In my quest to create realistic landscapes on unknown worlds, I found myself deep diving into the basics of farm life. Seems weird (hence why it’s in “random research”), but learning about plant life and how it works in our world offers many insights in how to create exotic plant life with believable ecosystems.
I explored a lot more into plants than I thought humanly possible. And there’s still more to learn. Gonna have posts about other growing methods like hydroponics and a few word lists related to plants and landscapes, but this should help give you a basic idea of how a farm traditionally would operate. I mainly looked into pastures, though found myself digging a little into crops and compost. Hopefully this snippet helps make your story that much more realistic and relatable while the dragons attack.
Pastures: Basic Operation
Pastures are different from crop fields in that they produce different food sources. A pasture is “profitable” when it produces good sources of meat and other products from livestock (e.g. dairy). However, good pasture lands also prevent erosion, improve water quality, mitigate floods & droughts, give off less carbon emissions, and provide habitats for wildlife like deer and insects (Strickler, pg 7). Seems unbelievable if you peek at your backyard, but it makes a lot of sense. Nature has an ecosystem of predators & prey, food & foragers, and minerals & plant growth that work together and balance themselves without human assistance. A lot of pasture operation has to do with letting nature take its course.
I use to volunteer at a horse farm and would help move horses from pasture to pasture. While the groups of horses usually stayed the same, the pastures they stayed in would change. This has to do with giving pastures a break so the grass can grow. Grass has three stages of growth, vegetative, reproductive, and dormant, that usually follow with the natural seasons (Strickler, pg 19, 21). While it can be eaten throughout the year by livestock, grass requires a minimum length in order to regrow and produce (Strickler, pg 22). Otherwise, you gotta plant new grass seeds, which means money.
In order to avoid spending money on new grass, farmers rotate which pasture livestock is feeding in. According to Dale Strickler, a Kansas farmer with a master’s in agronomy (that’d be agricultural science), changing pastures every day is the best method (pg 65). Livestock will maintain a better weight, breed more, be content, and even eat weeds (pg 65). I don’t speak cow, so I can’t say why that is, but it was interesting to read. Thanks to the technology of today with electric fencing, farmers can achieve this with little effort. When looking at a system for rotating fields, there’s three criteria to look at: the length of grazing time, the length of field rest, and the frequency of grazing on a specific plot (Strickler, pg 62). Looking at these elements, a farmer ensures their fields maintain healthy grass.
One more thing before I jump to what each pasture includes. We all fear weeds even if we’re not growing a garden. I couldn’t necessarily tell you the difference between a weed and some grass, but I’ve been told enough times to weed the flowerbed that I find them to be a nuisance. There’s all sorts of weed killer and tools for getting rid of weeds. However, in researching this topic, I found out that weeds grow because resources aren’t being utilized properly (Strickler, pg 14). A weed is a plant and profits off sunlight, water, and minerals just like any other plant. Logically, if you want to remove something, you add something else to fill the space. And luckily, there’s plenty to add to a pasture.
Pastures: What’s Included
No climate is the same and will create different scenarios for pasture and growing. Florida is usually wet during the summer, so I’d see pastures that are mainly mud rather than grass. I’m gonna list the main components of pasture lands, but play around with the levels of each element. Your world could be super wet like Florida with swampy plants or dry like a desert with water-wise plant life.
In regards to photosynthesis and proper growing, plant life requires sunlight, water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and minerals like nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus (Strickler, pg 32). Plants can’t take vitamins so they soak these elements up from the soil. These nutrients can come from man-made sources like fertilizer or natural sources like manure or legumes (Strickler, pg 13). Either way, a good ecosystem with healthy plant life needs all these elements in order to thrive.
Now, onto the good stuff. Obviously a pasture needs grass; I mean, what else are cows supposed to eat? The many varieties of grass are insane, but you do require more than the little leafy sprouts. Legumes like alfalfa are good for making nitrogen useful to a field (Strickler, pg 103). These plants have a lot of protein, but do to the process of their growth, they’re not as productive as grass and use up a lot of water (pg 103). Still legumes can be used instead of fertilizers to keep a field healthy. Forbs are flowering plants that can also be grazed upon, though it depends on the animal (Strickler, pg 137). All of these are usually dinner for livestock and so are shorter.
But don’t discount trees just yet. In order to grow crops you have to clear a field for growing, but the same can’t be said for pastures. Silvopasture, or growing trees and pasture plants together, allows for trees to grow and provide shade and protection from the wind for livestock (Strickler, 156). Some animals like goats will feed on “woody plants” like shrubs and dropped branches (Strickler, 160). Not everything in a field has to be a food source though; every creature has a part to play.
