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Old 04-16-2016, 12:40 AM   #42
(E)
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
Default Re: [ATE] Farming example

Lass' Bend

Assumptions
- 2 generations after
- Some toxic elements to the end
- Climate meltdown end, temperate areas are dry, deserts are wet.
- very dry, rains every few years, but when it does it is fairly heavy.
- Average annual rainfall about 100mm or 4 inches
- Founded by successful denizens of the early end

Resources
The group that founded Lass' Bend had access to a large truck or river boat during the early years and used it to great effect to build up the initial resources
- Large commercial green house
- A survivalist's bunker with computer, post apocalyptic data store, generator
- Market Gardener
- Botanist, chemist, geologist
- A stockpile of fertilizers, including urea and superphosphate

Notes
- The problem of creating a farm in a desert is, if you're are successful you don't have a desert
- Larger community this time
- numerous desert techniques used
- Any desert farming would be by necessity near water or mobile
- Water storage is large, easily 8000 m3 in a huge range of light weight tanks, fibreglass, metal and plastic. A second storage system is a lined storage pond that is used to hold rain catchment. Storage is in excess of 250,000 m3, Pine nut trees are maintained around the pond to reduce water loss.
- Numerous nutrient rich mineral deposits where identified by the geologist and supply the majority of the nutrient needs. Notable exceptions are Nitrogen, Sulphur and Phosphorus
- A town with a 4 figure population
- Vulnerable to long range attack, water tanks and glass are key parts of the system.
- Defenses would exist, depending on the challenges presented by the particular End that occurred.
- Best guess is the food would combine aspects of Mexican, Israeli and Palestinian cuisine.
- A longer period from the end would see more species bred for arid conditions and some dessert plants bred for human consumption.
- The main greenhouse could be used to produce a tropical fodder crop for an animal system.

Geography and conditions
- Very polluted river, water way or swamp. Deep banks.
- Rolling hills and canyons, foot hills of a mountain range.
- The community is on the opposite side of a ridge from the river/swamp
- Hot and dry
- Geologically the area is marine sediment based, limestone, mudstone and sandstones are common.
- The topography is fairly defensible. But Lass' Bend is just too large to be a fortress.

Description
Traveling along the dust road you start to catch glimpses of Lass' bend from a long way off. The huge green house draped over the ridge and the walls and fields scattered around in every sheltered spot. Walking up to the low adobe wall you see the town square with the town's canine name sake immortalized in statue form. The crowds come as a shock after the long weeks with only your own company.

Primary green house system
The main green house at Lass' bend extends down very close to the shallow river bend that gives the community it's name. The warm, slow moving and toxic water is pumped to the top of a huge screen made of dark porous material inside the green house facing south*. The solar energy is amplified by a field of mirrors. The design of the main green house is such that the hot moist air created by the screen flows up into the rest of the structure. The moist air keeps every thing within the main green house extremely humid and condenses on several purpose built collectors that provide clean flowing water. Much of the humid air is lost due to the ventilation and cooling requirements of this system. However there is still enough water condensed to irrigate the next system.
- At least half of the green house is devoid of plant life and only exists to purify/extract water.
- Some gases can build up due to pollution in the river, exact effects are setting specific. Smoking may be a flogging offence.
- This particular system takes the water a long way vertically from the river.
- hot weather and tropical species, probably salvaged from gardens.

Walled gardens

Down hill from the green house is a walled and heavily subdivided garden system. The plants that cannot tolerate the heat of the main green house are grown here. Trees and vines are trained against walls. This area is very intensively planted. A huge number of water conservation techniques are used here. The walls reduce wind, every square inch of soil is covered by something (plant, mulch, flagstone). Some of the smaller gardens in this system are roofed with glass, some are protected by frames covered in vines, some are open to the air. The inhabitants of Lass' bend primarily live around the edge of this garden. Many varieties of plants are grown here, citrus, almonds and grapes are common perennials. Maybe a square kilometer in size

Open gardens
These are fields near the walled gardens that are used for plants that can handle the arid conditions with a little help.
- Aloes
- Agaves
- Cacti

Inner fields
The Walled gardens sometimes have a water surplus, this plus stored water from rain are used to provide moisture for the field crops. Here is where various cereals and hardy plants are grown (300-400mm per year water requirement).
- Amaranth
- Quinoa
- Sorghum
- Cotton
- Drought tolerant Wheat
- Sweet potatoes
- Beans
- Lucerne
- Hemp
- Chickpeas
- Oil rich crops such as sunflower
- Several others
- Buckwheat
- Tef (Teff) is planted when the water levels are low.

