Albert Cardona<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://sfba.social/@PaulWermer" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>PaulWermer</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://wisskomm.social/@RolfAE" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>RolfAE</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://urbanists.social/@straphanger" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>straphanger</span></a></span> </p><p>Just read a fantastic one, on the work of John Letts, from 2001:</p><p>"No one had excavated a thatched roof before."</p><p>"Before systematic crop breeding, cereals evolved into local land races. Different soils, slope, shading and drainage gave endless possibilities for adaptation. With variety in the seed stock, crops would grow differently even across a single farm. Whatever the weather or diseases, something would always flourish."</p><p>"Old thatch provides an opportunity to study this lost diversity. Letts often finds a mix of bread wheat, English rivet wheat - not grown commercially for more than a century - rye, oats and barley. He has also found 35 different weeds, from corn cockle and cornflower - now vanished from English farms - to yellow rattle and cow wheat."</p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/may/17/technology2" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/science/2001/m</span><span class="invisible">ay/17/technology2</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/UK" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>UK</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/thatch" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>thatch</span></a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/JohnLetts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>JohnLetts</span></a></p>