Official alternate agricultural practices/technologies Thread

I'd be curious about what sort of tools and techniques you would evolve to maximize lithic mulch agriculture? Or raised platform agriculture, as practiced by the Andeans? Or shallow pit agriculture as practiced in the canaries?

How would pre-industrial cultures develop or apply fertilizer?
 
I thought the main problem with it was that dirt kept sticking to the plow bottoms. So you had to unplug it every so often. Then JD invented his and dirt didn't stick to it. So that practice became more popular after that. That's what I thought happened.

But I could be wrong
 

Driftless

Donor
I thought the main problem with it was that dirt kept sticking to the plow bottoms. So you had to unplug it every so often. Then JD invented his and dirt didn't stick to it. So that practice became more popular after that. That's what I thought happened.

But I could be wrong

Part of the success of the Deere plow was shifting from cast iron to steel (less cling), the shape of the plow blade (to help turn the sod over), and it's general ability to cut through deep-rooted prairie sod. The root structure of native prairie grasses on the North American Great Plains could be a mesh of roots several feet deep. It was just enormously hard to cut through that sod prior to the Deere plow.
 
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What about the widespread adoption of the foot plow in antiquity? The Incas only invented it in 1600, and it's perfect for societies without draft animals.

The Scots used the caschrom since the Iron Age it seems, that and the Maori ko were both similar to the Incan foot plough. I'm sure other people used similar tools as well but were simply undocumented before being replaced with more modern ones.
 
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I'd be curious about what sort of tools and techniques you would evolve to maximize lithic mulch agriculture? Or raised platform agriculture, as practiced by the Andeans? Or shallow pit agriculture as practiced in the canaries?

How would pre-industrial cultures develop or apply fertilizer?

God that sounds labor intensive, then discovering the high nitrogen content in animal manure? I'm not sure
 
God that sounds labor intensive, then discovering the high nitrogen content in animal manure? I'm not sure

Systematic fertilizer usage does seem to go hand in hand with industrial level farming.

Most of the more exotic farming techniques - lithic mulch, raised platform, etc., seem to be efforts to extend or practice effective agriculture in environmentally marginal territories - either too cold, too dry, too wet, etc. for the existing/available domesticate.
 
Chinampas were pretty successful. It's repeatable wherever there was wetland, or where artificial ones could be created.

As far as fertilizers, what about potash? There were large deposits on every continent. I've heard it was used as fertilizer in antiquity but I've never found a reference on the subject. It's a great source of potassium. The Irish and Scots used seaweeds which had a bit of it.
 
I like the idea of the Gallic Reaper of 100 AD

and the Chinese seed drill of 200 AD


being in widespread use throughout Europe in the Dark and Middle ages.
 
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