Here's a very long toot on the virtues of chestnuts as a food source (#WhyChestnuts) by @BuildSoil : https://kolektiva.social/@BuildSoil/109304851558989306

I'm curious if any of my #FoodSystems or #Agroecology followers have thoughts on this.

I like the idea of nut trees in general, but I'm skeptical of so much focus on one species, and I'd love to hear commentary from others.

@dynamic The easy caution against a one species approach is species specific disease or insect destruction. Chestnut blight almost wiped out the North American chestnut (wikipedia.org).

Blight is discussed by @BuildSoil in the thread you linked.

@lwriemen

That's definitely a legitimate concern. I think my feeling of skepticism is more general, though: I get a "silver bullet" vibe from the argument, and I'm hoping that folks who have delved deeper into these kinds of questions that I have might help illuminate the strengths and weaknesses in the idea.

@dynamic @lwriemen so there are thousands and thousands of things that have to happen but in order for them to happen some of them have to happen. That’s not monoculture and that’s not a silver bullet. It’s making a decision to do a thing and see it through so that other things can happen.

@dynamic @lwriemen our culture seems to have a problem with the understanding of the difference between things and sets of things. Diversity in poly culture are a set of individual things that have to happen, without regard to multi scalarity, everything can get flattened this way.

@dynamic @lwriemen

Me: let’s get homes weatherized all over the world

The inevitable response: you can’t just build a home out of insulation and window caulking