Potential Agricultural Improvements (a grab bag)

[chr92]

A minor help might be earlier no-kill skeps. The main benefit would be better pollination of orchards etc; but having more plentiful beeswax could have benefits, too

 

[DominusNovus]

A minor help might be earlier no-kill skeps. The main benefit would be better pollination of orchards etc; but having more plentiful beeswax could have benefits, too

Given that I had to look up what a skep is, would you be so kind as to provide any good resources on this?

In fact, I think we all should have provided some handy links for any of the more obscure agricultural technologies, plants, or techniques.

 

[Arkenfolm]

A minor help might be earlier no-kill skeps. The main benefit would be better pollination of orchards etc; but having more plentiful beeswax could have benefits, too

How early would you be able to make something like that? If you could get more honey out of it, you could lower the price of honey and make mead cheaper, thus perhaps keeping mead somewhat popular in Northern Europe?

 

[AnonymousSauce]

Another underutilized crop IOTL which could really make a big difference, if adopted, dispersed and cultivated more widely- Palmer's saltgrass, Distichlis palmeri, also known as nipa grass, a cereal plant native to the Colorado river delta. The big deal about this crop- it's extremely salt-tolerant, and the only known viable halophyte cereal crop, which excretes the excess salt it absorbs from specialised cells (which are not stomata) on its leaf surfaces. This makes it just about the only viable crop in the world which can be irrigated with sea water, only requiring 24 hours of fresh water to germinate. In spite of this, it doesn't require either salt or water logging to grow, with extreme drought resistance. It's also a perennial crop, and has similar nutritional value to wheat- and in no time at all, since its rediscovery, a breeding program (primarily for commercial use in Australia) has also increased its yields to levels approaching those of wild wheat varieties, exceeding 2 tonnes/hectare. Sounds like the perfect crop for someone like the Polynesians, if they ventured that far north in an ATL. And if they did, then how much further might the Polynesians have been able to expand- might a Polynesian colonization of Australia itself have been on the cards, if they'd brought nipa along with them from North America in addition to the sweet potatoes they'd brought back with them from South America? Or, indeed, a wholesale Polynesian colonization of North America itself, centred around the Californian coast?

Is there potential for indigenous domestication? I had an idea for a TL once where the Lower Colorado/Gila/Salt valleys became a cradle of civilization analogous to Mesopotamia, but I couldn't find a suitable grain founder crop to use as a foundation. This looks like it could have promise.

 

[Zachariah]

Is there potential for indigenous domestication? I had an idea for a TL once where the Lower Colorado/Gila/Salt valleys became a cradle of civilization analogous to Mesopotamia, but I couldn't find a suitable grain founder crop to use as a foundation. This looks like it could have promise.

Well, it was widely domesticated and cultivated by the Patayan indigenous peoples of this region IOTL- at least, at the time when the Europeans arrived. Hernando de Alarcón mentioned it, and as @Anson brought up, noted the merits of the crop upon first contact- along with engaging with the Cocopah peoples on very friendly and amiable terms. Unfortunately though, he and the members of his crew seem to have gotten a little too friendly and too closely acquainted with the Cocopah upon first contact, as illustrated by the extensive information which he and his crew compiled about the natives' sexual habits and customs; and for the natives, who still pursued a predominantly nomadic hunting lifestyle in addition to their floodplains agriculture, instead of building large settlements and domesticating animals, thus never developing urban population centers nor the requisite increased immunity to diseases, a massive pandemic brought about population and societal collapse. The crop itself was thought for centuries to have gone the same way as the Patayan civilization, and been rendered extinct. But a modern search for remaining plants in the delta was successful in discovering a lone surviving wild population-isolate, and this wild variety's yields have been improved through breeding programs since then, over the past few decades. As such, Distichlis palmeri technically isn't the same crop as the historical Nipa grown by the natives, any more than Oryza rufipogon's the same crop as Oryza sativa; and given that the Patayan in the delta had cultivated the crop for almost a millennia prior to their tragic demise, it's likely that the difference between their yields would have been just as vast.

