"WARU WARU" - The ancient andean technology against climate change.

Not all the knowledge of ancient cultures is lost forever. During the last years, Bolivia and Peru had been using this technique to save the agriculture from the effects of climate change, seem to be working...I must say.

The Waru Waru are also known as "Camellones", had been used by andean people before the Incas, probably developed by Tiwanaku Culture (hard to confirm).

About 3,000 years ago, an ingenious form of agriculture was devised on the high plains of the Peruvian Andes. It employed platforms of soil surrounded by ditches filled with water. For centuries this method flourished because it produced bumper crops in the face of floods, droughts, and the killing frosts of those 3,800-m altitudes.

....and talking about productivity (who needs Monsanto?) :

Now, in a dramatic resurrection, modern-day Peruvians working with archeologists have reconstructed some of the ancient arms, and the results have been amazing. They have found, for instance, that this method can triple the yield of potatoes. In at least one experiment, potato yields outstripped those from nearby fields that were chemically fertilized.

We are talking about a technology proven to be efficient in our days :

In 1983, the water in restored canals helped irrigate crops during a severe drought that damaged conventional fields in the area. Three years later, the elevated fields survived heavy flooding that inundated neighboring flatlands.

In Cutini Capilla, an Aymara community on the western shore of Lake Titicaca about halfway between Puno and the ruins of the ancient Tiwanaku capital, 53-year-old Luis Tulco said the raised fields his village built five years ago are doing well.

``Before, this area always flooded, but now we have waru warus and this land is useful,'' he said in heavily accented Spanish as he stood at the edge of an elevated field of purplish quinoa under an enormous blue sky.

Cesar Mamani, the 45-year-old president of the 65-family community, agreed.

``Old techniques remind us of our ancestors and our ancestors had good ideas,'' he said.

....Another link between ancient cultures ? :

Waru waru has been used in many countries like China.

www.nap.edu...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.condesan.org...
www.freerepublic.com...

Interestingly enough, I was just researching water harvesting in desert regions.

Here in Dallas, we're having a problem with the ponds drying up. I'm working on some ideas to help a local park (with their permission) and this was one of the ones I looked at. It's not usable in a natural park, but I've found some other techniques that can save our ponds.

This kind of idea needs to be popularized among gardeners and organic growers. It does need modification (there are restrictions on how much water you can take from the rivers -- and our rivers aren't particularly clean) but this combined with other ideas should be promoted to certain groups.

reply to post by Byrd


Thanks for that reply. Yes, in order to use this technology, you must count with a source of clean water and that represent a limitation for many places in the world.

reply to post by Trueman


Excellent thread Trueman, one more exquisite example of the Ancient Peruvians use of solar tech and storage along with irrigation of course. A similar technique is used in Macchu Pichu, but they store the heat in the stones of the terraces. It also prevents the crops from freezing in the chll night air.

Will

Awesome idea ! Might have a little trouble getting large-yield farms to use it , but it sounds like a great idea for anyone with a big vegetable garden .

Here in Fannin county , Texas my stepfather had a huge vegetable garden . He welded an old chisel plow blade onto the drag bar of a front tine rototiller and used it to make his rows for him , this made for some big and high rows . He had his own deep well too and over-watered like his life depended on it , he over-watered bad enough that it drove me crazy trying to figure out why he always had the best garden for 50 miles in any direction .

I think your thread explained that . The rows must have been high enough to keep the roots out of the water and the fact that there was always a few inches of water on either side helped soften the power of the terrible Texas summer sun .

Thanks , you've answered a question that's bothered me for years .

reply to post by Trueman


Minecraft!!!

there is a striking similarity to aquaponics. That also uses a natural cycle of water fish and plants to create a mini water cycle that produces bumper crops. Interesting story.

reply to post by Trueman


I took a workshop from Bill Mollison _founder_ of permaculture and he and permies teach about creating swales. He told stories about neighboring ranches - those who had done swales avoided downsides of heavy droughts.

