[ATE] Farming example

[(E)]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Agreed. I've been copypasting them into a worddoc and saving them.

Just in case PK happens to another thread! ;)

Every time I go back to check the details on an old post I usually end up editing something so you might want to double check from time to time. I haven't made any large changes but there have been the odd additions.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by (E)

Every time I go back to check the details on an old post I usually end up editing something so you might want to double check from time to time. I haven't made any large changes but there have been the odd additions.

I've also just been downloading the whole thread every time you make a new post... as another back up.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I've also just been downloading the whole thread every time you make a new post... as another back up.

I've been tempted to do the same thing.

Good thing memory is so cheap, these days. :)

[(E)]

A place to call home, Animals

One switch to use here is companion animals, that is to say horses and dogs, both are used for good reason when dealing with livestock. One of the low-tech books has a write up.

Before acquiring any livestock the group has to be ready to take care of them, this means three things, Fences, Water and Food. The exact requirements will be different for each type of animal. Animal health is an issue for another time (maybe)

There are two ways the group can get livestock, the first way is to buy it from another community in exchange for goods or services. Chickens are likely to be acquired this way, they are relatively common and in most places they will not do too well as feral animals.

Poultry
Chickens are already mentioned above but there are other varieties of poultry the group might acquire. Turkeys which eat enough insects and parasites to serve an additional purpose can work as a semi-domesticated animal. Geese are grazers so they do well on pasture with little or no additional food. Aside from meat they produce quite edible eggs once a year and have been used as guard animals since antiquity. Peacocks are another species that can be farmed for meat. Quail are another option, they do well in warmer climates and require very little space. Ducks are also possible, like chickens domestic duck breeds will do poorly in a feral situation.

Cattle
Note this is more to do with farming cattle than ranching.
When dealing with feral cattle it is important to remember that you do not want to end up a bloody pulp. Options include capturing smaller animals, people who do this use horses. Another option is mustering this usually involves dogs, aircraft, vehicles or other cattle, the aim is to chase the cattle into an enclosure. If you are less mobile than the animals in question this will be very difficult. Cattle have the one advantage over people when it comes to mobility, they can go through more things than we can. The last option is to trap the animal to do this you need a large sturdy enclosure around something the animal wants to get to, water, an animal in estrus (and vice versa in cattle) or pasture. Once the animals are captured then they will have to be acclimatized to humans, this may or may not work, but it is more likely with younger animals.
- Food; as pasture, pumpkins, legumes, plantain are already present on the groups farm the only addition would be hay which is time consuming to make and probably outside the groups ability to make for at least few years yet. Good pasture needs to be built up first.
- Water, Clean water is the drink of choice for cattle. Plastic drinking troughs are good but they will need to replaced after 2-5 years due to wear and tear. Concrete is better and within the groups technical ability as the can bake lime. Having water piped to the troughs will be good too, a lactating cow needs about 60 liters of water a day. Most agricultural pipe is UV stabilized so it should last more than 40 years, especially if buried. Pipe connectors will need to be found or made. Ballcocks can be salvaged from toilets to complete the delivery side of the water system. The group's water source would be expanded and then fed by gravity to the stock and the rest of the farm.
- Fences, Pasture needs very robust fences, electrification helps too. A set of cattle yards will be required for initially containing the animals and sufficient feed supplied while they are contained. The cattle yards will have to be well built, railway iron and 6 by 2 timber with gates that can be closed fast, 2 meter high railed fences with escape gaps for people and multiple pens.
- Regarding the numbers of cattle mustered, it is easier to get a herd of cattle than to get a single animal. If a muster is successful then the group may have a dozen animals in their cattle yards.

Goats
Goats can be captured, trapped or mustered (again dogs will be of great use) The key thing with goats is the quality of the fences, in essence goats can climb. Good (high) fences could be used to contain a population of goats outside of the cleared areas. Then depending on the genetics of the goats acquired they could be brought in for annually for shearing, as required for slaughter or seasonally for milking. Goat fences are typically 2 meters tall and constructed from wire netting. Goats can do well on less established pasture provided there are trees to browse on. Milking goats, meat goats and fibre goats are all distinctive breeds each of which are good at one area of production, mixed feral genetics are going to be random but presume a 60% reduction in milk yields, a 30% reduction in annual meat yields and possibly an absence of fiber production.

Sheep
Similar to goats to capture but the fencing will be easier. Again genetics are an issue, this comes down to TL and the GM's choices. Ideally the group would want high fertility milking animals but that is unlikely, high fertility and fast growth are valuable genetic traits in feral animals so those traits should survive. Sheep can handle cold dry conditions very well.

