Experimental Crop at the Farm

One of my Goals at the Farm is to try to drought-proof the Property as much as possible. I want to be prepared for the worst situations, and for Farmers, that is drought. Preparing means having backup water supply, and backup food supply for the animals. The previous post dealt with backup water , now for the food supply.

This is my small experimental crop of Edible Canna Lillies, or Arrowroot ( Canna edulis ). This plant was used by the Incas in ancient times to make flour, because the tubers ( big roots) are very starchy. The leaves are big and green and the thick stalks and leaves can be used for cattle fodder. They contain 10 percent protein. Rather than buy in expensive Hay, we can just buy in cheap bales of straw, ( which has low feed value, but is good roughage ) , and mix it with Arrowroot which has been cut up fairly fine. The mixture is about 10 percent Arrowroot and 90 percent straw by volume. This makes a good feed for cattle in dry times, in addition to some dry lick to provide other nutrients. The crop is still small, but we will didide the plants in the next few weeks and then our crop will be several times larger.

These Canna Lillies need plenty of water to grow well. We have overhead sprinklers on the crop, and we mulch the soil around the lillies with Straw so it helps retain moisture in the soil. They are fast growing , putting on at least 3 or 4 inches a day in good conditions. This means that you can cut them 3 or 4 times in a season. You can see where we have cut some of them in the photo.