Carbon credits, carbon sequestering, carbon capture, carbon footprint. Not a word hardly mentioned about the amino acids we depend on for our cell division.
I am not arguing the need for carbon cycling. I recycle my paper and cardboard. We mulch and compost with all that is carbon-based and can live again.
While walking around in Key West, I stumbled across this Banyan Tree near Truman's Little White House. It has no trouble with the carbon cycle.
Some other observations on that trip were two gigantic Tamarind trees and the ecosystem they created and sustain. There are tourists walking the streets, street people hanging loose in the park, folks enjoying the tennis court, and the feral chickens watching the sidewalk and road and competing for the opportunity to grab a resource from these valuable trees.
As I cruise by. I notice the action of the birds. Roos strutting for it, hens wistling, darting and gathering for their chicks. I seem the be the only one to notice. Right there on on the corner of Truman Ave. and Florida St. it was obvious to me what we are missing.
Feral chickens are making a go at it. Using resources that no one else is looking at. Grabbing nitrogen and carbon while millions of humans consume it to get there and consume even more while there. Leaving their trash to wash up on the beach.
"Let's see what we can kill today." "I hate Honey Locust trees!" I have heard these statements several times.
J. Russell Smith disagrees with you. "We need to select the best native trees and propagate them." "The cows and hogs stand under it, always ready to devour every pod that falls. The cows improve in milk and the hogs in weight when the locust ripen." Ellen Williams, Villa Rica, Ga.
These pre-WWII references demand attention going into the world of 2024, as we hear the discussion of urea, urine, lab-grown meat, insect protein, and other sources of nitrogen for ourselves. If we think of agriculture in more than one dimension and one crop level, we cannot carry on that discussion without talking about tree crops. Where will we source our own link in the nitrogen cycle?
Lastly, could the protein from that perennial tree source be better, richer in mineral, and more energy efficient than the all-acclaimed and propagated estrogen-flooded soybean? Who is breeding a better version of these legumes? Trees that add valuable nitrogen to the soil.
I'll leave you with Mr. Russel's thoughts.
" For years I worked on the theory that a tree -crop agriculture would be created if I let people, including the state experiment station staffs, know about it. I desseminated the idea a dozen years ago to the extent of millions of copies in widly read magazines, but at the end of a dozen years, I find that almost nothing has happend, to save at the hands of a few private individuals who are working for the joy of creating."
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