Pigs
The group could trap pigs and then contain them but dealing with a full grown pig is difficult. The easiest way would be to catch piglets while they are still on their mother but are old enough to be weaned. They would need a well built enclosure until they are fully domesticated.

Challenges
- Buy the right chickens (farming, animal handling, vet)
- Capture live cattle (Animal handling, carpentry, architecture, dodge)
- Catching piglets (running, dexterity, animal handling, stealth)
- Mustering and catching other animals (animal handling, perception)
- Finding the animals (tracking, area knowledge, survival, perception)
- Maximizing the pigs food conversion (farming, animal handling)

Yields

The group has sufficient grazing space for 1-2 cows, 5-10 sheep or 6-12 goats. Without fodder crops use the lower end.
- A cow that has down bred from a dairy cow might produce 1000 litres of milk a year, that's about one seventh as much as an average current dairy cow produces, on top of that there is about 50 litres of energy rich cream produced. This cream can be stored as butter with simple churning (and a small amount of salt). Halve the milk and cream if the cow is also supporting a calf. High quality feed if it is available may double this milk production especially if it can be used over a long period of time.
- 3-6 kilograms of wool per sheep per yeat would reflect some modern genetic influence on the AtE population. Twin lambs will be common, 160% lambing in good conditions with no modern drenches is an educated guess on the benefits of current genetic trends*. So the 5-10 sheep produce 6-14 lambs per year for food and replacements. The lambs would be born in spring and slaughtered by winter when feed gets short. 100-300kgs of meat a year.
- Pigs are a great way to store food for later “life is just natures way of keeping meat fresh” (Dr Who) They convert surplus and wasted food at around 10-20 percent efficiency. Sour Milk and fodder crops can be added to their diet
- Chickens will be supported at about 4 chickens per person on scraps. This is about 2 eggs a day. This also means that there is no scraps for left for pigs. These scraps are from the entire food production process for that person, not just the table scraps.

More on this tomorrow, it got a little long. Does anyone want the crunch specific to the “a place to call home” example? The other option is to keep the crunch more generic.

Edit
Water troughs can also be carved out of logs provided they are the right type of timber.
* presuming a least TL9 pre end.

[(E)]

A place to call home, other bits

The bits that don't fit elsewhere.

Crops
Having a field of Maize provides an excellent place to hunt and trap the animals who come to eat it.

If slopes and drainage permit then building a tunnel into the limestone will provide a location with a stable temperature, while not a great means of preserving food by itself, this will alow other methods to be used more effectively. Such as curing meat, storing cheese and storing most other preserved foods for that matter.

Refrigeration
If the group has the means to acquire and power pre-End refrigeration this would be a huge benefit across all aspects of the farm. Milk for example only takes hours to go off if it cannot be cooled down. Meat can be kept for months rather than days(without other treatment). Germination of seeds can be improved and managed with temperature.

Homemade refrigeration
One option is evaporation, put a smaller waterproof container inside a porous container, fill the gap between the two with water. As the water evaporates it cools the inner container. There are several examples of this, such as ceramic refrigeration and Coolgardie safes

Using the limestone tunnel (if they have one) as thermal "ballast" is another approach. It would work like underfloor heating in reverse.

Shade and green houses
Another way to ensure all year round food supplies is to extend the growing season for some of the crops. Green houses are used to warm plants that cannot handle the cold and Shade houses do the reverse.

Production of sugar
Sugar has enough uses to justify a bit of work on the groups behalf to get hold of a supply. The two main options outside of a tropical climate would seem to be sugar beets and fruit. Sugar beets on a small scale might produce 2 kgs of sucrose per m2 planted. This is most likely in a green house. About 14kgs per m2 of waste material suitable for animal feed would be produced during the refining process.

Tobacco
As I have mentioned in an earlier post nicotine can be used to treat internal parasites in animals. It is also a paralytic poison.

Water supply
This is of critical importance to the group. A triple dam would provide a measure of security. They could also construct water tanks from concrete.

Cleaning
Keeping all the food preservation equipment clean will be a major requirement. Given the right equipment the chemist may be able to make and distill hydrogen peroxide. Failing that the group should be able to make soap fairly easily once they have sheep or an oil crop. Aside from that they will need heat.