Grazing zone
The positive side effect of the moisture lost from the main green house is that the dense moist air flowed down hill creating a “green zone” various hardy plants survive here. There are enough for a small population of goats to flourish.
- Goats
- Hunting(?)

Flood flats
These are areas lower than the rest of Lass' Bend they are typically narrow eroded flood plains with 2-3 meter high banks. They are planted in a plants that can grow from the one surge of moisture. Three sisters planting, four sisters planting and sometimes just Tepary beans with rock mulch are used depending on the exact location and soil type.
- Tepary and other beans
- Watermelon
- Squash
- Corn and maize

Micro gardens
In various nooks and sheltered spots around the perimeter of Lass' Bend you will find odd looking moisture collectors, some are simple like an old air cooled engine block painted white while others are hanging nets of fine woven polypropylene. They all serve the same purpose, to condense any extra moisture out of the air. This is helped by the local conditions as moist air flows from the main green house, the wind sometimes carries some moisture off the river/swamp as well. The cool surface condenses the water out of the air and then it is collected and directed to small gardens or even individual plants that are sheltered and fenced. Perennials are common as are hardy trees, some water is left accessible to encourage animal and insect activity. Each micro garden is a unique example of matching survival skills and technology to the environment. Some are camouflaged for added protection. Possible species are still fairly hardy though, Olives would be an example.

Livestock
- Chickens
- Goats
- Fish (?)
- Bees

Produces
- A wide range of vegetables and cereals
- Some dairy products
- Large enough to support a few specialists
- Fiber crops
- Oil crops
- Bread
- Coffee is possible, as well as other luxury crops.

Requires
- Glass, large sheets of glass are required to repair and enlarge the green house. Also polycarbonate & polyethylene.
- Nitrate fertilizer to supplement the urea stockpile
- Meat
- Leather
- Firewood
- Cement (powder) for building stronger water tanks, defenses etc
- Donkeys would be a valuable addition
- Insecticides and fungicides would boost production

Crunch
Provided there is a steady water supply and readily available fertilizer the walled garden system has the possibility of producing subsistence or better food for up to 4000 people when intensely farmed. Halve that if fertilizer levels are low. Higher production is possible but not sustainable long term in an AtE setting. Assume a 10% boost for Insecticides and for fungicides if a trader supplies some, although the main benefit would be to the robustness of the system. This presumes good food storage techniques are used.

The green house is a trickier case as due to plant species availability it may be almost a mono-culture, how many tropical species are available in a temperate area? For Lass' bend I am leaving it as a location for "supplemental crops" like luxuries and utility plants like sugar cane, oil rich plants, coffee, banana, jute and medicinal plants. If a full range of TL 8+ seeds and chemicals where available then production could be enough to feed more than 500 people per hectare.

The inner fields represent 150 hectares of productive land that require approximately 4000m3 of water to irrigate each hectare per crop (minus rain fall). Farming skill and meteorological guesstimates would be aiming to have the last irrigated crop coming off just before it rained, when ever that is going to be. 62 hectares of crops, representing typically 150 to 360 tonnes of energy rich long lasting cereal, Say enough for 250 more people. The typical annual rainfall will increase the production to 200-480 tonnes (if the farming rolls are successful). Portions of the inner fields will be fallow. A major rain event will see three quarters of the fields sown (some luck needed by the farmers to get the timing right) that will result in 360-720 tonnes with only a little loss from the water reserves.

The flood flats will produce maybe 2-4 tonnes of food per hectare after a flood, over 2-4 months.

While five or six thousand people is possible, a more comfortable number would be closer to three thousand.

*North if you are in the southern hemisphere or if the poles have flipped

Edit new system added, mirco gardens
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Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn

Last edited by (E); 04-16-2016 at 09:18 PM.
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