[vision-master]

How will ppl get to work without autos?

[neocone]

Nothing like an SS-18 Satan to reduce world population on a massive scale... or destroy entire countries. Fire a few into China and India and -2 billion people in no time. Russia won't disarm the savagely powerful SS-18 and now says they will be kept until 2019.
People do FORGET what Oppenheimer said: "I have become Death, destroyer of Worlds!"

[americandream]

Nothing like an SS-18 Satan to reduce world population on a massive scale... or destroy entire countries. Fire a few into China and India and -2 billion people in no time.. Russia won't disarm the savagely powerful SS-18 and now says they will be kept until 2019.
People do FORGET what Oppenheimer said: "I have become Death, destroyer of Worlds!"

You watch one too many movies my friend.

[Pops]

how many people in the countryside, cultivate like this?

Actually not so many cultivate for grains at all. More and more use no or conservation tillage and plant right back into stubble like this:

[rangerone314]

They say one person working full-time all year can turn, plant, cultivate and harvest up to 5 acres with only a shovel and hoe (of easy enough to work ground) which should be enough for the farmer and a couple or 5 more people. I use this technigue although only work at it about 2 hours a day and work quite effectively over a half of an acre of extremely difficult ground. I'm clearing more land here and hope to be working 2 to 3 acres in a couple years, again with only a shovel, hoe, a few incidental small tools and organic methods.

You, my friend, must have some awfully whussy weeds. I have ten acres and I'm busting my butt at least 6 hours a week fighting off giant ragweed, canada thistle, musk thistle, burdock, smartweed, ragweed, lambsquarter, etc., etc. Whoever could work 5 acres must have had sand for soil. We could spend 2 hours a day harvesting in our garden.

Come to think of it, that must have been in sand, in the south somewhere. Where else can you work "full-time all year" turning, planting, and harvesting? Around here there's snow on the frozen ground for four months of the year, and most of our soil is clay and gravel. I remember seeing lots of sandy soil on visits down south, though.

What are you growing on 6 acres, how much are you producing?

[hillsidedigger]

how many people in the countryside, cultivate like this?

Actually not so many cultivate for grains at all. More and more use no or conservation tillage and plant right back into stubble like this:

I suppose the farmer that photo did not have herbicide applied to that field

but many no-till operations particularly for corn and soybeans apply herbicides to the fields before drilling their seed and the seed needs to be genetically modified in order to tolerate the herbicide which in my guess is a practice that will not be sustained for long.

[rangerone314]

In my small scale gardens weeds are not a huge factor yet, boundaries probably hinder them a little. Grass is my biggest bane so far.

I have a crescent shaped woods to the south and west (and a tiny bit of the north). The east is a road.

I'm gradually working towards the permanent elimination of all weeds. Only thing so far that's even been a minor factor has been crabgrass and that comes up very easily in my asparagus and herb beds. (I basically uprooted clayish soil a foot down and mixed it with compost, peat, sand, and claybreaker, so now I have basically really soft soft soil there.)

I timed everything so I think I can do 4,000 sqFt by next spring, and have even more garden space, hopefully 24,000sqFt of intensive beds within 5 or 6 years.

Its also fun seeing how some of the plum size radishes have just basically POPPED out of the ground when they are done.

I looked for peak oil in that survey but I wasn't able to find the icon for it.

[Pops]

my guess is a practice that will not be sustained for long.

Care to explain why?

[socrates1fan]

[
Having been raised in the Midwest, and still living here, I think you're completely full of crap.

Of course, I live in Michigan, and if Michigan and Ohio are examples of what's going to happen in the midwest, we'll end up in an absolutely crushing depression. Not many of us around here making a living on the farm. And at this point, with ag costs not falling much, ag products dropping in price, and now ag land falling in value, the real farmers aren't doing too well either.

And in my part of the midwest, half of what I see is sprawl, marshmallows in SUVS, and McMansions on postage stamp lots. Dunno, maybe they could put up a grapevine on the side of their house. They'd probably like those pretty gold-colored bugs, until someone told them they were japanese beetles and that's what caused all the holes in the grape leaves.

First of all a simple “I disagree” would suffice.
Only a portion of the Midwest is made up of suburbia, what I’m talking about is the fact that a great deal of the population lives in small towns and are surrounded by the fertile land necessary to support populations.
Even if you take away the fertilizers, the Midwest prospered through hard times, even back when the French settled it in the 18th century.
The soil was so great in Indiana and Illinois, they didn’t even have to tend to the corn, and all they had to do was harvest it.
What you say about Japanese beetles makes me think you don’t live in the Midwest, where I was raised, everyone despised those little things.
I was raised in a small Midwestern town, in a county with 30’000 people, and I can tell you now, your description does not fit.
Industrial farming isn’t doing well, but people farming for food will be fine in this region.

