a month ago i walked all around a big nearby cemetery (forest lawn) in search of male fig trees for pollen to try and cross carica with other ficus species. found a few fig trees right next to the perimeter wall, such as this one...
i need to return to check if it's ripe and male or female. this tree is maybe 10 feet away from some tombstones, unlike this fuerte avocado tree...
it was loaded with halfway ripe avocados. i asked a hispanic worker in the area about it and he didn't even know it was there. then i asked him if he would eat the fruit and he said he wouldn't. i gave him a scenario where i made the perfect bowl of guacamole and offered him some, then would he eat it? he said maybe.
no idea about all the chemicals that go into buried bodies, or how long they last, but as you can see in the pic, there aren't any flowers anywhere. this means that those plots are relatively old, and forgotten.
anyone care to guess the story of this avocado tree? my best guess is that it wasn't planted by the management. it was the only fruit tree planted among the plots. so perhaps a family member planted it, because the deceased really loved avocados? and somehow the workers didn't remove it. i guess it's also possible that an animal dragged on avocado there to eat it.
would you rather push up daisies or avocados or figs?
personally i'd love it if the cemetery was a food forest. and i suppose i could convey this to forest lawn... "hi, my mother is buried there, and she really loved fruit trees, so i'd like to plant a fig tree next to her grave." green light? thumbs up? probably not.
so i'd buy a big chunk of land and start my own business... "food forest cemetery". i'm sure that i'd get really rich really quick.
there's a book called exit, voice and loyalty by albert o. hirschman that's worth checking out. i linked to the wikipedia entry which provides a pretty good synopsis. basically, there are 3 options when you're unhappy with a relationship (broadly speaking to include companies)...
1. exit - end the relationship
2. voice - communicate what your issues are. ie "this cemetery doesn't have enough fruit trees."
3. loyalty - stick with the relationship, regardless of the issues and the alternatives.
there's a 4th option that's glaringly absent...
4. sacrifice - "here's $35 for fruit trees to be planted at the cemetery."
imagine if the forest lawn website had a prominent page for suggestions. i could suggest fruit trees and it would show up on the list. how high up it was on the list would be determined by donations. the more money that was donated for this idea, the higher up on the page it would be, and the more seriously that forest lawn would consider it.
this brand new fig forum has a category for "caprifigs". obviously i personally think this is a useful category, but what's the actual demand for it? we don't know. this ignorance really isn't bliss. when demand isn't known, it guarantees that the supply will be wrong. this is the problem with "voice" just on its own. it doesn't reflect people's true priorities.
the solution is relatively simple. whenever anybody donates, they should be given an option to say what it's for. this information can be tracked on a public google sheet and then we will all see and know the demand for what is, and what should be.
a. black fig fly
b. root knot nematodes
which problem is bigger? which category would people donate more money for? right now we can guess, but we shouldn't have to guess. we should just know.
a. black fig fly ($30)
b. root knot nematodes ($300)
even if there were 50 times more threads about black fig flies (bff) than about root knot nematodes (rkn), we would know that we should use 10 times more resources to tackle the problem of rkn. this would make sense because not being able to grow a fig tree in the 1st place, because of rkn, is a much bigger problem than losing 50% of the figs because of bff.
right now the billion or so people in tropical areas don't have the option to spend their money on something that doesn't, but should, exist... a fig that's resistant to rkn... which is why it still doesn't exist. but if all these people had this option, then the more money they donated for an rkn category, the faster an rkn resistant fig would be created. the fig growing community would at least triple in size, and this influx of brainpower would lead to even faster and greater fig improvements and progress.
so whether we're talking about the demand for rkn resistant figs, or the demand for fig trees in cemeteries, ignorance of demand is not bliss. it's the biggest obstacle between us and the figs of our wildest dreams.
i need to return to check if it's ripe and male or female. this tree is maybe 10 feet away from some tombstones, unlike this fuerte avocado tree...
it was loaded with halfway ripe avocados. i asked a hispanic worker in the area about it and he didn't even know it was there. then i asked him if he would eat the fruit and he said he wouldn't. i gave him a scenario where i made the perfect bowl of guacamole and offered him some, then would he eat it? he said maybe.
no idea about all the chemicals that go into buried bodies, or how long they last, but as you can see in the pic, there aren't any flowers anywhere. this means that those plots are relatively old, and forgotten.
anyone care to guess the story of this avocado tree? my best guess is that it wasn't planted by the management. it was the only fruit tree planted among the plots. so perhaps a family member planted it, because the deceased really loved avocados? and somehow the workers didn't remove it. i guess it's also possible that an animal dragged on avocado there to eat it.
would you rather push up daisies or avocados or figs?
personally i'd love it if the cemetery was a food forest. and i suppose i could convey this to forest lawn... "hi, my mother is buried there, and she really loved fruit trees, so i'd like to plant a fig tree next to her grave." green light? thumbs up? probably not.
so i'd buy a big chunk of land and start my own business... "food forest cemetery". i'm sure that i'd get really rich really quick.
there's a book called exit, voice and loyalty by albert o. hirschman that's worth checking out. i linked to the wikipedia entry which provides a pretty good synopsis. basically, there are 3 options when you're unhappy with a relationship (broadly speaking to include companies)...
1. exit - end the relationship
2. voice - communicate what your issues are. ie "this cemetery doesn't have enough fruit trees."
3. loyalty - stick with the relationship, regardless of the issues and the alternatives.
there's a 4th option that's glaringly absent...
4. sacrifice - "here's $35 for fruit trees to be planted at the cemetery."
imagine if the forest lawn website had a prominent page for suggestions. i could suggest fruit trees and it would show up on the list. how high up it was on the list would be determined by donations. the more money that was donated for this idea, the higher up on the page it would be, and the more seriously that forest lawn would consider it.
this brand new fig forum has a category for "caprifigs". obviously i personally think this is a useful category, but what's the actual demand for it? we don't know. this ignorance really isn't bliss. when demand isn't known, it guarantees that the supply will be wrong. this is the problem with "voice" just on its own. it doesn't reflect people's true priorities.
the solution is relatively simple. whenever anybody donates, they should be given an option to say what it's for. this information can be tracked on a public google sheet and then we will all see and know the demand for what is, and what should be.
a. black fig fly
b. root knot nematodes
which problem is bigger? which category would people donate more money for? right now we can guess, but we shouldn't have to guess. we should just know.
a. black fig fly ($30)
b. root knot nematodes ($300)
even if there were 50 times more threads about black fig flies (bff) than about root knot nematodes (rkn), we would know that we should use 10 times more resources to tackle the problem of rkn. this would make sense because not being able to grow a fig tree in the 1st place, because of rkn, is a much bigger problem than losing 50% of the figs because of bff.
right now the billion or so people in tropical areas don't have the option to spend their money on something that doesn't, but should, exist... a fig that's resistant to rkn... which is why it still doesn't exist. but if all these people had this option, then the more money they donated for an rkn category, the faster an rkn resistant fig would be created. the fig growing community would at least triple in size, and this influx of brainpower would lead to even faster and greater fig improvements and progress.
so whether we're talking about the demand for rkn resistant figs, or the demand for fig trees in cemeteries, ignorance of demand is not bliss. it's the biggest obstacle between us and the figs of our wildest dreams.