Fertilizer
If the group wants to double the production they will need to find and transport about a tonne of green sand (potassium source) per year as well as a maybe 3 tonnes of rock dust every 5 years and a quarter tonne of potash and half a tonne of urea. After a year they will still be 50% ahead of unfertilized, maybe 30% the following year. The fertility will revert to default in around 10 years, presuming crop rotations remain in action etc. This presumes the chemist can analyse the soil for the exact requiments.
The TL 6 approach would have been a hundred weight of manure to the acre to produce a high yield.

[tshiggins]

Production of greensand looks a lot like work. You'd need a deposit, close by, and then you'd need to quarry it, and then grind it down.

Here's an interesting link to some information about potassium replacement:

http://ucanr.org/sites/nm/files/76654.pdf

It looks like the potassium remains local if the farm produce is used by the farmers, themselves. The problem occurs if the produce is sold to others, who take it off the land.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Production of greensand looks a lot like work. You'd need a deposit, close by, and then you'd need to quarry it, and then grind it down.

Here's an interesting link to some information about potassium replacement:

http://ucanr.org/sites/nm/files/76654.pdf

It looks like the potassium remains local if the farm produce is used by the farmers, themselves. The problem occurs if the produce is sold to others, who take it off the land.

The whole fertilizer section needs a bit more work. I started with the idea of discussing building up the base levels of the various nutrients and the got sidetracked. Potash calculations (probably preferable to green sand) and sulfur where completely forgotten. I am also trying to find if "Olsen P" numbers get used outside of NZ ? (P not k)

[(E)]

Fertilizing and soil AtE


There are four main issues with soil composition, though not all may be important in every situation.*

Soil structure
In conditions where the crops/plants face a water challenge a well developed soil structure is an advantage, in the simplest terms having old plant matter around the roots of plants is helpful for retaining moisture. Some soils such as heavy clays may have poor drainage and soil conditioners may be added on the small scale or structural changes may be made on the large scale. In AtE composting and burying plant matter will be required to increase the plant matter in the soil. Some crops may even be selected based on the residual plant matter they leave behind.

Nutrients
This for a gaming level of detail. Aside from specific deficiencies the main soil nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur. The first thing to do is slowly bring the individual nutrients up to the desired levels (this will vary based on crop or pasture) over a period of several years. Once the levels are built up then a maintenance application each spring or autumn after. The nutrients will slowly diminish over several years when a solid fertilizer history has been established. Though this does depend what crops are being grown and how. Careful management of ground cover can reduce nutrient run off somewhat.
- Potash, 60-100 kg of potash can be recovered from burning a hectare of mature forest collecting the ashes and processing them with water. This would be one heavy treatment for a hectare of farm or crop land, farming or chemistry checks would be made to determine if it was required.
- Phosphorus, ideally phosphate rich rock would be treated with nitric acid to make an easily absorbable NPK fertilizer. Blood and bone are presumably the most available sources AtE. Various combinations of grinding, cooking and mixing with sulfuric acid can produce a range of fertilizers including ones that are high in nitrogen. Bones can also be used to make a filtering compound that is fairly effective at removing heavy metal contaminants.
- Nitrogen, most likely from blood meal
- Sulfur, the average house supposedly contains between 6-8 tonnes of gypsum, from which elemental sulfur can be extracted through the use of a kiln. Hydrogen sulphide can also be extracted by bacterial action. The chemical usefulness of sulphuric acid may make plaster board (gib board, drywall) decomposition pits a viable process.

PH
Getting the soil to the right PH is another key step, different nutrients are more accessible at different PH's and each species of plant has its own preference. Potatoes like acid soils, beans can handle a wider range of soils, cabbages do well in alkali soil. The two main tools for adjusting PH are Lime to make the soil more alkali and sulfur which makes the soil more acid. Sulfur has the added effect of reducing fungal growth.

Microbial life
Healthy soil is home to a vast range of species of micro-organisms that perform a wide range of functions that benefit plants. One group is of particular interest as it is currently the focus of a significant amount of research. In a higher TL endophytes have the potential to greatly increase plant growth and possibly more importantly for AtE increase the conditions the plant can tolerate. This includes nutrients, PH and even temperature. The animal equivalent would be the work that is being done to select more efficient and more carbon neutral bacteria for ruminant stomachs.

* indoor, irrigated plants for example don't require any structure in their soil as water is in theory always available.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by (E)

Fertilizing and soil AtE


There are four main issues with soil composition, though not all may be important in every situation.*

(SNIP)

I like this. Anybody who wants to see an example of how this looks, IRL, head out to a major farm that produces crops for the market. Compare the soil in the field to the soil in your back yard. They look at least somewhat different.

In some cases, the difference is stark. The soil in fields in Colorado look very little like the sandy, short-grass prairie that surrounds them.