Which brings us to creepy crawlies (yuck). Other than livestock and cute wildlife like deer, there are lots of bugs that inhabit the earth. Some beneficial to growth like bees and some that destroy plants like termites and weevils (alfalfa eaters). Tons of pesticides exist to get rid of these horrible bugs, but as our friendly farmer Strickler found out, these same pesticides get rid of beneficial predators too. Like… *gulp*… wolf spiders. You can read Strickler’s recount in his book Managing Pasture; I personally can’t stomach reading it again despite how fascinating it is (hate spiders).
The idea is that the best pesticide is a natural predator. It may take a few years for the predators to bring everything under control, but once they do, they work a lot better than man-made chemicals. I’m reminded of the snakes released into the Everglades a few years back and how they had hunting orders out to prevent the slithering foreigners from destroying the entire ecosystem there. The reason it became a problem was because the snakes, formerly pets of exhausted owners, didn’t have a predator to keep them under control. We tend to cause our own problems and then have to fix them with chemicals and technology that create even more problems. Good plot point for a book actually.
Crop Farming: Basic Operation
Pastures are fun because you’re actually facilitating wildlife and nature as a whole, but crop farming is important to for other food sources. Crop farming and gardens have similar principles to pastures in that nutrient soil, sunlight, and water are important (happyfarmer.info). Crop growing also requires rotating fields (sdstate.edu). Similarly to how grass needs to reproduce and grow after being grazed upon, soil needs to refresh its nutrients in order to have productive crops.
Different crops grow better in different environments. The soil as a whole needs to be cooler for planting seeds, making fall in most regions the best time to plant crops like corn (agriculture.com). Wouldn’t suggest this for Florida though; we run pretty hot so you mainly see strawberry fields. The layout is very important for irrigation and sunlight, hence why we recognize rows of crops as farms (happyfarmers.info). Ensuring there’s no weeds taking away nutrients and using fertilizer to help growth are other growing methods that go along with the process. Depending on the size of the farm is when machinery comes into play, whether you have a couple workers using hand tools or multiple workers using heavy equipment.
Something else to consider is the plant itself. In describing the differences between crops and pastures, Strickler mentioned how the 1900s had natural corn that produced 29 bushels per acre whereas the 21st century uses genetically modified corn that averaged 168.8 bushels per acre in 2015 (Strickler, pg 2). The natural plant was susceptible to many diseases and pests that genetically modified corn is now resilient to. Strickler mentioned how crop farmers see it as more profitable and pasture lands a waste of resources. There’s also the question of what “genetically modified” entails.
Gosh, I’m fascinated by the weirdest things.
About Composte…
I use to hear about compost all the time and all the depictions of it were super weird. Compost is as advertised: plants and animals decomposing into carbon dioxide and organic matter known as humus (Thompson, pg 10). It looks a little funky and isn’t a sure science, but the organic matter does provide nutrients, weed suppression, and other elements that good soil requires (Thompson, pg 17-18). The best example of natural example is in forests. Fallen leaves stack on top of each other, lower levels composting and soaking into the earth to further feed the trees. Nature’s cool, just saying.
There’s multiple theories and theses on the best compost methods, but Ken Thompson suggests three parts leafy waste to one part woody waste (pg 27). Paper and cardboard can also be thrown into the pile to offer structure to the overall matter, but most important is air and a little moisture (Thompson, pg 28-30). Sounds almost like growing crops, especially when you look at the variety of items suggested to get thrown into the pile. Not to mention that compost piles have their own worms and bugs that further the process (Thompson, pg 23).
Overall, composting is an ecosystem of its own and is a natural fertilizer that we can facilitate and use for gardening, crops, or pastures. I think letting nature do it is a better idea, but who knows? A character could be super into composting and have the best flower garden on the block because of it.
Final Thoughts: Diversity
These days, we think of diversity in regards to people and color spectrum. However, diversity applies to all aspects of life and improves just about every space. Including farming. Different types of grasses paired with different types of trees and different types of bugs creates a working ecosystem with fewer nuisances and diseases. There will still be seasons when things go awry, but divserity allows the system to keep cycling.
This works in a writer’s favor because that provides more opportunities for landscaping than “there’s a hill with grass and tiny flowers.” On a slight sidebar, characters can be farmers or agriculturists who know these fine points of pastures and composte. Their knowledge can blossom within the story, provide intermittent humor, or create minor plots that push the story forward.
Also, it’s just really fascinating to see how nature balances itself and how the little things we try to do to improve it throw off the system. Nature is a well-designed system that we truly take for granted.