[kjmclark]

So what you meant to say was that in small town, rural midwestern areas, people will do well. I might agree with that, if they can get used to life in the country without driving much. Sorry, but you generalized it to the whole midwest, and it looks to me like there are sizable chunks of the midwest that are hosed.

WRT to the japanese beetles, read it again. I was describing what the suburbanites might say. If "everyone" despised them where you grew up, then you grew up somewhere where they know their bugs. Around here, also in the midwest, most people can't tell a japanese beetle from a gypsy moth from an ash borer. And yes, I've also lived in the midwest all my life. Rest assured, I know the difference between those quite well.

[kjmclark]

What are you growing on 6 acres, how much are you producing?

We bought the land September of 2007. It was a nice commercially grown cornfield then. We're transitioning to organic. So far we've managed to grow a good crop of potatoes last year, some sunflower, buckwheat, acres of clover, a couple of acres of alfalfa, and weeds that I had never heard of before. We started last year fighting a huge crop of giant ragweed. Funny how Organic Gardening never mentioned that one. This year we managed to get the giant ragweed under control only to find that we had another weed I'd never heard of before, canada thistle, and bull thistle, and probably four or five other other weeds I don't recognize yet.

Moral of the story, if you're buying land and intend to grow crops organically, look up the worst 10 farm weeds in your area, and know beforehand how to deal with them. We've bought ourselves a great education in sicklebar mowers, sweeps, discs, trail mowers, ag tires, etc. I sure wish I'd known about those weeds before I had to do hand to stem combat with them. I knew all about the common weeds, and the invasives, but not the ag weeds.

The good thing is that we've made a great start on the trees we planted, we're getting the weed problems under control (I think), and I have a nice clean half acre to drill winter wheat into next month. Next year we'll get well acquainted with sudangrass to help drown out the canada thistle.

[socrates1fan]

So what you meant to say was that in small town, rural midwestern areas, people will do well. I might agree with that, if they can get used to life in the country without driving much. Sorry, but you generalized it to the whole midwest, and it looks to me like there are sizable chunks of the midwest that are hosed.

WRT to the japanese beetles, read it again. I was describing what the suburbanites might say. If "everyone" despised them where you grew up, then you grew up somewhere where they know their bugs. Around here, also in the midwest, most people can't tell a japanese beetle from a gypsy moth from an ash borer. And yes, I've also lived in the midwest all my life. Rest assured, I know the difference between those quite well.

Yes, that would be the hardest part is driving, but people have learned enough habits in small towns to do better than those in town.
Also, in small towns gardening is already something many people do as well as things like clothes lines, canning, etc, but, you also get people who treat small towns as outer suburbs.
There are parts of the Midwest where people haven’t even seen a cow, especially in large cities.
Oh, my bad, I thought you meant otherwise.
I spent much of my time whacking them off of plants for fun.

[Tanada]

More opinion leaders are coming around to realizing this Century will not be America's, so to speak. Much more at the link below the quote.

Peak America? Yes. We’re on the downside? Yes. Not exceptional? No. The questions come up a lot lately. In a Time magazine review of his new book “Superpower: Three Choices for America in the World,” foreign policy expert Ian Bremmer asks the blunt ones:

“What role does President Barack Obama believe America should play in the world? His words and his actions tell different stories,” says Bremmer. Bottom line, “words aside, Obama’s deeds suggest he’s not acting so much as reacting to crises as they appear.”

In his earlier best-seller, “Every Nation for Itself: What Happens When No One Leads the World?” Bremmer saw America’s spliting apart as a reflection of a global trend. He sees us living in a new “G-Zero, the new world order in which no single country or durable alliance of countries can meet the challenges of global leadership ... What happens when the G-20 doesn’t work and the G-7 is history?”

The big question: “Have we hit Peak America?” asked the elite Foreign Policy magazine last year. Yes. The cover was a mess, total confusion, chaos, fragmentation. Yes, everything’s peaking. We talk a good game about exceptionalism. But our internecine political conflicts prevent us from delivering on the braggadocio.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/peak-a ... 2015-06-10

[Outcast_Searcher]

I'm gradually working towards the permanent elimination of all weeds.

Um, unless I'm missing something, this seems really unrealistic.

Birds and wind, for example, in my experience with just growing nice plants, will carry MANY weeds throughout your property, in just a couple/few years.

So I'll bite. What do you mean by the "elimination of all weeds"?

[DesuMaiden]

I don't believe peak oil will lead to a die off scenario, but it will certainly cause the economy to collapse.

[SeaGypsy]

No worries then, food grows on trees.

[Subjectivist]

No worries then, food grows on trees.

True enough, you can even live quite healthy for weeks eating maple seeds. The copter is good fiber and the seed is about the size of a string bean bean and just as good for you. Around here the First People's would gather them up, separate the seed and dry them. Dried they would keep a long time, and you could grind them into a simple flour like substance for use in cooking.