I Love Pigweed!!!

Sometimes you just have to holler when you see an opportunity that no one else seems to be seeing.
After Georgia Organics posted this article http://www.france24.com/en/20090418-superweed-explosion-threatens-monsanto-heartlands-genetically-modified-US-crops from a French news site, I just have to shout!

First off. Let's see. Pig weed, aka Palmer's Pigweed, Palmer's amaranth, or Careless weed, latin name Amaranthus palmeri is Roundup resistant.

Horray for Pigweed! It shows that plants, like mushrooms, bacteria, fungus', etc. are resilient to trauma and human stupidity and can change to keep on growing. As me and my friend like to say "GO MOM!" (as in Mother Nature, doing her thing.)

Second, Roundup is toxic. Ask the president of the company if he would drink it. Or spray it on his lettuce. Or give it to his children.
Watch this video.


Now. In Permaculture, we see this as an opportunity. The PROBLEM IS THE SOLUTION! Got it? In the problem, lies the solution.

The pigweed has changed genetically to get one up on those nasty chemicals. It wants to live. It's trying to provide something that the soil needs.

I went to www.pfaf.org Plants for a Future.

It has this to say about pigweed.
"No members of this genus are known to be poisonous, but when grown on nitrogen-rich soils they are known to concentrate nitrates in the leaves. This is especially noticeable on land where chemical fertilizers are used. Nitrates are implicated in stomach cancers, blue babies and some other health problems. It is inadvisable, therefore, to eat this plant if it is grown inorganically."

Sooooo, the plant is soaking up all the excess fertilizer that has been put on these fields for a long time. Basically, the chemical companies have been selling nitrogen fertilizer in ever increasing quantities (for the sake of ever increasing profit of course) and the pigweed has seen all that excess fertilizer in the soil as a great opportunity to GROW!

My first thought it, cut the pigweed down before the seeds are mature, and GREEN MULCH it into the soil. This is a no-brainer in permaculture.

My second thought is that, given time to get the excess nitrogen out of plants, this could be a food source. Am I right?
PFAF says: "Leaves - cooked as a spinach[46, 85, 95, 105, 161]. The leaves can also be dried for winter use[257]. Seed - cooked[46, 85, 95, 105, 161]. Very small but easy to harvest and very nutritious. It is usually ground into a powder and then used with cereal flours in making porridge, bread etc[257]. The seed can be cooked whole, and becomes very gelatinous like this, but it is rather difficult to crush all of the small seeds in the mouth and thus some of the seed will pass right through the digestive system without being assimilated[K]."

Other websites agree. (Try searching "amaranthus palmeri" edible.)

One note: Pigweed is currently a problem predominantly in cotton fields. DO NOT go out and harvest or eat from pigweed plants in cotton field, because, if you think Roundup is nasty, check what they spray on cotton!
So there you have it. Green mulch it for a few years and let the fields rest (JUST QUIT BUYING ROUNDUP!) and then go into healthy, nutritious "wild greens" production, and nutritious pigweed seed flour! (Note, wild greens and seeds like amaranths, lambs quarters, chia, etc. are all more nutritious that the oft grown greens like spinach.)

So where's the problem? The farmers save money by getting off the Roundup merry-go-round and start a whole new edibles niche in the farmer's markets!

The problem IS the solution!

photo from naturesongs.com