 

[chr92]

Given that I had to look up what a skep is, would you be so kind as to provide any good resources on this?

I did have a bookmark about the various modern beehives, but seem to have lost it. I think they're listed on wikipedia. Most of them seem to be pretty low tech, and produceable by classical world technology.

 

[mosodake]

For example, one that I'm quite partial to in my timelines is the idea of coffee being cultivated earlier in history, and the influence that would have on Indian Ocean trade networks.

Coffee being introduced to the world earlier might also mean an earlier introduction of coffee rust and subsequent collapse of nascent coffee industries like what happened in Sri Lanka. Or it could mean greater genetic diversity in coffee plantations and lower susceptibility. Alternatively, what if other coffee species like C. liberica and C. canephora became popular instead of C. arabica?

Another example that I've recently been quite interested in is tagasaste, a very hardy nitrogen-fixing tree, native to the Canary Islands, which has, in the past 3 decades, become very popular as a fodder crop, mainly for cattle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytisus_proliferus
Basically, alfalfa on a tree. This is the sort of crop that could result in large livestock gains across the world, particularly in pre-industrial/pre-fertilizer societies, and particularly in marginal lands.

The problem with it being a tree is that woody plants produce lignin, which lowers the digestibility and nutritional value of the plant. Now, in a marginal climate with few options that doesn't matter, but if better quality forage crops grow in your climate there is really no incentive to use it. Breeding for low lignin content is a major priority for alfalfa breeding programs.

It's very strange that quinoa never spread since it would be very useful in mountainous and polar regions. It would be almost like the potato in places like Switzerland or Russia (including Russian Alaska).

Quinoa can survive only mild frosts and has a long growing season. Cultivation may not be possible in those areas or may not be sufficient to make it significantly better than any crops already grown there.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Another underutilized crop IOTL which could really make a big difference, if adopted, dispersed and cultivated more widely- Palmer's saltgrass, Distichlis palmeri, also known as nipa grass, a cereal plant native to the Colorado river delta. The big deal about this crop- it's extremely salt-tolerant, and the only known viable halophyte cereal crop, which excretes the excess salt it absorbs from specialised cells (which are not stomata) on its leaf surfaces. This makes it just about the only viable crop in the world which can be irrigated with sea water, only requiring 24 hours of fresh water to germinate. In spite of this, it doesn't require either salt or water logging to grow, with extreme drought resistance. It's also a perennial crop, and has similar nutritional value to wheat- and in no time at all, since its rediscovery, a breeding program (primarily for commercial use in Australia) has also increased its yields to levels approaching those of wild wheat varieties, exceeding 2 tonnes/hectare. Sounds like the perfect crop for someone like the Polynesians, if they ventured that far north in an ATL. And if they did, then how much further might the Polynesians have been able to expand- might a Polynesian colonization of Australia itself have been on the cards, if they'd brought nipa along with them from North America in addition to the sweet potatoes they'd brought back with them from South America? Or, indeed, a wholesale Polynesian colonization of North America itself, centred around the Californian coast?

The North American Pacific Coast is really tough to get civilization going in. There are lots of potential cradles but they're all very isolated from each other and from the south. Mariners from Japan or somewhere like that in the northern Pacific would have a relatively easy time getting there, but Peruvians and even Oaxacans might as well be on Mars.

 

[Anson]

Is there potential for indigenous domestication? I had an idea for a TL once where the Lower Colorado/Gila/Salt valleys became a cradle of civilization analogous to Mesopotamia, but I couldn't find a suitable grain founder crop to use as a foundation. This looks like it could have promise.

I had thinking similar to this. My thoughts were that since the American Southwest already had agriculture centred from maize, the people in the main Colorado river basin might also adapt agriculture but for nipa/ palmer's grass.
So I also think that California could have somehow also become home to agricultural civilizations.

The North American Pacific Coast is really tough to get civilization going in. There are lots of potential cradles but they're all very isolated from each other and from the south. Mariners from Japan or somewhere like that in the northern Pacific would have a relatively easy time getting there, but Peruvians and even Oaxacans might as well be on Mars.