11-25-2020, 05:57 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
|
Crop selection
I'm looking for information about what crops are planted and how much of each crop is planted each year/season by a relatively self sufficent low tech community (village/town etc).
I have lots of fragmentary data and examples about this but little unifying theory. That said, a unifying theory may not exist. If anyone knows of any sources to research or has any information it would be appreciated.
__________________
Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
11-26-2020, 01:05 AM | #2 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Udine, Italy
|
Re: Crop selection
Quote:
|
|
11-26-2020, 04:43 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Nov 2020
|
Re: Crop selection
Is there a specific time period and civilization you are trying to emulate?
|
11-26-2020, 07:20 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
|
Re: Crop selection
The location and era matters a lot. After the Columbian exchange, American staples started being grown in Africa, Asia, and Europe in vast quantities, so much so that many people in those regions assume that crops like chocolate, maize, peanuts, pineapple, potato, pumpkin, tomato, vanilla, etc. are native to their culture. Before the Columbian exchange, the crops of the Old World were much less varied, with the majority of land being devoted to grains like barley, millet, rice, sorghum, soybean, rye, wheat, etc..
|
11-26-2020, 08:55 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
|
Re: Crop selection
Quote:
Soybeans are East Asian, and thus not part of old European diets. Peas were originally Mediterranean and Near Eastern, and spread to Europe and India quite early. Broad beans and lentils were common pretty much all over Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Europe also had a wide range of root crops (Turnips, beets, etc.), many of which were displaced by potatoes, and also many brassicas, and lettuces. One thing that's always amused me is the assumption that Indian food ('curries') naturally have lots of chilli in them to make them hot. Chilli is, of course, not native to India, but to the Americas.
__________________
Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
|
11-26-2020, 10:56 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: Crop selection
Quote:
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
|
11-26-2020, 11:56 AM | #8 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
|
Re: Crop selection
Quote:
We need to start by determining the objective of farming. Humans, until recently, have generally increased their numbers to the limits of the food supply, but other species might have different objectives, such as fantasy elves not wanting to change the character of a forest. Then there's the question of the amount of food you can get without using agriculture, from fishing, hunting, and gathering, and what kinds of food you can get from those means. Then there's the question of the amount of land available, the kinds of crops available, the amount of labour needed for different crops, the need for crop rotation, the potential for making money by growing different crops, your need or desire for crops other than food, such as fibre or tobacco, and so on. There's also the trade-off between using land for agriculture or animal husbandry, which depends strongly on the kind of land you have, the kinds of animals, and your need for animal labour for agriculture. The total problem is huge, and filled with special cases and feedback loops. In any real situation, it will be much simpler because of constraints, but still pretty complicated. A practical way to solve it for game purposes might well be to start with nutritional requirements, what different kinds of food can supply, and what different ways of getting food can yield.
__________________
The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
|
11-26-2020, 12:14 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: On the road again...
|
Re: Crop selection
In the past, a lot of what decided which crops were grown depending on knowing - usually through experimentation - which crops would grow in an area based on its climate and soil conditions, as well as the need for irrigation. And a lot of this was trial and error.
You wouldn't plant potatoes in South Carolina, for example, because that's the wrong climate, even if the soil was right; it's basically too hot for potatoes. Likewise, you wouldn't plant much wheat in most of Norway because it's just too cold most of the year. A good idea from a worldbuilding standpoint is to figure out what region of our world the climate is like, and see what crops are or were grown in that region (Wikipedia is your friend in this case). It's not perfect, but it's a start.
__________________
"Life ... is an Oreo cookie." - J'onn J'onzz, 1991 "But mom, I don't wanna go back in the dungeon!" The GURPS Marvel Universe Reboot Project A-G, H-R, and S-Z, and its not-a-wiki-really web adaptation. Ranoc, a Muskets-and-Magery Renaissance Fantasy Setting |
11-26-2020, 12:54 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
|
Re: Crop selection
Another thing to consider is nutritional requirements. Many New World grains require complementary crops to provide humans with complete nutrition, which was one the reasons why malnutrition was such as issue in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. They switched to New World crops like maize and potatoes because of the bulk calories that they could produce, not understanding that they had less protein and fewer nutrients per kilogram than Old World crops. They usually ended up with more people because of more calories, but the resulting population often suffered from mental and physical difficulties caused by the resulting chronic malnutrition.
|
Tags |
farming, low tech, world building |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|