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Devastating wheat fungus appears in Asia for first time

nature.com

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Re: Devastating wheat fungus appears in Asia for first time

#11

Post by hga »

maxerickson wrote: post #8
goda90 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting premise. I wonder if civilization would collapse, or if we'd be able to adapt our agriculture to more legumes and other vegetables quickly enough to avoid mass starvation.

The US plants more soy than wheat already so the adapting part would probably go OK. The bigger question would be the math about calories (it probably works out, meat production consumes a lot of calories). I guess we could also plant lots of potatoes (which produce more calories/acre than soy).

And the more meat a county eats, the more is can divert stored feed for that purpose, modulo grain sorghum, which isn't normally a human food, to directly feed humans.

Re: Devastating wheat fungus appears in Asia for first time

#12

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

etatoby wrote: post #4

It has begun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass

Don't be absurd. There are dozens of wheat pathogens alone (here's my favorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_rust ) and we as a civilization have been dealing with them for a long long time.

Re: Devastating wheat fungus appears in Asia for first time

#13

Post by Detect »

hga wrote: post #11
maxerickson wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US plants more soy than wheat already so the adapting part would probably go OK. The bigger question would be the math about calories (it probably works out, meat production consumes a lot of calories). I guess we could also plant lots of potatoes (which produce more calories/acre than soy).

And the more meat a county eats, the more is can divert stored feed for that purpose, modulo grain sorghum, which isn't normally a human food, to directly feed humans.

Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) for cattle is about 10, pig 3, sheep 5, and chicken 2. That means we could feed about 10 times more people per hectacre on grains than using that grain as feed for beef. Ruminants are important for nutrient cycling and other ecosystem services, but far from efficient as a food source for humans. They are best utilized on marginal land where agriculture isn't ideal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

Re: Devastating wheat fungus appears in Asia for first time

#15

Post by kjs3 »

etatoby wrote: post #4

It has begun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass

I was thinking of "The Windup Girl", where agricorps engineer plant diseases that only their products can survive and profit when basically everything edible dies out. Not a happy book.

Re: Devastating wheat fungus appears in Asia for first time

#16

Post by talideon »

madlag wrote: post #10
etatoby wrote: post #4

It has begun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass

Reminds me a bit too much of Interstellar's Blight. http://interstellarfilm.wikia.com/wiki/The_Blight

Well, given it predates Interstellar by half a century, that's more Interstellar's problem than that of The Death of Grass.

Re: Devastating wheat fungus appears in Asia for first time

#19

Post by hga »

Detect wrote: post #13
hga wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the more meat a county eats, the more is can divert stored feed for that purpose, modulo grain sorghum, which isn't normally a human food, to directly feed humans.

Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) for cattle is about 10, pig 3, sheep 5, and chicken 2. That means we could feed about 10 times more people per hectacre on grains than using that grain as feed for beef. Ruminants are important for nutrient cycling and other ecosystem services, but far from efficient as a food source for humans. They are best utilized on marginal land where agriculture isn't ideal. https://en.wikipedia.org…

Yeah, in the US at least, the normal pattern is to raise cows on pastures, sometimes out in the dry west fantastic acreage of it, 1,000 acre ranches can be considered tiny, 10s of thousands are not uncommon, and/or including grazing rights.

Then they're sent to a feed lot for some period of time to fatten up.

Ah, from the article you linked: "However, comparisons of FCR among different species may be of little significance unless the feeds involved are of similar quality and suitability."

So cattle might be more efficient than appears at first glance, since as ruminants they're initially fed stuff you can't feed other animals (ADDED: including humans), especially "on marginal land where agriculture isn't ideal", or perhaps as part of a crop rotation cycle. Alfalfa is a 3-for, a rotation cycle that's not e.g. corn or soybeans, a nitrogen fixer, and tasty food for cows.

And all the above isn't the best for our topic at hand, for that alfalfa and such isn't stuff we can digest, nor is silage from corn leftovers, so it mostly feedlot cow food we could redirect to humans.

Re: Devastating wheat fungus appears in Asia for first time

#20

Post by hga »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #12
etatoby wrote: post #4

It has begun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass

Don't be absurd. There are dozens of wheat pathogens alone (here's my favorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_rust ) and we as a civilization have been dealing with them for a long long time.

Indeed, read a infectious disease news collection source like http://promedmail.org/ long enough and you might be surprised we have anything to eat beyond Soylent Green. Everything you love to eat has a host of pathogens that want to eat it first.
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