Raising Grain

Gene Lodgson's book that I've mentioned a few times is one of my more recent encounters, but it has gone a long way to making the logic of field crops clear. I'm starting to follow the actual mechanics of crop rotation and imagine how field crops could be useful and not just annoying. A dozen or so crops...maybe all after a year or so of alfalfa or controlled grazing. He's got me thinking that we might be at the right latitude to grow both flax and cotton, which would be a pip. J-field will accept 14 different 1/4 acre crops, leaving more than 6 acres for pasture and horse-field and the house yard for intensive beds and forest garden. Let's go through the contenders to see how they'll yield per 1/4 acre. Some I won't estimate. Here, by the way, are commercial bushel weights.

Flax: 30 liters (.38l/kg / 2.2 = .17l/lb x 60 lb x 3 = 30 l linseed oil)
Cotton: around 200 lbs (831 lbs/acre)
Corn: 20 bu, 1400 lbs
Sunflowers: 18 gal. oil
Tobacco: 500 lbs - click this. ($4/lb organic! plant near sunflowers)
wheat: 20 bu, 1200 lbs
barley: 20 bu, 1200 lbs

then, say, cabbage, dry beans, rice (upland? Mexican?), buckwheat, peanuts. Clover, alfalfa. Must try to figure out legume under- or interplanting. And at least wheat is an overwintering crop, maybe it can be double-cropped. It really might make the most sense to graze poultry on the pasture and keep one or two goats or a cow. So many birds versus what seems like will be a cow for every two acres. I have a hard time imagining those requirements, especially with what sound like will be quick recharges during the growing season. I can see having to cut hay but I hold out hope that i could keep a dozen head there. Many who read this might laugh. Seems like a pretty simple piece of information to have eluded me so far. Maybe I just don't want to accept what I've gathered so far.

That tobacco figure is exciting. Not to mention that I'll probably be having to pick out one of these bad boys soon enough.