A swale is a water collection device that can be dug along countours. Google it to find more info.

reply to post by Trueman


wow,

once again our predecessors are proven to be smarter than us. I often think of all we lost out on learning from south american cultures. Like a second library of Alexandria burning.

We are morons....

reply to post by Trueman


I doubt that many regions in the world need to deal with the climate of the Andorian highs, the need of precise humidity (or lack of it) and the sun exposure.

This is a local specific tech, there are other type of technologies like step farming that are more generally useful to increase planting area, and avoid soil erosion in mountainous regions that have been deforested.

Permaculture seems so far the better approach that and advances in replicating "terra negra" that was used by Indians in the Amazon to enrich the poor soils. Moving away from chemicals and genetic engendered crops (especially those that mix distinct species or are commercially designed to create economic system lock-ins).

I'm not against genetic improvement of crops, but there is a large difference in mixing and selecting plant genes to mix them with other type of biology (we should ban in or Earth, moving this type of thing to close systems in space or the Moon and Mars makes more sense, with high restrictions on exports to avoid contamination, this would make space exploration not only more viable but even more commercially and scientifically interesting. A precursor to terraforming Mars adapting Eath's biosphere genetics.

I recently learned of permaculture by being handed a 15 hour university lecture course that had been filmed of bill mollison speaking. And 5 full length food forest videos. I have never in my life been exposed to something that warped my mind in so many directions at once. And in a good way. Its one of the most thought provoking topics ive ever ran into. I would recommend www.permies.com as an awesome website to check out to get started. Also youtube user paul wheadon has many videos from permies that make u think how simple and natural things could be if some of these techniques were used and companies like monsanto etc werent allowed to bully the world


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I want to thank all those great replies, honestly I know little about this topic and learning a lot with this thread. I love the permacuture concepts as any other idea that works in harmony with Mother Earth, or "Pachamama" (like andean people call her).

I may be wrong so feel free to fill me in if its the case,

these are large basins of non running water?

if this is the case is there not a chance for disease\insects etc as the water could become riddled with bacteria insect larvae and in some cases (depending on depth of the water basins) have small animals lying dead in them.

So you are clear i do not doubt this is a working practice where it is being used in situation currently, im just wondering if it was to be applyed further in the field would there be downsides that the ancient peruvians etc. were unaware of at the time?

This is brilliant, iv been looking into ways to increase yeilds on my allotment, might have to try a test stip.

Wow, I have seen one of these before (on google maps) and wondered what on earth it could be!

goo.gl...

Its close to Tiwanaku / Puma Punku which could give an idea of its age...

The area has been tagged now as "Sukakollos Tiwanacotas" and are thought to be a series of giant irrigation systems / aqua farming channels.



Edit to add: Just like the op has quoted, if you look around the area between the lake and the town, you can see mini examples of this technique developing, such as here:

goo.gl...

If it works, I hope it spreads! If the land was unworkable before but now sustains life through methods such as these, its far better then poisoning the ground water, ecosystem and ultimately the entire land through run off into the rivers and lakes with Monsanto or similar chemical GM seeds of death.

Originally posted by Lompyt
This is brilliant, iv been looking into ways to increase yeilds on my allotment, might have to try a test stip.

It would be great to have a report of your test. Please let us know.

TPTB will hide this like free power.
they dont want people to know we Dont need GM and all the other poisons.

I'm definitely going to have to give this a try in the spring. Does it require a body of water, or could it be filled once and then refilled/kept full indefinitely with rainwater? It could be very interesting to see what this could do with fruit trees and various herbs, especially if it tripled potato crops. One season in a backyard garden could potentially feed a family of 3-4 through the winter. I won't even get into the potential aesthetic garden purposes. I can see this becoming a big thing in the coming year, providing it gets the proper publicity.

reply to post by Glycon

I'm so happy to see the information presented will be used, you are the second member willing to put it in practice.

Thank you !

"The platforms are generally 13 to 33 feet wide,
33 to 330 feet long and about 3 feet high."

Gotta love those sacred numbers!

Awesome thread OP