him that bananas need to produce 31 leaves before they will fruit, so in a marginal climate you need to cut off the leaves to get the tree to the needed leaf count and then it will fruit. This is 3rd hand info, but I'm going to try it because I've been growing big healthy looking banana trees for a couple years now without any fruit.

Older trials (see link below) have mentioned pruning of leaves as a way to extend the time to flowering, I wonder how it will work for you?
https://sci-hub.st/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221589.1992.11516265

I cannot emphasize enough: fertilizing! Especially potassium (available in wood ash for example), and in the early growth nitrogen to build up reserves.
Edit: and yes, there must be enough heat and a constant supply of water.

If you want to build half-moons on a large scale, and can afford the use of a tractor, the Vallerani system might be for you.
Below a really short video on the system, there are other documentaries, longer ones, also available.



The system is also described in the WOCAT database, where you can download it as pdf. Here the example from Northern Burkina Faso https://qcat.wocat.net/en/wocat/technologies/view/technologies_1528/

Hi Rufaro, are you able to watch videos?
if yes, here you can get quite some information on cavies, allowing you to produce meat without buying grains, especially since you had issues with dying chickens

[youtube] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JWjrMOgQYo[/youtube]