[(E)]

The New Kingdoms

Assumptions
- TL 9 End
- Sugar cane is used to produce ethanol for fuel
- The sugar cane is its own nitrogen fixer
- The occupants can farm their food any way they see fit provided they do not interfere with the bio fuel production, though they have little time and land.
- High yielding crops
- the global conditions are such that toxins are continually being redistributed around the planet.
- Hotter climate
- The "knights" are vehicle mounted.
- The pollutants persist in the soil and continually percolate upwards (similar to what salt does in some soils in Australia) so a major part of the crop rotation are phytoremediating plants.

Notes
- Every hectare of sugar cane produces 800 litres of ethanol a year (430 litres at TL8)
- Every hectare of Canola produces 3000 litres of oil (1200 litres at TL8, with TL 9 extraction)
- Every hectare of sunflowers produces 1600 litres of oil (950litres at TL 8)
- Every hectare of hemp produces 600 litres of oil (360litres at TL 8)
- Pseudo Feudal system with a guess of 400 hectares productive to support an small army (350 hectares in the primary system)
- Sufficient infrastructure exists to make TL 8 fertilizer and it is usually distributed through the irrigation system
- It is possible that the aristocracy is not human, robotic overlords may require the biofuel for sustenance
- Before farming the areas have two successive crops of poplars planted and removed to clear sufficient toxins to begin planting other crops, this is a thirty year process.
- About a third of the workers diet is by products of the biofuel production.
- The workers are constantly managing the crops, removing insects, weeding and tending.
- Sugar lends itself to making rockets.

Description
The demise is a checkerboard of crops, tall plantations of green sugar and darker green hemp are contrasted by vibrant yellow canola and sunflower crops. In the corners and along the edges are the small plantings that feed the workers, some show signs of toxins leaching up from the deeper reaches of the soil. The area is surrounded by stands of poplars and smooth roads radiate out from the central fortified refinery.

Primary crops
The following rotation is in place to supply the warrior nobility with the resources they need to maintain an armed force. With a sequence of Sugar cane, sunflowers, rape/canola, hemp and then animals this rotation system has sugar cane as a nitrogen fixer and the sunflowers and hemp function as phytoremediation crops removing some of the accumulating toxins from the soil. The crops are drip irrigated and a fertiliser injection system is used. This irrigation method combined with the crop rotation means there is a large labour requirement. This use of serfs or slaves has led to the new feudalism. 3 years of sugar cane production is followed by a year of Canola, Sunflowers, Hemp and animals in whichever order works best for the location.

Livestock
Chickens, pigs, fish, ducks and cattle make up the common species farmed in this system. The cattle are also used as draft animals to save on fuel use. The fish and ducks are an integral part of the irrigation system as the naturally increase to nutrient level of the water. The chickens, cattle and pigs are include for manure production and because they can be fed the by products of the oil extraction system. Some of the by products are fed indirectly to the omnivorous animals and workers through meal worms. The fat is also used in biofuel production.

Other phytoremediation crops
in places where the water table has been degraded to the point where salt is becoming an issue Sugar beats and barley are used to reduce the salt though they require shade houses to be erected to handle the higher temperatures. The contaminated plant material that is produced by the phytoremediation processes may or may not be removed from the system. It may instead be left to build up in the animals or workers depending on how savage the overlords are.

Meal worms
Another part of the toxin removal system these insects as well as being a key component of the human, pig, fish and chicken diets also have the ability to process some plastics and remove them from the food cycle.

Food crops
- Duck weed, this crop is grown in the water storage ponds and serves as a fast growing protein rich vegetable consumed by humans and animals alike.
- Small gardens, meal worms, duck weed, eggs, potatoes (TL 9 heat tolerant,with a yield of 120 tonnes per hectare) and beans (TL 9, with a yield of 8 tonnes per hectare) supplement the oil extraction by products for the worker's diet

Produces
- Fuels, 40,000 litres of ethanol which combined with the oils produce a total of 240,000 litres of biodiesel and 75,000 litres of lower grade oil for conversion to lubricants and powering less delicate standing engines.
- Explosives
- Refining
- Lye
- Toxin rich food (cheap) 1/3 the cost of the expensive food (2000-3000 person years of food or 1/3 as much "clean" food)
- Toxin free food (expensive)
- Meat surplus
- plastics

Requires
- Filtration technology
- Catalysts
- More labour units, if the overlords consider toxin build up in the work force a beneficial feature.
- Potassium.
- Food for 1000 (workers and their families)