Should this be in Around the Farm or Off Topic? I think it is Off enough to be on this forum and too horse-related to be in Off Topic.
Two different experiments involving alfalfa and wheat are absolutely fascinating to me. Let’s call them Alfalfa Fun Facts, just because. “Wheat Grass Fun Facts” just doesn’t sound as good.
The first Alfalfa Fun Fact is a practical trial underway to grow wheat sprouts for dairy cows in a vertical farming situation. A Utah dairy farmer is supplementing his pastures with vertically farmed wheat grass. The automated vertical tower uses a tiny footprint. This article in Agritecture states that a single growing tower which occupies about 850 square feet can “grow as much wheat or barley grass as 35 to 50 acres of farmland.”
Just wow. This topic came to my attention in my recent binge of dystopian literature that made me wonder how forage could be produced in a small space.
The second Alfalfa Fun Fact involves experiments with growing alfalfa on Mars. A student at Iowa State is growing alfalfa on simulated Martian basaltic regolith soil, then crushing it and mixing it which results in a soil that can be used for other plants, partly due to the nitrogen-fixing qualities of alfalfa.
This is fascinating and fun because, well, it’s alfalfa which my horse eats, and because they used the term “regolith” which is one of my recently-learned words which I posted a while back in the New Words I’ve Learned thread. It also reminds me of the book by Andy Weir, The Martian, where he sustains himself on potatoes grown on Mars.
