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Re:Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving wa... by jahewson on Sunday July 31, 2022 @11:56PM (#32301878)
You can't grow any of the mediterranean/mid-east fruit or nut trees in the midwest as they are killed by frost. That rules out most of the stuff that California is famous for exporting - almonds, pistachios, citrus. Many of the ones that do grow won't be commercially competitive - the seasons can be short. And of course, unlike corn, you're going to have to find people to pick all this fruit.
Re:Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving wa... by kickout on Monday August 01, 2022 @12:08AM (#32301966)
Respectfully disagree. We can engineer the 150k nuts acres to grow just fine. Or Modify the plants to be cold tolerant. We know a lot about Plant genetics and physiology. Just haven’t had the incentive.
Re:Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving wa... by jahewson on Monday August 01, 2022 @12:15AM (#32302003)
California exports $5bn worth of almonds a year. That's plenty of incentive. What you are talking about is science fiction - it literally doesn't exist. Humanity has been growing almonds for 5000 years and they're still killed by frost. The trees take five years to reach maturity - this is research that takes decades, if not lifetimes.

> We know a lot about Plant genetics and physiology.

lol, no we don't. We can't even make grocery store food that doesn't taste like crap. Sometimes fruit trees skip a season - why? Nobody knows. Sure, we've gotten pretty good at messing around with corn, but it's simple, forgiving, not eaten fresh, and planted from seed every year. It's basically a model organism.

Re:Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving wa... by stevenjgarner on Monday August 01, 2022 @03:09AM (#32302974)
Not true. Nuts that can be grown in Iowa include black walnuts, Persian (so-called “English”) walnuts, heartnuts, pecans and other hickory nuts, hazels, almonds, chestnuts, and perhaps a few other minor species. [0]

[0] https://practicalfarmers.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tom-...